Blood, 1 January 2001, Vol. 97, No. 1, pp. 3-3
EDITORIAL
Inside Blood: a roadmap to the best and brightest
Beginning with this issue, the
Editors have instituted a new journal segment designed to provide the
readership a guide to particularly interesting papers in the clinical
and basic sciences. From each issue the editors will select a handful
of exemplary papers and recruit short commentaries from noted experts
in the corresponding fields. In this way it is hoped that each Inside Blood summary will enlighten our entire readership. By
highlighting the significance of particularly important papers in the
basic aspects of the hematologic and oncologic sciences, and by
illustrating their likely therapeutic applications or implications for
the present state of clinical care, we hope to provide our clinically oriented readers a vision of the scientific basis of future medical care. In a similar attempt to widen the mutual appreciation and understanding of the clinical and basic sciences, clinical studies that
could impact pressing questions of molecular mechanisms of hematologic
physiology or oncologic pathophysiology will be summarized, in order to
attract the interest and provoke the inquisitiveness of our more
investigative colleagues.
For example, in this issue's Inside Blood, a
paper on the identification of mutations in congenital amegakaryocytic
thrombocytopenia is discussed in terms that extend beyond the
recognition of a cause for an inherited hematologic disease:
the role of the thrombopoietin receptor in stem cell biology is
confirmed, the possibility of stem cell exhaustion is raised, and the
mutations themselves provide insights into the structure-function
relationships of a cytokine receptor. In a similar way, brief summaries
of papers identifying a soluble form of the 
C receptor
(a shared component of the IL-2, IL-4, IL-7, IL-9, and IL-15 receptors)
and of the successful use of a thymidine kinase suicide gene for the
targeted elimination of donor lymphocyte infusion-induced
graft-versus-host disease explore implications for all of hematology
and oncology.
We sincerely hope that Inside Blood will enhance readers'
enjoyment and advance their understanding of what is inside the pages
of Blood.
Kenneth Kaushansky
Editor-in-Chief Seattle, WA
