Autonomic & Autacoid Pharmacology: past, present and future

It is with great pleasure and no little trepidation that I assume my role as the fourth editor of Autonomic & Autacoid Pharmacology. It is a privilege to follow in the footsteps of Michael Day, Kenneth Broadley and William Ford. I hope that I will prove to be a worthy successor to these great custodians of the journal. I look forward to receiving submissions of manuscripts describing original work and reviews of the literature. Coincident with my commencement of editorial responsibilities is the introduction by the publishers, John Wiley & Sons, of a new page design. I hope that readers will agree with me that the more modern formatting suits the journal very well. Contributors should please note that the new style necessitates some changes in the formatting of manuscripts for submission. The journal started life in 1980 as The Journal of Autonomic Pharmacology. Michael Day’s inaugural editorial makes fascinating reading as a brief overview of the development of autonomic pharmacology as a discipline.1 Day was keen to encourage the submission of articles designated as ‘Historical Perspectives’. He explained: ‘These will be concerned with the historical development of autonomic pharmacology and may take the form of a description of a particular discovery of of the work of an individual or group. The historical aspects of a subject are more than merely of curiosity value, since they form the intellectual base on which the subject continues to grow and often contain valuable clues and hints which did not fit the contemporary framework of knowledge’. This is clearly as important today, as it was in 1980, and I would be delighted to receive submissions of this type. Authors of ‘Historical Perspectives’ will find themselves in very good company. The first publication of this type in this journal was written by no less than Raymond Ahlquist, and readers will nor be surprised to learn that it discussed the classification of adrenoceptors.2 The current title, Autonomic & Autacoid Pharmacology, was adopted in 2002, by the journal’s second editor, Ken Broadley. This was not a conscious decision to change direction, but a ‘formalizing of the natural evolution of the scope of the journal’;3 indeed, the most highly cited article published in the journal (693 citations according to Google Scholar) is the paper ‘Tachykinin receptors and Tachykinin receptor antagonists’ by Maggi et al.4, published in 1993, which illustrates that the scope of the journal had moved beyond strictly ‘autonomic’ pharmacology sometime previously. Nevertheless, in contrast to ‘autonomic pharmacology’ which can be defined and limited reasonably easily, the definition of ‘autacoid’ is perhaps harder to pin down. It is possible that authors may have been reluctant to submit their work, not knowing whether the subjects of their papers could be considered ‘autacoids’. I am very pleased therefore that Jan Keppel Hesselink has contributed an article entitled ‘The terms ‘autacoid,’ ‘hormone’ and ‘chalone’ and how they have shifted with time’ which goes some way to overcoming these difficulties. He concludes, ‘Currently we could define an autacoid as a locally produced modulating factor, influencing locally the function of cells and/or tissues, which is produced on demand and which subsequently is metabolized in the same cells and/or tissues’.5 I would be very interested to learn of your thoughts on this interesting paper. One informal means of doing so is via the LinkedIn group for the journal, which you can find here: https://www. linkedin.com/groups/Autonomic-Autacoid-Pharmacology-8466656/ about. Looking to the future, I believe that medicine still has a great deal to gain from therapeutics in the fields of autonomic and autacoid pharmacology and I hope that this journal can continue to play its part in making new knowledge available. However, the application of the work need not always be immediately apparent. Papers will be judged solely on their scientific merit: readers can judge for themselves the interest and importance of the work as time progresses. As Ernest Starling said ‘In physiology, as in all other sciences, no discovery is useless, no curiosity misplaced or too ambitious, and we may be certain that every advance achieved in the quest of pure knowledge will sooner or later play its part in the service of man’.6 Without prejudice to the outcome of the peerreview process, I am always available and willing to discuss the suitability of potential manuscripts with authors. Please do not hesitate to get in touch. Email (P.Penson@ljmu.ac.uk) is probably the best method in the first instance. It remains for me to thank all those reviewers and authors and the members of the editorial board who have contributed so much to the journal over the years. I look forward to working with you.