Announcements

Toxins has recently been receiving an increasing number of interesting paper submissions. We would like to invite you to review manuscripts for Toxins (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/toxins).

Volunteer reviewers of Toxins will enjoy the following benefits:

• All reviewers will receive a personalized review confirmation certificate in appreciation of their efforts;
• All reviewers will be considered for the outstanding reviewer award granted annually by the Toxins Editorial Board and Editorial Team, to gratefully acknowledge the work they have done;
• Those reviewers who provide timely, thorough, and rigorous peer review reports will receive a discount voucher that can be applied to their future publications in any MDPI journal;
• All reviewers will be included in the journal’s annual reviewer acknowledgements;
• Proactive and cooperative volunteer reviewers may be offered the opportunity to join the Editorial Board of the journal (subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Chief);
• All reviewers can build their profile on Publons and have their reviewing activity automatically added for participating journals.

If you are interested in joining us as a volunteer reviewer, please click on the link below to apply:
https://susy.mdpi.com/volunteer_reviewer_info/update.

After your registration has been approved, you will be able to see a list of manuscripts that are recruiting reviewers. 

If you have any other questions, please contact the Toxins Editorial Office (toxins@mdpi.com). We look forward to hearing from you.

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

The 2020 citation metrics have been officially released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)!

We are pleased to announce that 85 MDPI journals are included, of which:

• 10 journals received their first impact factor
• 96% of journals increased their impact factor from 2019
• 32 journals (38%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2021

Source: 2020 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ® (Clarivate, 2021)

Dear Colleagues,

As Editor-in-Chief of Toxins, I am pleased to announce that the following applicant has been selected as the winner of the Toxins 2020 Young Investigator Award.

Dr. Andreas Hougaard Laustsen
Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

With so many high-quality applicants, the evaluation process and final decision were challenging. We would like to thank all the applicants for submitting their fascinating range of research topics. On behalf of the Assessment Committee, I congratulate the winner on his accomplishment.

Prof. Dr. Jay W. Fox
Editor-in-Chief, Toxins

On behalf of the Toxins 2020 Young Investigator Award Evaluation Committee

Biotoxins seriously threaten human and animal health, and are directly related to food safety. It has been a research hotspot in the fields of agriculture, food and public health. In order to strengthen China’s biotoxin research, especially academic exchanges among young researchers, the "Biotoxin Research" Youth Forum will be held from June 9–11 in Beijing, China.

1. Conference topics

The meeting will be organized around the following three topics:

1.1. Detection, Monitoring and Early Warning of Biotoxins (Convenors: Qi Zhang and Wentao Xu)

1.2. Toxicological Evaluation and Risk Assessment of Biotoxins (Convenors: Xiulan Sun and Meng Wang)

1.3. Safety Control of Biotoxins (Convenors: Fuguo Xing and Peilong Wang)

2. Conference Organization

Organizer:

National Science and Technology Innovation Alliance for Mycotoxin Prevention and Control

Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Oil Crops Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Participation Unit:

Toxins (MDPI)

Beijing Meizheng Biotechnology Group

Shanghai Yirou Information Technology Co., Ltd. (Continuous update...)

Main sponsor:

Mars Global Food Safety Center, Beijing Qinbang Biotechnology, Beijing Zhongjian Baotai, Qingdao Pribolab, Agilent Technologies, Shanghai Xiongtu Biotechnology, Hebei Elisa (Continuous update...)

3. Academic Advisory Committee

Director: Peiwu Li (Academician)

Deputy Director: Fengzhong Wang (Director)

Committee: Yongning Wu, Shuo Wang, Zhixian Gao, Shiping Tian, Ying Chen, Zhonghua Ma, Yang Liu, Changpo Sun, Jianrong Shi and Aibo Wu

4. Youth Academic Committee (in alphabetical order)

Boqiang Li, Erqi Guan, Fei Shen, Fuguo Xing, Hongyin Zhang, Jianhong Xu, Jin Mao, Jun Tian, Liangbin Hu, Meng Wang, Qi Zhang, Qiugang Ma, Xiaolin Zhang, Xiulan Sun, Wentao Xu, Wei Guo, Wei Wang, Yan Wang, Yueju Zhao and Zhongjie Zhang 

