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Editorial

August 10, 2008

Our Society is dynamically growing and as such is always open to accepting new members;
We of course encourage all members to contribute their expertise by participating in our three main activities:

• attending the International Workshops on the CCN family of Genes--this year in Toronto, Canada.
• submitting material to be published in the Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling
• visiting and interacting the newly ICCNS redesigned web site to stay current and informed

With the introduction of the Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling in 2008-- the official journal of the ICCNS-- our Society has clearly positioned itself at the cutting edge of Intra- and Inter-Cellular Signaling. There is more and more evidence suggesting that micro-environment plays a key role in the control of normal and pathological cell biology. This points to cell-cell and cell-medium communication as fundamental regulatory processes of the utmost importance.

We have actively worked this year to reorganize the ICCNS so as to open up new directions, and to broaden the scope of JCCS, and ICCNS meetings.

Internal ICCNS organization

With the reorganization of the ICCNS , we created an international scientific committee whose main purpose is to provide scientific expertise on all matters pertaining to the scientific orientations as determined by the Executive Board of the Society.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Masaharu Takigawa, Herman Yeger, Sandra Irvine and Annick Perbal for their sustained participation in the Executive Board and sharing with me the directionship of the ICCNS.
Thanks also to the colleagues who accepted the invitation to join the Committee, with particular acknowledgments to Lester Lau for his strong support and suggestions. I am most grateful to Andrew Leask , John Castellot, and Satochi Kubota who have volunteered, at my suggestion, to take responsabilities for running new activity panels - this has really invigorated our Society.
The new organization of the ICCNS should help us to develop a stronger presence within our scientific community with an eye towards a leading role in the field of cellular communication.

ICCNS website

The web pages have been completely remodeled as to reflect the fact that we have become an established group and are now internationally recognized for our activities.

Several new pages have been introduced:

• Under "Newsletters", you can access the "Bits and Bytes" and "CCN Express" pages that are fueled by Andrew Leaks
• The "Bits and Bytes" pages contain commentaries on recent exciting developments in the CCN field, with brief reports on published articles that are of particular significance.
• "CCN Express" features a number of review articles written by opinion leaders in fields relevant to the CCN biology. Andrew Leask is open to contributions from all sources. Please fell free to contact him with the names of potential contributors.
• John Castellot took the challenge of developing our new "Nuts and Bolts" section in which you will find a "Reagent Registry" and a "Technical Issues" corner.

We urge you to participate and send information for inclusion in these pages. I believe that they represent a unique tool and are extremely useful to all colleagues seeking reagents and technical help.
All comments and articles published in these sections will also appear, after peer reviewing, in upcoming issues of the Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling, with immediate indexing on PubMed.
It is important that we all make an effort to stimulate connections with other scientific societies and all work together to broaden the scope of our activities. Along this line, Satochi Kubota is to be acknowledged for taking the responsability of the "Other Meetings" section on the ICCNS website. Keeping these pages up to date is pivotal to the development of outside contacts and a fruitful exchange of information.
We count on you all to help us keep these pages active and useful.The success and utility of these sections will greatly depend on you "stepping up to the plate".

JCCS

Let's work together to expand the scope and recognition of JCCS.
Owing to the wide variety of pathways in which CCN proteins are involved, and the great number of proteins and ligands with which these proteins interact, it became immediately evident that CCN proteins are part of a large signaling network. Understanding their exact roles and functions in highly organized signaling is one of the biggest challenges in the field. It also points to other signaling pathways as acting in concert with or being regulated by members of the CCN family of proteins.
In an effort to broaden the scope of our journal, I have invited a handful of new Editors to join the board of JCCS and I am grateful for their participation.
We count on our Editors, members and readers to foster scientific excellence in publication.

ICCNS Workshop 2008

Peter Butler offered both his generous personal support and financial help from Springer, which enabled us to introduce exciting new features in our upcoming meetings.
The next International Workshop on the CCN Family of Genes will take place in Totonto, from October 18th to October 22nd.
Details pertaining to hotel booking and meeting registration have been posted on the website.
We are now in receipt of abstracts and the final program should be available soon.
Let me take this opportunity to thank Annick Perbal and Herman Yeger for their work. As many of you know, organizing a meeting is not an easy task but it is essential that these meetings be run on a regular basis because they provide a unique opportunity for researchers inside and outside the field to meet with experts, discuss new ideas, and set up new collaborative projects.
I have introduced this year an "Educational Session". The purpose of this new type of session is to provide our attendees with a group of conferences dealing with a subject of interest not necessarily directly related to CCN proteins. Peter Butler will be sponsoring a ICCNS-Springer award that will be given to a scientist whose is recognized for his or her major contribution to a field of interest.
This year, the award will be given to Pr. Paul Bornstein who will chair a session that he organized on matricellular proteins. I wish to express my personal thanks to Paul Bornstein and Peter Butler for making this a reality.

This first Editorial is inaugurating a new communication track with ICCNS members and all those who are interested in the activities of our Society. Again, we welcome all suggestions.
If you haven't joined our Society yet, there is no time like the present !

Yours Sincerely,
Professor Bernard Perbal
President, International CCN Society