Announcements

Message on 50th Anniversary of PJBMB

Message on 50th Anniversary of PJBMB:

It is a matter of great pleasure and satisfaction that the Pakistan Journal of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PJBMB), one of the pioneer scientific journals published in Pakistan, has now reached the landmark of publication of its 50th volume. The first volume of the Journal, a publication of the Pakistan Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PSBMB), was published in 1967 as Pakistan Journal of Biochemistry, with Prof. M.I.D. Chughtai and Prof. M. Ataur Rehman as its founding editor and co-editor, respectively. In line with the international trends, the journal was renamed PJBMB in 1995, when the Society was also renamed from Pakistan Society of Biochemists to PSBMB. Initially, the journal was published biannually, each volume consisting of two issues. Due to the rise in the number of quality paper submissions the frequency of publication was increased to four quarterly issues per volume.

With the rapid advances and deeper understanding of the biological processes at the molecular level and their vast applications in recent years, the importance of the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology and the related areas is being realized evermore. We have seen the vast gains made in the areas like DNA sequencing, protein engineering, regulation through RNA interference, cell signaling, protein-protein interactions, stem cell technology, microarray technologies, bioinformatics tools, and many other areas. It has become possible to sequence, using the next-generation technologies, the whole genome of any living being in a matter of days at a fraction of the costs spent on the previously used sequencing protocols. The avalanche of completely sequenced genomes of species, from bacterium to human, and the advanced bioinformatics tools for data handling have added new dimensions to not only the use of genome sequence analysis in predicting structures and assigning functions to the unknown proteins but also to understand the bases of diseases and thus find their cures. The development in the methodologies and the tools for creating new protein molecules through mutations in the genes encoding the protein, by mimicking the natural evolutionary processes, has made it possible to create molecules with vastly improved properties for medical, agricultural, industrial, environmental, and other applications. More recently the discovery of the CRISPR-Cas system and its refinement for use in genome editing has created the possibility of unlimited applications based on deletion, addition, or modification of genomic DNA with great precision.

In this scenario of the expanding research and development activity all over, including Pakistan, the role of a journal like PJBMB has become more important in the dissemination of new knowledge. The Journal has been published online regularly and the quality of the research papers has also improved. We are confident that with the efforts of the current editorial team and the contribution and support of the scientists within Pakistan and abroad the Journal shall continue to make progress to become one of the top-ranked journals in the field of life sciences.

Prof. M. Waheed Akhtar,
Secretary-General,
Pakistan Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
School of Biological Sciences, University of the Punjab,
Lahore Pakistan