As 2023 draws to a close, the new year 2024 will mark several transitions for our Society, Cell Stress Society International (CSSI), and our Journal, Cell Stress & Chaperones (CS&C). Three important changes are now occurring, all starting on January 1, 2024. Firstly, our Journal is in transition to a new publisher, Elsevier. Secondly, our new Managing Editor for CS&C and General Secretary for CSSI will be Wendi Ackerman. Thirdly, our next Editor-in-Chief is Dimitra Bourboulia.

The first transition is our Society changing publishers for our Journal. We can do this because CSSI owns our Journal. Springer, and more recently Springer Nature, has published our Journal since 2008 until the end of 2023. Our Society and Journal grew considerably with Springer and Springer Nature. Our Journal moved from being a quarterly publication to publishing six issues a year. With this, royalties also increased. Springer and Springer Nature have been very good for our evolution. As our publishing contract was ending with Springer Nature, we put out a request of proposals for a publishing partner, and both Springer Nature and Elsevier responded with competitive offers.

Elsevier made an offer we could not refuse! From January 2024, our Journal will be published with gold open access. Elsevier will make all our articles freely available. Elsevier offers authors a US$ 2850 article processing charge, and members of our Society will receive a 20% discount. Elsevier guaranteed substantial royalty payments to our Society. Elsevier also offered stability with a publishing contract to the end of the year 2030.

The second and third important transitions are driven by retirements of Helen Neumann and myself, William Currie. The biggest change will be the retirement of Helen Neumann as the Managing Editor for CS&C and General Secretary of CSSI. Helen has worked with Larry Hightower since he founded the Journal in 1996 and became the Managing Editor after the Journal’s transition from Churchill Livingstone to Allen Press in 2000. As one of our long-term members so nicely pointed out, “it is Helen that makes our Journal and Society office human and a pleasure to deal with.” Wendi Ackerman will take over both of Helen’s roles.

For me, when I took on the role of Editor-in-Chief, I agreed to a 3-year term, and this term is now up. I have been a member of our society from the beginning and have a short review in the first issue (1996) of our Journal. I have been an ad hoc reviewer for our Journal forever and a Senior Editor for 10 years. Dimitra Bourboulia will take over as Editor-in-Chief for Cell Stress & Chaperones on January 01, 2024. Dimitra is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urology, State University of New York, Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, New York. Dimitra is also an Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education and Graduate Medical Education Research and also Director of the Office of Research for Medical Students at Upstate Medical University. Dimitra’s research focuses on extracellular protein signaling, homeostasis, and protein chaperoning. She is a co-organizer of meetings sponsored by our society, and she has been a Senior Editor for our Journal for more than 5 years. Dimitra’s skills as an organizer make her an excellent choice to be the next Editor-in-Chief.

Dimitra Bourboulia will work together with Wendi Ackerman as our next Managing Editor for CS&C and General Secretary of CSSI. Mehdi Mollapour, the current CSSI President-elect, and Dimitra Bourboulia introduced us to Wendi several years ago to help update our Society’s website. Based on her previous experiences as the Deputy Director of the Library and the Senior Programmer Analyst at SUNY Upstate Medical University, Wendi is ready to take on new responsibilities. These include managing electronic journal licensing; supporting open access, copyright, research data management, and bibliometrics; and publishing processes. We are all certain that Wendi will be an excellent addition to our team as the next General Secretary/Managing Editor.

Note added in Proof: There is now a fourth major transition. The founding editor of Cell Stress & Chaperones (1996) and the Secretary/Treasurer and founder of our society, Cell Stress Society International (2000), Larry Hightower has announced his retirement also at the end of the current year. The incoming Secretary/Treasurer for a 3-year term will be Mark Woodford, an Assistant Professor at SUNY Upstate Medical University.

To conclude, I believe these four major changes place our Journal and Society in a very strong position for continued success, growth, and development.

Thank you,

R. William Currie, PhD, FCSSI

Editor-in-Chief, Cell Stress and Chaperones