Age­less Jour­nal

Note­wor­thy

Count­less mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists will name the Jour­nal of Bac­te­ri­ol­ogy – "JB" as it is en­dear­ingly re­ferred to by many fans – as a key com­pan­ion in their sci­en­tific de­vel­op­ment. One such mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gist is Tao Dong, cur­rently an ed­i­tor for the jour­nal. He has writ­ten a won­der­ful ed­i­to­r­ial: "A jour­nal that grows older and stays young." A must read. In a per­sonal nar­ra­tive, Tao ex­quis­itely de­scribes the many ways the jour­nal in­flu­enced his ca­reer. Pe­rusal of hard­bound is­sues as an un­der­grad­u­ate helped shape his early ed­u­ca­tion. Search­ing the journal's archives, he dis­cov­ered the legacy of nu­mer­ous pi­o­neers of Chi­nese mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy in pa­pers pub­lished dur­ing the tur­bu­lent years of the first half of last cen­tury. Cur­rently, as one of the ed­i­tors, he keeps the jour­nal young by wel­com­ing "new ques­tions, new au­thors, and new com­mu­ni­ties of sci­en­tists."

JB's 110-year his­tory is a mon­u­men­tal ac­com­plish­ment. A solid foun­da­tion for per­sis­tence and adap­ta­tion. As the field evolves, so does the jour­nal. In Tao's words: "New tech­nolo­gies, new or­gan­isms, new eco­log­i­cal con­texts, and new gen­er­a­tions of sci­en­tists con­tin­u­ally re­new JB's sci­en­tific life." We could not agree more and in­vite every one of our read­ers, if you are not yet do­ing so, to pe­ruse its con­tents. There are in­nu­mer­able gems to be dis­cov­ered within.

Here at STC, we share Tao's love for the jour­nal. To cel­e­brate this, we've cho­sen this beau­ti­ful im­age of a lichen as metaphor for the jour­nal, which Tao de­scribes as "com­mu­nity across time."

Photo Credit: Roberto Kolter (JB Cover April 2021)