Editorial: (for "Contact" (CTC) journal).

Abstract

“Contact” is a word with many connotations, from the personal to business. Here, it refers to the highly specialised world of membrane contact sites. In 2018, that meaning is clear to cell biologists, and people in related disciplines where it would not have been in 2008. The journal is dedicated to describing all aspects of the sites inside cells where different organelles interact (contact) with each other. This is the first journal for this field, which is still so young that we have no complete consensus on any of its most basic terms. For instance, it says above that the journal is about membrane contact sites, and that is the most recognisable phrase for this topic, but it is not the most accurate. If you read the ground breaking work of Maya Schuldiner’s group on contact between one organelle with half a membrane and another with none at all [1], you might agree we should drop the “membrane” part, though with just “contact sites”, our field would be even more likely to be misunderstood by non-scientists.