5. Organizing Committee

Aibo Wu, Qi Zhang, Fuguo Xing, Meng Wang, Peilong Wang, Wentao Xu, Wei Guo, Mengning Ren, Yanjia Wen, Gang Wang, Jing Jin, Xu Li, Bolei Yang, Junning Ma and Bowen Tai

6. Schedule

• 9 June 2021

All day: Conference registration, exhibitions set up

• 10 June 2021

Morning:

Opening ceremony

Leader's speech:

1. Fengzhong Wang (director)
2. Leader of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs

Expert report:

1. Peiwu Li (Academician, Invited)—(45 min)
2. Shiping Tian (Professor) Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences—(25 min)
3. Zhonghua Ma (Professor), College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University—(25 min)
4. Ren Lai (Professor), Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences—(25 min)
5. Jinglin Wang (Professor) Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Academy of Military Medical Sciences—(25 min)

Afternoon:

Expert report:

6. Aibo Wu (Professor) Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences—(25 min)
7. Yang Liu (Professor), School of Food Science and Engineering, Foshan University of Science and Technology—(25 min)
8. Changpo Sun (Professor) Standard Quality Center, National Grain and Material Reserve Bureau—(25 min)
9. Jianrong Shi (Professor) Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences
10. Hongyin Zhang (Professor) School of Food and Bioengineering, Jiangsu University

To be continued...

• 11 June 2021

Session Report

Morning:

Topic 1: Rapid Detection of Biotoxins

Topic 2: Toxicity Evaluation of Biotoxins

Topic 3: Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Biotoxins

Afternoon:

Topic 4: Biotoxins Monitoring and Early Warning

Topic 5: Risk Assessment of Biotoxins

Topic 6: Safe Detoxification of Biotoxins

7. Contacts

Academic Contact:

Fuguo Xing 010-62811868, 15801607126

Gang Wang 010-62819472, 15501150911

Jing Jin 010-62819472, 15210682859

Bowen Tai 010-62819472, 13269858921

Chenxi Zhang 010-62819472, 15701575736

Email: toxins2021@126.com

Exhibitor Contact:

Xu Li 010-62819472，13811976783

Bolei Yang 010-62819472, 18519373787

Mailing address: Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, No. 2, Yuanmingyuan West Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100193, China

Email: toxins2021@126.com

Preparatory Group for the Youth Forum on Biotoxin Research

Dear Colleagues,

As Editor-in-Chief of Toxins, I am pleased to announce that the following three applicants have been selected as the winners of the Toxins 2021 Travel Award.

• Cecilie Knudsen
  A Ph.D. student at the Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

• Laura Biessy
  A Ph.D. student at the Cawthron Institute, New Zealand

• Marcelo Mendes Rabelo
  A postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida, USA

With so many high-quality applicants, the evaluation process and final decision were challenging. We would like to thank all the applicants for submitting their fascinating range of research topics. On behalf of the assessment committee, I congratulate the winners on their accomplishments.

Prof. Dr. Jay W. Fox
Editor-in-Chief, Toxins

On behalf of the Toxins 2021 Travel Awards Evaluation Committee

The editorial team of Toxins would like to congratulate the winners of the Best Speaker Award, Benjamin J. Tombling and Nisharnthi M. Duggan, at the 7th Venoms to Drugs Conference.

See the image of the awardees below (from left to right): Glenn King (Program Committee), Nisharnthi M. Duggan from Richard Payne’s lab at the University of Sydney (Best Speaker Award Winner), Paul Alewood (Convenor), Benjamin J. Tombling from David Craik’s lab at the University of Queensland (Best Speaker Award Winner), and Richard Lewis (Program Committee).

Here are the titles and abstracts of their work:

To Affinity and Beyond: Engineering Sub-optimal Peptide Drug leads Using Bioactive Cyclisation

