March 2020
Human Genetics and Genomics Advances (HGG Advances), the newest member of the ASHG family, is a high-quality, society-led open access (OA) publishing option for the research community. Michael Bamshad, MD, will lead the journal as Editor-in Chief.
Editor-in-Chief, HGG Advances
The way that human genetics research is done is rapidly changing, characterized by more collaborative, networked, and public ways of sharing data, results, and ideas. This evolution has been driven by the growing recognition that these changes have profound benefits, accelerating the pace of scientific progress and the translation of research findings to clinical practice. HGG Advances will serve as both a catalyst and a platform for change that feels natural for the human genetics and genomics community to embrace. Moreover, HGG Advances will strive from its inception to strongly promote inclusivity and equity in all facets of its operations, including its editorial board, content submitters, and reviewers, and thereby serve as a model of the philosophy and operations of the next generation of scientific publishers.
HGG Advances will enable ASHG to disseminate, important work, like manuscripts that have broad appeal to readers who are not human geneticists, manuscripts that are likely to generate lively discussion among ASHG members (e.g., research results with controversial implications), commentaries, policy statements, and editorials expressing more pointed positions. Through HGG Advances, scientific projects will benefit from community input and an open exchange of ideas including negative results, where the intent is to actively engage the community to advance the project. I know there will be no shortage of good ideas offered by the ASHG membership as the journal builds, and I look forward to member engagement and thoughts on content submission.
As Editor-in-Chief of HGG Advances, I will take full advantage of the size and diversity of our Society’s membership and work to make AJHG and HGG Advances the platform of choice for members to publish their best scientific work. Active and long-term engagement of diverse communities of human genetics researchers will be critical to the success of HGG Advances.
I have been privileged to be a researcher in human genetics and genomics for thirty years.
Through my work, I have had the opportunity to interact regularly with bioethicists, social scientists, and policy advocates whose scholarly output is of substantial interest to the human genetics community. These interactions stem from my strong commitment to developing policies, guidelines, and novel strategies for effective and efficient return of sequencing test results and open sharing of genetic and phenotypic data. I have a long-standing interest in supporting a more open scientific publishing environment and have regularly encouraged the use of open access platforms,
I am deeply committed to developing, testing, and implementing novel online strategies for reporting and disseminating research advances in a timely, open, and innovative way, to foster a more comprehensive and complete knowledge base. An open access knowledge base, which ideally makes the information more widely accessible to experts and non-experts alike, makes it even more imperative that the research reported is characterized by scientific rigor, validity, and reproducibility. Indeed, wider access to information ideally translates to greater benefit, but results that lack rigor or accuracy also have greater potential to be harmful.
The mission of this journal is to build the human genetics and genomics knowledge base, serving as a home for a wide variety of research findings and formats, and HGG Advances is committed to evolving with the ASHG membership and the field at large. With the privilege of serving as Editor-in-Chief for this journal on the forefront of a new and important endeavor in science, I look forward to evolving with you.
For more information on HGG Advances, visit https://www.cell.com/hgg-advances/home.