After editing the book Trends in Innate Immunity in our book series “Contributions to Microbiology” Arne Egesten and Heiko Herwald approached Karger Publishers, our Publication Manager Thomas Nold and me, in summer 2007 with the idea to launch a journal in the field of innate immunity. I quote from the foreword of the abovementioned volume: “Innate immunity is an area of research that is rapidly expanding, and it is rightfully attracting an increasing interest among a broad audience of scientists and clinicians.”

I remember our discussion in Basel very well when we went the whole hog to realize their idea. I was intrigued by its topic, and I often use it as an example for our scientific journal portfolio. Only one year later the first issue of the journal was launched with articles that addressed novel approaches or challenged old theories. Thanks to their impressive network in the field, Arne and Heiko could recruit an outstanding Editorial Board as well as attract excellent authors. They were always open to new things in publishing as choosing one “Editor’s Choice” article in each issue, to which there was free access online when the journal was still a subscription one. Although the journal has been open access since 2019 the Editor’s Choice articles are still very popular with the readers.

I always was thrilled to see how the journal developed, how well the transition to open access went and of course also followed the growth of the Impact Factor with great joy. So it is not an easy task to bid farewell to Arne and Heiko. I would like to end with a heartfelt thank-you to Arne and Heiko for all their work with the Journal of Innate Immunity since the very beginning. Thanks to their close connection to their editorial board, they could recruit Professor Catherine Greene and Professor Emer Reeves as their successors. The whole team of Karger Publishers assures its support of the new Editors-in-Chief and the journal’s continued efforts to contribute to the advancement of the innate immunity field. A very warm welcome to the new leadership.

A perfect closure of this Publisher’s Note is the quote that Arne and Heiko cited in their Editorial in August 2011:

“Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie”

William Shakespeare (“All’s well that ends well”).

Gabriella Karger

Chairwoman and Publisher

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