Isaac Newton is credited with quipping, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”. This remark, made more than 300 years ago is still relevant for today’s scientists. Certainly, in our field of Histochemistry and Cell Biology, many of the insights we enjoy and techniques we apply in our research are the result of contributions to the literature provided by our scientific forebearers. As Editors of Histochemistry and Cell Biology, we are entrusted with maintaining the high quality and continued success of the journal instituted by its founders M. Chèvremont, Liège; H.W. Deane, New York; P.B. Diezel, F. Duspiva and H. Reznik, Heidelberg; O. Eränkö, Helsinki; P. Gedigk and N. Schümmelfelder, Bonn; W. Gössner, Tübingen; W. Graumann, Göttingen; A. G. E. Pearse, London; W. Sandritter, Frankfurt/Main; T.H. Schiebler, Kiel; G. Siebert, Mainz; and M. Wolman, Tel-Hashomer. The list of the international editors represented a virtual list of “Who’s Who” in histochemistry at that time.

Brief history of the journal

The journal has a long and distinguished history in publishing cutting edge research, technical developments, and special topic issues. A perusal of the contents of the early volumes of the journal reveals a cornucopia of developments of the histochemical methods still widely in use today, contributed by eminent scientists such as P. van Duijn, Leiden; O. Eränkö, Helsinki; P. Gedigk, Bonn; R. Gossrau, Berlin; W. Graumann, Tübingen; L.-I. Larsson, Copenhagen; Z. Lojda, Prague; B. Maurer-Schultze, Würzburg; A.E.F.H. Meijer, Amsterdam; K. Ogawa, Kyoto; A.G.E. Pearse, London; D. Pette, Konstanz; M. van der Ploog, Leiden; H. Puchtler, Augusta, GA; Y. Sano, Kyoto; and L.A. Sternberger, Rochester, NY. Last year, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the journal, exemplifying its longevity in a crowded and expanding scientific publishing marketplace. This gave us pause to reflect on the history of the journal, and what it means as an author today to contribute a manuscript to a journal with such a robust scientific pedigree. In 2008, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, Jürgen Roth, H. Dariush Fahimi, and Detlev Drenckhahn presented an historical overview of the evolution of Histochemistry and Cell Biology (Roth et al. 2008) since its inception in 1958 as the “Abteilung Histochemie” (Histochemistry Division) of the “Zeitschrift für Zellforschung und mikroskopische Anatomie” (nowadays Cell and Tissue Research). Over the ensuing 60 years, the journal’s name has changed three times, reflecting overall movement in the field and scientific literature in general: (1) in 1964–1965, the journal established itself as an independent entity with concomitant change of name to Histochemie/Histochemistry/Histochimie, the three languages reflecting its broad international reach and appeal; (2) in 1974, reflecting the ubiquitous nature of the English language in scientific publications, including those submitted to this journal, the name was changed to Histochemistry; and (3) finally, in 1995 under the leadership of Co-Editors-in-Chief Detlev Drenckhahn and Jürgen Roth, the current name Histochemistry and Cell Biology was adopted, recognizing the expanding scope of articles to be more inclusive of the rapid advances in basic cell and molecular research (Fig. 1). As Juliet famously remarked in Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, may be an apt metaphor for the change in the name of our journal over the past 60 years. And, though the name may have changed to reflect the growth and maturation of both scientific publishing practices, as well as the science itself, the underlying objectives to publish high-quality manuscripts illustrating technical innovations in histochemistry and their application in original research in cell and molecular sciences have remained steadfast guiding principles.

