Cardiogenetics : An Open Access Journal

“A new era in Cardiogenetics” [...]

"A new era in Cardiogenetics". This was the title of my opening editorial when we started the fantastic journey of Cardiogenetics [1].
Back in 2011, when new techniques like next generation sequencing were just emerging in the genomic panorama [2]. Exome sequencing, noncoding DNA, bioinfomatics, big data, micro-RNA, long-noncoding DNA, epigenetics, entered our daily vocabulary, highlighting the importance of forming a "cardiogenetics team" working side by side, bringing the lab to the patients' bed, and vice-versa [2][3][4][5]. Inherited and rare cardiovascular disease became a peculiar and important entity in the panorama of cardiovascular disease. Thanks to the new therapeutics opportunities, an increasing number of cardiologists are converging their interest in the field [6,7].
Here in 2020, Covid-19, a tsunami on the health systems worldwide, but also on the capacity of scientists to develop and give priority to new projects, unrelated to SARS-CoV2. Inherited and rare disease clinical services have changed their perspectives, favoring teleconsulting/telemedicine approaches [8].
Can we imagine a new era "post Covid-19"? We must learn from mistakes and good things (misleading scientific and media information on one side, use of technologies on the other side), and build new global and regional priorities on this ground. We are all anxious to open our drawer to find that our mask and hand sanitizer are not there anymore, that our fight with the virus has been won, and our priorities as clinicians and scientists are again "Covid-19 free".
In this difficult and confusing time MDPI, an organization with more than two decades of experience in online, Open Access science publishing, and dedicated editorial office staff who have a science background, took over Cardiogenetics from PAGEPress, betting on the renewed interest of the genetics and the cardiology communities [9].
I am happy share this venture with Prof. Lia Crotti and Prof. Perry Elliott, who represent recognized world-wide leaders in the field of cardiogenetics. Cardiogenetics publishes reviews, original and research articles, short and case reports.
A strong Editorial Board of active clinicians and scientists will support this new experience. Rapid and high-level peer review, fast online publication, new special issue proposals, waived fees for 2020, and other promoting initiative will help to increase Cardiogenetics visibility and readers' appetites.

Lia Crotti is associate professor of Cardiology at the University Milano Bicocca in Milan and
she is the head of the Cardiomyopathy Unit in the IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano in Milan, Italy. Furthermore, in the same Institute she also has a leading role in the Center for Cardiac Arrhythmias of Genetic Origin and Laboratory of Cardiovascular Genetics.
Lia Crotti is an internationally renowned expert in channelopathies and cardiomyopathies and her research interests are mainly focused on the genetic basis of sudden cardiac death, in genetically transmitted arrhythmogenic diseases. She identified a number of genetic modifiers of the clinical severity of the Long QT Syndrome. She discovered through whole exome sequencing that calmodulin genes were novel genetic substrate for severe form of Long QT Syndrome and through the creation of an international Calmodulinopathy Registry she better characterized this new clinical entity. She also identified CDH2 as a new gene responsible for Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy and recently characterized some specific features. Furthermore, her research is focused on the improvement of the clinical management and treatment of patients affected by arrhythmogenic diseases and through the use of cardiomyocyte-derived IPs cells new drugs identified, are now under clinical evaluation. She regularly reviews manuscripts for all leading journals in cardiology and she is author or co-author of 146 peer reviewed papers and 17 book chapters. Her total Impact factor is 1151, with a total H-index of 41. She is vice-chair of the European Cardiac Arrhythmia Genetics (ECGen) focus group within EHRA. Besides her home Country (Italy) she has been spending research periods in the USA, South Africa, and Germany. Journal. Over the past 25 years, Prof. Elliott has established an international reputation in the field of heart muscle disease, authoring more than 500 peer-reviewed papers on the subject. He develops diagnostic standards, risk stratification tools and clinical service models based on some of Europe's largest inherited heart disease cohorts, fostering industry collaborations in sequence interpretation, therapeutic trials and multicentre research partnerships.