Sally Howells
Managing Editor, The Journal of Physiology

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.103.20

Coming from sub-zero weather in London to the balmy (but rather smoggy) climate of LA was a welcome way to ensure our vitamin D levels were fully restored.

LA was this year’s host to the Biophysical Society’s 60^th annual meeting. Located in downtown LA, we were far away from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood (and the Oscars), but the area was much more pleasant than we had anticipated.

Our Journal of Physiology (JP) booth was well located in the large exhibition hall, and we had a steady stream of loyal journal supporters visit our booth. Each year we attend this meeting, our reputation grows and delegates come back to talk to us to learn about our new plans and developments. It was also important for us to engage with the younger generation of physiologists. We were proud to inform them that some of the seminal papers for the biophysics community were published in JP – we even had a cabinet displaying some of these articles to prove it.

We conducted a raffle to win an iPod touch that encouraged people to come to our stand and learn more about what we do. We were pleased to be able to highlight a special issue on calcium transport proteins and promote a ‘Call for Papers’ on potassium channels and cardiac electrophysiology. We hope that this will show people our commitment to publishing the best biophysics papers. We were interested to hear than many people were conducting computational and modelling research and were able to let them know that this is an area that we are keen to expand.

Several Editors, past and present, were at the meeting, and this was another excellent opportunity to talk to them about The Journal and the discipline as a whole on a more informal basis.

We learned from a more experienced researcher who had published with us in the past that his students weren’t that interested in publishing in JP, and favoured some newer, ‘more exciting’ journals. Convincing younger researchers who perhaps haven’t grown up with JP that we are the true home of biophysics papers and the best outlet for their research will be challenging, but it is something we are committed to achieving. Hopefully the fact that it is still completely free to publish in JP might convince some of them.

We promoted a collection of our top biophysics content in a virtual issue, which was a good way to convey the scope of The Journal and allowed delegates to see how their research would fit within our broad scope.

Alas, we didn’t pick up any awards at the Oscars, but perhaps they just didn’t realise we were in town…there’s always next year.

We have already booked our spot for the next meeting in New Orleans. We hope to see some of you there.