A brilliant dawn and an even brighter future for Annals of Translational Medicine

Although no universally agreed connotation exists for “translational medicine”, and this concept means many different things to different people, a reasonable definition is that endorsed by the European Society for Translational Medicine (EUSTM), which defines translational medicine as a science aimed at “enhancing research and development of novel and affordable diagnostic tools and treatments for clinical disorders affecting the global population” (1). Another valuable definition is that provided by the Society for Translational Medicine (STM), which defines translational medicine as a science aimed at “improving survival and quality of life of patients by using translational medicine approaches, resources and expertise” (2). Putting together these two definitions, we could perhaps conclude that translational medicine may be defined as a disruptive science focused on conducting “original and observational investigations in the broad fields of laboratory, clinical and public health research, aiming to provide practical up-to-date information in significant research from all subspecialties of medicine and broaden the vision and horizon from bench to bed and bed to bench”. Not surprisingly, this paragraph summarizes the aims and scopes of the journal Annals of Translational Medicine (ATM) (3).

On June 20^th 2019, Clarivate Analytics has released the new 2018 InCites Journal Citation Reports (JCR), which encompasses the new impact factor (IF) of journals indexed in Web of Science-Core Collections and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). Briefly, the annual IF of a journal is calculated by dividing the number of citations received by articles published by the journal in that same year for the total number of articles published by the journal in previous two years (4). The 2018 IF can hence be calculated by dividing the number of citations received in 2018 by the total number of articles published by the journal in 2016 and 2017 [e.g., (2018 journal IF) = (Citations in 2018 for articles published in 2016 and 2017)/(citable items published in 2016 and 2017)]. Based on this calculation, it can be easily recognized why the IF is very frequently exploited by many scientists for rating the scientific relevance of a journal within—or even outside—its specific “Science category” (4). Rather understandably, journals having higher IF are hence diffusely considered more scientifically important than others with lower IF values.

The first IF of ATM is 3.689, which places the journal 79/229 in the Science category “Oncology” (65.7^th percentile), 47/136 in the Science category “Research and Experimental Medicine” (65.8^th percentile), and 14/32 among science and medical journals which include the words “translation” or “translational” in their title (Figure 1). A list of more cited ATM articles, i.e., those which have more contributed to such a brilliant success, is shown in Table 1. Notably, a further analysis of JCR data highlights that the 2018 IF of ATM without self cites and the official IF are virtually identical (i.e., 3.595 versus 3.689). This means that no artefacts or unfair practices have been used to achieve such an excellent result, and that the value of contributions published in ATM in the past two years has been widely recognized and cited in many other journals, with external citations accounting for over 97% of total citations.

Figure 1 Ranking of the journal Annals of Translational Medicine (red full circle) in the 2018 InCites Journal Citation Reports (JCR) categories “Oncology”, “Research and Experimental Medicine”, and among science and medical journals containing the words “translation” or “translational” in the title.

Table 1 List of the ten articles published by Annals of Translational Medicine in the years 2016–2017, which have been cited more in 2018
Full table

In acknowledging this outstanding achievement (the journal has only been launched in 2014), a special thank shall be addressed to all members of the Editorial Board, to the Editorial Office, to the Publisher, to the reviewers, as well as to all the scientists who have provided their valuable contributions to ATM and, last but not least, to all the readers of the journal, who have appreciated our work and have so impressively contributed to the success of the journal.

This is indeed a brilliant dawn for ATM. However, after a reasonable celebration, the Editorial Board members and the Editorial Office will soon redouble their efforts to make ATM a better and more professional academic platform, so that an even brighter future can be carved. Indeed, our main target will remain the publication of high-quality research aimed at translating laboratory discoveries into useful clinical applications, thus ultimately contributing to generate radical changes to diagnostic health strategies and ultimately improving prediction, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases.

Acknowledgments

None.

Footnote

Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The author is accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

References

1. European Society for Translational Medicine. About Us. Available online: https://eutranslationalmedicine.org/about-us. Last access, June 21, 2019.
2. Society for Translational Medicine. Who we are. Available online: http://www.thestm.org/pages/view/who-we-are. Last access, June 21, 2019.
3. Annals of Translational Medicine. Available online: http://atm.amegroups.com/about. Last access, June 21, 2019.
4. Lippi G, Mattiuzzi C. Scientist impact factor (SIF): a new metric for improving scientists' evaluation? Ann Transl Med 2017;5:303. [Crossref] [PubMed]