Benjamin J. Tombling

Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia

Peptides are regarded as promising next-generation therapeutics. However, to facilitate the translation of bioactive peptides into the clinic, optimisation strategies are almost always required. Peptide cyclisation strategies have been used to improve the drug-like properties of linear peptides. Until now, the primary focus has been on the use of ‘inert’ peptide linkers with respect to a biological target. Here, we show that affinity can be significantly improved by enriching the linker with functional amino acids, a concept termed bioactive cyclisation. We engineered a peptide inhibitor of PCSK9, a target for the clinical management of hypercholesterolemia, to demonstrate this concept. The identification of an optimised cyclisation linker from library screening produced a cyclic peptide with 100-fold improved affinity over the sub-optimal parent peptide. Furthermore, the cyclic peptide efficiently restores cholesterol metabolism in functional human liver cell assays, demonstrating a clear relationship between affinity and efficacy. The combination of thermodynamic binding analysis, SAR, NMR and MD studies confirmed the cyclisation linker forms favourable interactions with PCSK9, which are responsible for enhanced activity. A comprehensive analysis of bioactive peptides suggests many have underdeveloped affinities and we propose that implementing bioactive cyclisation linkers is a valuable addition to the armamentarium of peptide optimisation tools. This work was recently published in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.0c01766)

Brief Introduction of Benjamin J. Tombling: Benjamin completed his undergraduate studies in chemistry at The University Edinburgh before moving to Brisbane, Australia, where he recently finished his PhD under the supervision of Dr Conan Wang and Professor David Craik at The University of Queensland. His research has focused on establishing a platform of technologies to enhance the drug-like properties of underdeveloped peptide drugs leads, predominately for the development of inhibitors of PCSK9—a validated therapeutic target for the clinical management of hypercholesterolemia. However, a major incentive behind his work is that the strategies developed have the potential to be broadly applied throughout peptide drug design, including the engineering of toxin-derived peptides. Outside of the lab, he has a keen interest for watching and playing a variety of sports, and he enjoys spending time at the beach and cooking up a BBQ, taking advantage of the sunny days that Australia has to offer.

Total Chemical Synthesis of Venom and Salivary Proteins via Ligation Technologies

Nisharnthi M. Duggan, Sameer S. Kulkarni, Timothy S. Chisholm, Emma E. Watson and
Richard J. Payne

School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, NSW, Australia

The therapeutic potential of venom polypeptides and proteins is well recognised, with several venoms and venom-derived molecules approved for clinical use [1]. This has led to a significant demand for technologies to rapidly and efficiently access these biomolecules, especially when production through recombinant expression is low yielding, or for those bearing functionally important post-translational modifications (PTMs) [2]. We have developed a range of ligation technologies that enable the rapid chemical synthesis of peptides and proteins, with or without PTMs [3]. This talk will highlight the use of solid phase peptide synthesis and native chemical ligation in the synthesis of neuroprotective, cysteine-knot, funnel-web spider venom-derived peptide Hi1a, as well as the optimisation of oxidative folding [4]. A more recently developed methodology is the diselenide-selenoester ligation reaction [5,6]. This technology enables the fusion of peptide fragments with unprecedented kinetics and can be coupled with in situ deselenisation chemistry to afford native polypeptides and proteins [6,7]. The power of the DSL methodology will be highlighted via two examples: 1) the one-pot synthesis of anti-thrombotic salivary protein thrombostasin and 2) the total synthesis of a library of modified anti-thrombotic sulfoproteins, each of which could be assembled, purified and quantified for a bioassay within a few hours [8].

1. King, G. F. Expert Opin Biol Ther. 2011, 11, 1469-1484.
2. Kulkarni, S. et al. Nature Rev. Chem. 2018, 2, 0122.
3. Thompson, R. E. et al.  J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 8161-8164.
4. King, G. F. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2016, 114, 3750-3755.
5. Mitchell, N. J. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 14011-14014.
6. Kulkarni, S. et al. Nature Protocols, 2019, 14, 2229-2257.
7. Mitchell, N. J. et al. Chem. 2017, 2(5), 703-715.
8. Watson, E. E. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2019, 16, 13873-13878.

Brief Introduction of Nisharnthi M. Duggan: Nisha is a PhD candidate at The University of Sydney, working for Professor Richard Payne in the area of organic chemistry and chemical biology. She graduated from Monash University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science (Advanced, Hons I), including an honors research project focusing on synthetic methodology with Professor David Lupton. In 2017, Nisha took a break from her studies to undertake research at the ANU with Professor Michael Sherburn, and then briefly worked as an experimental scientist at CSIRO in Melbourne before moving to Sydney to commence her PhD in 2018. Throughout her PhD, Nisha has worked on the synthesis of venom and salivary peptides that may be used to treat stroke and thrombotic disease.

