Editorial

Shigeo Takumi’s two-year term as Editor in Chief ended in March 2008.  Shigeo did a great job in launching eWIS.  During his time, eWIS safely navigated the transition into the age of electronic publishing.  We all thank him for his herculean effort.  For the next two years, Yoshi Matsuoka will serve as Editor in Chief.  Tsuneo Sasanuma will serve as Vice Editor in this term. 

The Editorial Office is running smoothly.  The Office is now ready for more work, especially for international submissions.  In the period from February 2006 to February 2008, eWIS published 15 Research Information papers.  This figure may not seem too bad, but it means that, on average, there are only three Research Information papers per issue.  Accordingly, our mission in the term is to make a take-off from the situation. WIS is now listed in e-journals (http://www.e-journals.org/botany/) and we hope that this will make our newsletter more accessible. 

This year, Dr. Xueyong Zhang (Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China) joined the Advisory Board.  We are grateful for his understanding and look forward to his support during the term.

Lastly, but not the least, we would like to thank Shingo Sakaniwa and Takehiro Yamakawa (Yamazaki’s lab, National Institute of Genetics, Japan) for their enduring technical support.

September, 2008

Editorial Office

Yoshihiro Matsuoka

Tsuneo Sasanuma

Goro Ishikawa

Shuhei Nasuda

Shigeo Takumi