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Benjamin Garcia, of the biochemistry and molecular biophysics department at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been a member of the Molecular & Cellular Proteomics editorial board for many years, which has driven his interest in the editorial process. Garcia will now leverage his experience as editor-in-chief of ASBMB’s newest journal, Insights in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, or IBMB.

Matt Herp

Benjamin Garcia gives a presentation at the 2025 ASBMB annual meeting in Chicago.

“As an editor for other journals, I have enjoyed being able to help authors strengthen their manuscripts and get their work to the finish line,” he said. “I view each interaction with an author as a chance to enhance a paper.”

In partnership with the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, ASBMB will launch IBMB in early 2026. The journal will serve as a publication outlet for high-quality manuscripts with a broader scientific scope than ASBMB’s current suite of journals: , and .

In the scientific publishing world at large, evolving trends in research, driven by data-rich experiments and increased cross-disciplinary collaboration, are pushing scientific publishing in new directions — a trend Garcia has noticed.

“Journals used to publish a lot of discovery work, but now it’s shifted towards understanding the underlying mechanism a lot more,” he said. “There’s value in publishing a really incredible discovery to get people in the field excited and interested in doing follow-up.”

ASBMB

Inaugural cover of Insights in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

With Garcia at the helm, IBMB will fill this niche and meet the growing demand for avenues to publish breaking research in an open, globally accessible manner. Although daunting, Garcia said he recognized the unique opportunity to help launch IBMB and is ready to apply his personal rigor to the publishing process.

“It’s a huge opportunity to create something special that will complement the other journals in the ASBMB family, as well as create a new venue for scientists to submit their discovery work to share with the community,” Garcia said. “My values and priorities include putting rigor and scientific merit over hype and being communicative and transparent.”

To achieve his goals, Garcia emphasized the importance of establishing a diverse and inclusive editorial board, which will consist of researchers from varied scientific backgrounds, career stages and diverse regions. In addition to maintaining the scientific integrity of the journal, the editorial board will also be key to promoting a positive reviewer-author partnership, which Garcia thinks is critical to an efficient and productive publishing process. 

“In my opinion, the reviewer–author relationship is a partnership in improving the science, not an adversarial gatekeeping process — central to developing this relationship is communication and transparency,” Garcia said. “The editorial board will be incredibly important to maintain both depth and breadth as well as the rigor and strong science we expect to publish.”

Within the first year, Garcia hopes IBMB will establish a strong publishing presence of discovery-based work that reaches a broad audience and reflects the future of biochemistry and molecular biology.

“I’d love IBMB to be more than just a place where great papers land, but rather, I’d like it to actively shape where biochemistry and molecular biology are going,” Garcia said. “I want this journal to highlight the discovery aspect of the scientific process, one that we all know and find addictive and be seen as the place where careful and imaginative biochemistry and molecular biology discoveries appear.”

Authors interested in submitting to IBMB can learn more here. For those interested in learning about the published research, the first edition is expected to be published in early 2026.