Fig. 1
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The collage shows the cover pictures of the 12 issues of Histochemistry and Cell Biology published on the occasion of the journal’s 50th anniversary in 2008. They illustrate the long and distinguished history of the journal in publishing histochemical methods in the broadest sense, together with molecular imaging techniques for the localization, identification and characterization of cellular and extracellular components as well as metabolic activities under physiological and pathological conditions

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Official journal of the Society for Histochemistry

In 1992, while the journal was still called Histochemistry, Jürgen Roth, as Co-Editor-in-Chief, oversaw the process whereby Histochemistry was adopted as the official journal of the Society for Histochemistry (see Gössner 2002, for a brilliant descriptive history of the Society for Histochemistry). The journal provides a forum for the wide dissemination of information regarding activities of the Society (Höfler and Drukker 1992), including the invitation for scientists to apply for the Robert Feulgen Prize. This strong affiliation between journal and Society remains in place to this day. One of the more tangible results of this affiliation has been the publication of the Society’s “Robert Feulgen Lecture”. This prestigious international invited lecture honoring Robert Feulgen, the pioneer of DNA histochemistry (Chieco and Derenzini 1999), was first delivered by Olavi Eränkö in 1979, who was followed over the years by numerous notable and internationally recognized scientists (Table 1). In addition to the manuscripts from the Robert Feulgen Lecturers, special individual reviews from the Robert Feulgen Prize recipients have also been published in the journal (Table 2; for a complete list see http://www.histochemistry.eu). Moreover, since 2004, five eminent scientists have been selected to present the Histochemistry and Cell Biology Lecture at either the Annual Symposium of the Society for Histochemistry, or at the International Congress of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry (Table 3), with their presentations likewise published by the journal.

Table 1 Scientists invited for the Robert Feulgen Lecture
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Table 2 Reviews published by Robert Feulgen Prize recipients
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Table 3 Scientists selected for the Histochemistry and Cell Biology Lecture
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Journal statistics and benefits for the authors

In addition to publishing special individual manuscripts such as those arising from the Robert Feulgen lectures and Prize presentations, the journal also continues to publish thematic “Special Issues” devoted to a specific technique or well-timed research topics (Table 4 and cover of this issue).

Table 4 Special Issues published by Histochemistry and Cell Biology
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Looking over the last 10 years of the journal, it has been illuminating and gratifying to realize that for manuscripts published between 2008 (the 50th anniversary of the founding of the journal) and 2018 (the 60th anniversary) in Histochemistry and Cell Biology, at least 228 have been downloaded over 1000 times from the journal’s website. This includes the classical review on human keratins by Roland Moll’s group, with more than 8500 downloads and 571 cites (Moll et al. 2008), a review on single-molecule localization microscopy by Markus Sauer’s group (Klein et al. 2014) with more than 4300 downloads and 66 cites, and an introduction to the sugar code by Hans-Joachim Gabius and Jürgen Roth (2017) with about 4100 downloads and 36 cites, as of this writing! For the interested reader, Table 5 provides a more complete list.

Table 5 Article impact assessed as number of pdf downloads and citations (n)
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Histochemistry and Cell Biology has also been at the forefront of innovations for scientific publishing and author services. In 1995, concomitant with its change of name to the current Histochemistry and Cell Biology, the journal announced publishing policies stipulating that (1) manuscripts will be published in full format without arbitrary page limits, and (2) no charge for the first color plate (Drenckhahn and Roth 1995). These policies were expanded in 2001 to include no charges for any color reproduction in all manuscripts. In 2000, the journal Editors announced a new service for authors called “Online First”, whereby accepted manuscripts were immediately posted online following receipt of the corrected proofs (Editors 2000). This process resulted in a significant decrease in publication time, with the online posting as the official date of publication, along with an assigned unique “Digital Object Identifier” (DOI) which can then be used to access and cite the manuscript. Another feature for authors introduced by the publisher in 2004 was the option of “Springer Open Choice”, allowing immediate free access to the published articles. More recently, the “Transfer Desk” option was introduced to assist authors in finding the most relevant journal amongst Springer Nature’s portfolio of over 2500 titles, for disposition of a manuscript determined by the editors to be beyond the scope of Histochemistry and Cell Biology.

Therefore, in closing, we cordially invite you to submit your manuscripts to Histochemistry and Cell Biology, rich in the knowledge that you will be contributing to a journal with a long-standing history and august reputation in the field.