Biointerphases continues to feature the multidisciplinary approach that is at the heart of our community, building toward reproducible, quantifiable, and validated systems, tools and models that are required to further the understanding of the biointerface. In the past year, the Biointerphases editorial team has implemented some important changes. The team welcomes Stefan Zauscher from Duke University (USA) as Associate Editor and the six new members of the Editorial Board hailing from around the globe. These new supporters and advocates will help Biointerphases to increase its reach and constituency while also attracting new, exciting topics in the community, making important links between new materials, characterization, and modeling of the interface.
The biggest change to come is the departure of Anna Belu, who has been the Editor of Biointerphases over the past four years. Anna will leave the team by the end of 2017, and at that time hand over the reins of the journal to Sally McArthur from Swinburne University (Australia). The team is saddened to lose the inspiration and leadership skills that have been Anna's hallmark as Editor, along with her immense dedication to the journal. However, the team continues to be inspired by the far-reaching vision she has shared with us in the past years. The Biointerphases team wishes Anna the very best for the next steps in her career and many joyful moments with her family in her newly gained free time.
Another change has taken place on the Biointerphases website, the main entry portal to the journal. The website has been restyled and many new search options have been implemented. We continue to reach out to the community via Twitter (@biointerphases) to promote new work as soon as it is published online, and we invite you all to follow us. The editorial team continues to work on the visibility and reputation of the journal, and under Anna's leadership, we have seen the impact of these activities with an increase in the impact factor (Impact Factor for 2016: 2.603 and Five-Year Impact Factor: 2.901) and a steady number of submissions.
The editorial team also is pleased to continue to support early career researchers and students with poster and presentation prizes at conferences held around the globe, including the ACS Spring Meeting (San Francisco, USA), the Australasian Biomaterials Meeting (Canberra, Australia), the Swiss Society for Biomaterials Annual Conference (St. Gallen, Switzerland), the European Chapter Meeting of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society (Davos, Switzerland), the FEBS Workshop—Biological Surfaces and Interfaces (Catalonia, Spain), the European Society for Biomaterials Annual Meeting (Athens, Greece), the SIMS 21 meeting (Krakow, Poland), Bloodsurf (Clemson, SC), the European Conference on Applications of Surface and Interface Analysis (Montpellier, France), the 10th Joint Meeting of the Spanish and Portuguese Vacuum Societies (Bilbao, Spain), and the 64th AVS International Symposium (Tampa, FL). Look for Biointerphases at related conferences in 2018, and contact the Editors if you know of additional opportunities!
Next we share some of the highlights from Biointerphases Volume 12.
Six different In Focus Issues were championed by eminent researchers in the biointerface field acting as Guest Editors. Dave Castner from the University of Washington (USA) edited the first of these special issues, which celebrated Buddy Ratner's 70th Birthday with an In Focus issue on Biointerface Science and Engineered Biomaterials. It was opened by an editorial by Allan S. Hoffman who not only reflected on the extraordinary achievements Buddy Ratner and his teams have made in science and translation, but also reported on the many exciting steps in Buddy Ratner's career.1 He closed his review with the statement that Buddy Ratner has been recognized as the most renowned and respected professor in the biomaterials field around the world today, which the Biointerphases Editorial team is pleased to affirm. A contribution by Alexander and Williams from the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom) provided a stimulating discussion on the limited correlation between water contact angle and bacterial and stem cell adhesion to a material surface.2 Their work was based on investigations of large materials libraries and comparison with findings reported in the literature. An excellent review by Castner summarized the advances in biomedical surface analysis made in the past decades and provided vision on future directions.3 He emphasized that much work is still needed to shed light on biointerfaces of increasingly complex, multicomponent biomedical devices, and recommended the community put effort into approaches to fully implement multimodal imaging. Additional topics presented in this In Focus Issue were multifaceted: Huttenlochner et al.4 reported on the challenges faced in the removal of biofilms from stainless steel without changing the surface properties relevant for bacterial attachment, Nygren et al.5 described the role of Mg released in corrosive processes on hydroxyapatite formation and bone healing, and Jahnke et al.6 elaborated on the dynamics of bacteria on an adherent surface under hydrodynamic exposure. Processing and sterilization challenges known for the new and exciting nonfouling zwitterionic hydrogels have been summarized by Han et al.7
Another popular In Focus topic covered the evaluation of Protein Structure at Biointerfaces. New methods and efforts to understand structure and action of proteins in the solid and solution state at interfaces were demonstrated. Tobias Weidner from the Max Plank Institute for Polymerforschung (Germany), who adeptly served as Guest Editor, provided a Preface which describes the individual contributions and highlights advancements as well as challenges.8
Two In Focus sections, Bio-Nano Systems in 2D and Organic Bioelectronics, appeared in Issues 4 and 5, respectively, and were guest-edited by Wolfgang Knoll from the Austrian Institute of Technology (Austria) and his colleagues. Here, Veneziano et al. presented a review on the synthesis and characterization of tethered lipid assemblies for membrane protein reconstitution.9 Tailored polyelectrolyte thin film multilayers to modulate cell adhesion were reported by Muzzio et al.10 They employed a rigid bottom block including a synthetic polyelectrolyte with a soft upper block of natural polyelectrolytes or polyelectrolyte multilayers which were thermally annealed after assembly. This electrolyte gated, organic field effect transistor enabled the label-free detection of interleukin-6 using over a wide range of IL-6 concentrations with a remarkable limit of detection of 1 pM.11
Volume 12 closes with an In Focus Issue on Bacterial-Surface Interactions (Issue 5) showing the wide range of applications affected by the attachment and control of bacteria on surfaces. Highlights from the issue included work from Michl et al., who demonstrated that surface immobilized antifungal agents can reduce fungal biofilms by >4 log units to below the threshold of the tests.12 Furthermore, a number of studies explored the translation of antimicrobial films and coatings for water treatment and hospital paints. These applications present significant challenges for durability and long term stability of films, and both studies demonstrated effective solutions.13,14 Wei et al. used ToF-SIMS to explore syntrophic Geobacter aggregates and electron transfer events that occur in these complex biofilms. Their studies demonstrated that ToF-SIMS could help identify the different bacterial populations and, excitingly, could be used to monitor quorum sensing molecules within the biofilms and aggregates, enabling the interplay of signaling and community formation to be examined.15
In 2018, Biointerphases will continue to evolve new ways to inform those working at the biointerface, and to challenge our community to provide quantitative characterization and fundamental understanding of the interface. In an upcoming collection of articles, we are thrilled to feature Women in Biointerface Science. In this collection, we highlight works from women who are leaders in the field and who have been successful in addressing significant biointerface issues and improving human health. By including their biographies along with the articles, we hope to inspire those at the early stages of their careers. Additional In Focus topics, including the latest advances in SIMS, will round out the upcoming Volume 13. As always, we are happy to receive your submissions and to hear your suggestions, and we thank you for reading Biointerphases.