MDPI Books recently released Book Builder, a new online tool to conveniently arrange, design and produce an eBook from any content published in MDPI journals. Book Builder offers two functions: on the one hand (1) Selections, available to every registered user of MDPI; on the other hand (2) Special Issue Reprints, which can be used exclusively by Guest Editors of Special Issues.

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In June of this year, MDPI will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its foundation. To mark this significant milestone, we have created a 25th Anniversary page on our website that evokes the development of our company over the past quarter-century.

MDPI has been a pioneer of Open Access publishing ever since the concept was first created.

In a wide-ranging interview, our CEO Delia Mihaila reflects on the company’s 25th anniversary and its contribution to the world of scientific publishing.

Delia considers how MDPI has evolved since starting life in 1996 as a visionary ‘project’ run out of an apartment in Basel, Switzerland, by Dr. Shu-Kun Lin. A chemist who was passionate about the long-term preservation of rare chemical sample, Dr. Lin was determined to help scholars publish their findings as quickly as possible and make their research results available to as wide a readership as possible worldwide. That determination remains unchanged 25 years later.

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We welcome the following 34 recognized researchers, who recently joined the Editorial Board of Toxins:

Prof. Dr. Matthew P. Rowe, University of Oklahoma, USA
Dr. Siro Luvisetto, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology (IBBC), National Research Council (CNR) of Italy, Italy
Dr. Juan C. Blanco, Marine Research Centre (CIMA), Spain
Prof. Dr. Christine Edwards, Robert Gordon University, UK
Dr. Lorena Tuchscherr, Institute of Medical Microbiology, Germany
Dr. Antonia Susca, Institute of Science of Food Production (ISPA), National Research Council (CNR), Italy
Dr. Houda Berrada Ramdani, Universitat de València (UV), Spain
Dr. Alicia Rodríguez, University of Extremadura, Spain
Prof. Federica Cheli, Coordinating Research Centres (CRC) – Innovation for well-being and Environment (I-WE) - Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy
Dr. Zbigniew Adamski, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
Prof. Dr. Sophie Liabeuf, UPJV University, France
Dr. Francesco Giansanti, University of L’Aquila, Italy
Dr. Massimo Bortolotti, Alma Mater Studiorum—University of Bologna, Italy
Dr. Emiko Sato, Tohoku University, Japan
Prof. Dr. Andrea Bolognesi, University of Bologna, Italy
Dr. Fabrizio Anniballi, Department of Food Safety, Nutrition and Veterinary Public Health, Italy
Dr. Bruno Goud, Department of Cell Biology and Cancer (UMR CNRS 144), Institut Curie, France
Dr. Laurent Marsollier, French Institute of Health and Medical Research, France
Prof. Dr. Antonella Giannantoni, University of Siena, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Santa Maria alle Scotte, Italy
Prof. Dr. Andrea Santamato, Riuniti Hospital, University of Foggia, Italy
Dr. Christina Schroeder, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, USA
Dr. Jeroen Kool, Division of BioAnalytical Chemistry, Amsterdam Institute of Molecular and Life Sciences, The Netherlands
Dr. Sandra Sousa, Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology, Portugal
Dr. Florence Richard-Forget, INRAE, UR 1264 MycSA Mycologie et Sécurité des Aliments. Centre de recherche Nouvelle-Aquitaine-Bordeaux, France
Prof. Ren Lai, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Prof. Dr. Ligang Zhou, China Agricultural University, China
Prof. Dr. Yidong Wu, Nanjing Agricultural University, China
Dr. Peter A. Keyel, Texas Tech University, USA
Prof. Dr. Moo-Seung Lee, Korea University of Science and Technology, Korea
Dr. Stéphanie Simon, Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, INRAE, Département Médicaments et Technologies pour la santé, France
Prof. Dr. José Miguel Ferreras, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Physiology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Valladolid, Spain
Prof. Dr. Lucía Citores, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Physiology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Valladolid, Spain
Prof. Dr. Sofia N. Chulze, Research Institute on Mycology and Mycotoxicology (IMICO), National Scientific and Technological Research Council from Argentina (CONICET), Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto (UNRC), Argentina
Prof. Dr. Daniel Gillet, Section of Molecular Engineering for Health (SIMoS), JOLIOT, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, France

Further details about the Editorial Board can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/toxins/editors.