ARTICLE

TOP ARTICLE

A MAJOR STRENGTH of the American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology is the diversity of cellular events covered by the Journal and the large array of cell types examined in the course of these studies. Unfortunately, this may also lead to some uncertainty regarding the type of manuscript that we would like to see published in our pages. In addition, papers on all subjects are currently intermingled on the Table of Contents page, making selective browsing more difficult. With a solution in mind, the new editorial team met at the American Physiological Society headquarters in Bethesda in September 2002 and agreed that the papers appearing in each issue should be subdivided into a few broad research areas. This will define the mission of the Journal more clearly and will also allow more efficient scanning of the Table of Contents for papers relevant to the expertise of each reader. Thus the Table of Contents that appears in the January 2003 issue of AJP-Cell Physiology now lists all papers under more specific category headings. The headings that were chosen are as follows (note that not all categories will appear in each issue of the Journal if no relevant papers are scheduled for that particular month).

• Membrane Transporters, Ion Channels, and Pumps
• Muscle Biology and Cell Motility
• Receptors and Signal Transduction
• Vascular Biology
• Growth, Differentiation, and Apoptosis
• Protein and Vesicle Trafficking, Cytoskeleton
• Extracellular Matrix and Cell Interactions
• Cellular Metabolism
• Nervous System Cell Biology
• Methods in Cell Physiology

Because the assignment of a manuscript to any given category can be a complex process (e.g., cytoskeletal regulation of calcium channels in endothelial cells), we are asking that authors decide during the submission process under which category their manuscript should appear. A new selection button has been added to the APSCentral website for this purpose. We understand that the categories are not perfect and that some authors may have trouble selecting only one topic heading for their work. However, we firmly believe that this approach, which is also used by AJP-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology and AJP-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology as well as many other non-APS journals, is a step in the right direction toward defining the current directions of the journal and toward attracting the best and most exciting novel contributions from these areas of research.