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In this issue of Acta Pharmacologica Sinica, we are proud to present
to our readers and colleagues a series of review articles from several
Chinese-American university laboratories in USA[1-6].
These reviews are a collection of the proceedings from the 8th Chinese
Cardiovascular Pharmacology Conference held on July 23-26, 2004
in Urumchi, Xinjiang. As the first of its kind at any Chinese Pharmacological
Society meeting, a half-day research symposium in English was held
on the first day of this conference (an official meeting of the
society held every three years for Chinese cardiovascular pharmacologists
worldwide). The symposium was co-sponsored by the Cardiovascular
Pharmacology Division of the Chinese Pharmacological Society and
the Academy of Cardiovascular Research Excellence (ACRE), a non-profit
academic organization in USA that includes many of prominent American
faculties from mainland China in the field of cardiovascular research.
Like many other biomedical research areas in China, cardiovascular
pharmacology research has experienced significant growth in recent
years. The Cardiovascular Pharmaco-logy Division is the largest
division of the Chinese Pharmacological Society with the
most registered members. Similarly, of all the original research
articles published in Acta Pharmacologica Sinica, the premier pharmacology
journal in China, the total number of cardiovascular pharmacology
articles currently ranked first. An increasing number of cardiovascular
pharmacology laboratories in China have recently begun to publish
their original research findings in international journals, including
some in the top-tier journals of cardiovascular research in the
world[7,8]. More and more principal investigators have
also developed research collaborations with a number of overseas
laboratories. The aforementioned phenomena represent a promising
trend towards a modernizing era of Chinese cardiovascular pharmacology
in the early 21st century.
Despite the significant progress and growth, biomedical research
in China still faces a number of major challenges as highlighted
in two unprecedented "China voices" supplements recently
published in Nature[9,10]. Among these problems, a major
issue is a lack of impact in scientific publications. Although the
total publications from China ranked the ninth in the world between
the years 1997-2001, the citations per paper from China ranked only
the nineteenth with a rate of 1.56 according to a most recent study
based on the ISI Essential Science Indicators[11]. A
prominent overseas Chinese-American scientist pointed out that as
"measured by the number of original research papers published
in internationally refereed high-impact journals", a productive
scientist should have "published at least eight highly cited
research papers in the past ten years … in a journal with an
impact factor of at least two … and at least one should be
published in a journal with an impact factor of five or above"[12].
If such a "not overly demanding standard"[12]
would be used to judge research productivity, concrete efforts must
be made by a majority of Chinese cardiovascular pharmacologists
to meet it.
Chinese pharmacologists worldwide are eager and determined to make
a significant contribution to the success of the 15th World Congress
of Pharmacology (IUPHAR) to be hosted by the Chinese Pharmacological
Society in Beijing on July 2-7, 2006. The primary authors of this
review collection all grew up in China and now have all established
their independent research laboratories in several major universities
across the United States. The research work they presented in these
reviews spans from molecular cardiovascular biology to integrated
physiology and pharmacology. As an internationally refereed pharmacology
journal with increasing impact, Acta Pharmacologica Sinica would
like to showcase the research of these overseas Chinese cardiovascular
pharmacologists in this issue, and by doing so hopes to enhance
not only the research exchange and collaboration between Chinese
pharmacologists at home and overseas, but also the quality and impact
of Chinese pharmacology research in the world.
References
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