Editorial

2009 has been a successful year for Planta Medica. The high reputation of the journal in the field of medicinal plant and natural product research has resulted in a growing number of submitted and accepted manuscripts, and is reflected in a steadily increasing impact factor and number of citations. Some highlights of the past year include the Special Issue on Plant Analysis (State of the Art and Future Developments), edited by M. Ganzera, S. Sturm and H. Stuppner [1] (issue 7), the publication of the abstracts of the 8th Annual Oxford International Conference on the Science of Botanicals (ICSB) (April 6–9, 2009, University of Mississippi, USA) (issue 4), and the abstract volume of the 57th International Congress and Annual Meeting of the Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research (August 16–20, 2009, Geneva, Switzerland), edited by K. Hostettmann and J.-L. Wolfender (issue 9).

The increasing number of scientific papers of high quality, accepted for publication, has necessitated some changes for 2010. To accomodate these papers, it has been decided to increase the number of Planta Medica issues to 17 issues per year, i.e. 16 regular issues and one abstract volume, dedicated to the annual meeting of the Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research, to be organised in Berlin, Germany, August 29 – September 2, 2010. It should be noted that members of the Society can have a personal electronic subscription to Planta Medica at a very competitive rate – have a look at http://www.ga-online.org/planta_medica.html.

Planta Medica will continue its policy of publishing high quality reviews and research papers in a series of regular issues, and again the publication of two special issues on topics of general interest is scheduled. Whereas some changes in the Guidelines for Authors have successfully been implemented in the past year, no modifications have been decided by the Editorial Board for 2010.

The aim of Planta Medica always has been and still is the communication of significant research contributions in the field of medicinal plants and natural products. Every scientific publication process based on a peer-review system would not be possible without the dedication of lots of scientists who evaluate and comment the submitted manuscripts. The Editorial Board and the Publisher of Planta Medica gratefully acknowledge the time consuming but highly valuable efforts, provided by the reviewers on a voluntary basis. As evident from an author survey carried out recently, many authors appreciate the comments and suggestions made by the reviewers, aimed at improving the quality of their manuscripts.

I wish you all a very healthy, fruitful and stimulating 2010!

Luc Pieters
Editor-in-Chief

Reference

• 1 Ganzera M, Sturm S, Stuppner H. Plant analysis – state of the art and future developments.  Planta Med. 2009;  75 671