The American Society of Human Genetics at 70: Looking to the Future of Scientific Publishing and The American Journal of Human Genetics

I begin my second year as editor of The American Journal of Human Genetics as the American Society of Human Genetics begins its 70 th anniversary year. The origins of the society and The Journal were explained by the first ASHG president, H.J. Muller, in the inaugural issue: 1 Muller H.J. Progress and prospects in human genetics. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 1949; 1 : 1-18 PubMed Google Scholar “The two major purposes of this organization were to be the furtherance of sound research and the publication of a journal dealing with such research.” He went on to write, “… an unfortunate compartmentalism has for many years hindered persons in medicine and in the other specifically human disciplines from attaining the necessary knowledge of genetics and, mutatis mutandis, has hindered geneticists from mastering the more special human subjects.” (Should we be surprised to see Muller use this particular Latin phrase?) It is easy to highlight differences in the landscapes of both human genetics and publishing over this span of 70 years. To name a few: in 1949 the human chromosome number was thought to be 48, and the idea of genome sequencing would have been meaningless; similarly, digital publishing, commercial scientific publishers, and open access were decades in the future when ASHG was founded