Dear Reader,

It is my great pleasure to announce that as of the 1st of January 2009 the International Journal of Legal Medicine will be published by two editors-in-chief, i.e., by Prof. Dr. Heidi Pfeiffer and myself.

As you know, the International Journal of Legal Medicine has been published under my editorship for more than 20 years now. In this time, it has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the world of legal medicine. We started with a citation impact factor of nearly zero, but soon came to lead the field. We have maintained this position consistently for many years, and now, in 2008, have even exceeded the 3.0 impact factor threshold. During this period, the number of manuscripts submitted has increased more than threefold; and this is the major reason prompting me to seek to share the workload. The editorial board has agreed to this unanimously and I cannot imagine a better decision.

Prof. Pfeiffer holds the chair in Legal Medicine at the University of Münster. She is a well-known researcher both in forensic pathology and in forensic genetics. She has elaborated on teeth as a rather precise gauge of age estimation and as utterly resistant to DNA degradation. In 1997, during her stay at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), she initiated her research in the field of forensic genetics, especially mtDNA.

I would be pleased and honored if you could provide her with the same level of trust that you have granted me for all of these years.

Kind regards,

Prof. Dr. med. B. Brinkmann