JTEHM's Premiere Issue

We are pleased to introduce the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine. The leadership at EMBS created JTEHM to address the critical need to disseminate innovative translational research in health and medicine. The journal’s unique aim is to support the movement of biotechnological innovations from idea to clinical trials and commercialization.
We think that the Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine fills a vital need and provides a vehicle for the consilience of engineering, medicine and health, and translation. The translation need is critical in moving the technology frontier into clinical environments to improve clinical practice and healthcare. The National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins promoted and popularized the notion of translational research and led the move to create a specific Center focusing on moving basic observations from the laboratory to applicability in human disease and commercialization. Translation used to be covered under the phrase “from the bench to the bedside.” Now we know that there is a far greater world beyond the bed.
Entering the open access universe is substantially less risky than landing on the beach at Normandy on D-Day. However, the land mines of open access publishing in 2013 make the analogy relevant. The academic librarian Jeffrey Beall has tracked the proliferation of open access journals, including the swarm of new ones emanating from non-traditional sources that he calls “fleets.” IEEE EMBS addresses this trend in open-access publication to disseminate research outcomes and new knowledge effectively but with carefully designed interactive protocols to offer higher standards and community impact.
We propose nothing less than the creation of a worldwide community around the sharing of knowledge about how to design, make, and test things for the betterment of human health. The long pathway from technology innovation to clinical practice involves tremendous collaborative synergy among experts and researchers in basic and applied sciences, engineering, computing and information technologies, and biological, behavioral and medical sciences. It also entails the active involvement of entrepreneurs and investors along with leaders in industry, healthcare and regulatory institutions.
We chose the open access route not because it is easier but because it lays waste to the barrier of cost of reading. Even the richest libraries are groaning under the burden of journal subscription. Harvard University, in acknowledging the enormous cost of maintain a library, supports the notion of open access. We think that open access will increase our readership globally, decrease time to publication, and the increase the breadth of articles that we publish.
We are proud to introduce JTEHM with an open-source, continuous-publication platform that allows multimedia presentation of clinically significant translational technology work with editorial blogs and comments from experts, entrepreneurs and clinicians using continuously evolving social media networks. The papers published in JTEHM are accessible through IEEE Xplore and will be in PubMed soon, as well as in downloadable PDF versions with additional material.
We welcome your papers with research findings and clinical translation studies for publication with detailed interactive community forum. We also welcome your input and comments on challenges in quality global healthcare, clinical needs, and issues on technology translation to clinical applications. Our review process is quick without being sloppy. We will not sacrifice standards but we know that you need an efficient and timely review. We have and will maintain the highest standards in the review process and publication of papers and community blogs. Articles have to be within our remit of translational science. There has to be human application or a clear path to a clinical trial. We welcome submissions from industry, policy makers, and the investment community. We encourage you to have your voice heard in the blogs and commentary sections of this website.
If you have any question about the suitability of your work for JTEHM, send us an abstract (editor@health.embs.org). We will be happy to provide you with a quick response. We have a stellar editorial board of associate editors along with a student advisory board serving as junior associate editors forming an integral part of our community.
We believe that supporting the translational interface between innovative research and clinical practice is essential to create new approaches for better global healthcare impacting the future of medicine. We look forward to working with the translational community to achieve that goal.
Sincerely,
Clifford Dacso, M.D., M.PH., M.B.A, John S. Dunn, Sr. Chair of General Internal Medicine, The Methodist Hospital; Executive Director, Abramson Center For The Future of Health; Professor, Molecular and Cellular Biology and Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine
Atam P. Dhawan Ph.D., Distinguished professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, and Interim Dean of Albert Dorman Honors College, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Co-Editors-in-Chief