We would like to warmly welcome Dr. Nick Carbonetti as the new Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Pathogens and Disease. Nick started in his new role last month and this week we caught up with him to find out more about him and his future plans for the journal.

What interests you the most and what are you currently working on?

“I am interested in bacterial infection and host responses that lead to disease. Through investigation and further understanding of these processes we hope to identify novel host targets for development of potential therapeutics. In particular, we study host responses to infection by Bordetella pertussis, the bacterial pathogen that causes whooping cough. Our work is primarily in mouse models, but we are expanding some of our findings to a baboon model of pertussis in which typical human symptomology is observed. We are studying both adult and infant models, in which the pathogenesis of B. pertussis infection is quite different, as is the case in humans. Much of our work has focused on the role of pertussis toxin, a major B. pertussis virulence factor, in promoting pertussis infection and disease.”

What attracted you to Pathogens and Disease?

“I was already an editor (since 2013) and so I was familiar with the scope of science covered by the journal. Indeed, the name of the journal, Pathogens and Disease, pretty much describes my research interests. Several features of the journal are attractive, including the online only format, the relatively rapid time to publication, the absence of page charges, and the steadily increasing high quality of the published articles. In addition, I can work closely with the journal Editor-in-Chief, Patrik Bavoil, who is my colleague here at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.”

What are your future hopes and plans for the journal?

“I hope that we can continue to attract high quality research and review articles and that we increase the esteem with which the journal is regarded by scientists in the field. The journal has undergone significant changes and improvements in the last few years and we would like to continue that trend. If there is a peer journal whose quality and esteem we would like to emulate, it might be the ASM journal Infection and Immunity. In addition, I hope that the journal will continue to evolve to reflect the evolution of the scientific field that it covers.”

Dr. Nick Carbonetti  has already been busy in his new role editing a Thematic Issue on the topic of pertussis. If you’re interested in finding out more about this re-emerging disease, explore this collection of articles and discover the status quo in pertussis.