We are pleased to announce that Hayley Newton, Deputy Head, Department of Microbiology, Monash University, Australia, is now an Editor-in-Chief of Pathogens and Disease.

Hayley Newton was previously a Handling Editor for the journal, and we are very excited she will be deepening her role with Pathogens and Disease. We wish to thank Willa Huston, as outgoing Editor-in-Chief, for her service and she will remain an Editor of the journal. On appointment to her new role we asked Hayley some questions about her background, research interests, and view on the direction of the journal:  

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

”Intracellular bacterial pathogens – these microbes have evolved the ability to replicate within distinct intracellular niches and I think the weird and wonderful ways they do this is just fascinating. My research team is particularly interested in Coxiella, the zoonotic pathogen that causes Q fever, and Legionella species that can cause Legionnaires’ disease. These bacteria set up unique replicative niches inside human cells by using a Dot/Icm secretion system that spits out hundreds of effector proteins into the human host cell. These effector proteins exert control over nearly all elements of eukaryotic cell biology making them unique tools to explore human cell biology. We investigate the role of these effector proteins and the intricate details of the host-pathogen interface.”

What inspired you to get involved with the Pathogens and Disease journal?

”I really like to engage with society journals because organisations such as FEMS do wonderful work supporting the microbiology community. Pathogens and Disease publishes a lot of research that’s relevant to my areas of interest plus, because of the breadth of the journal, I also find myself learning about new things whenever I look at the latest Pathogens and Disease publications.”

What do you see as the future direction for Pathogens and Disease?

”Along with several other FEMS journals, Pathogens and Disease has moved to a fully open access format in 2024. This is an important change that makes the high-quality published research freely available for anyone to read, anywhere in the world. This sort of change is an important way to support the advancement of our discipline and facilitate broader community engagement with scientific research.”

What are the best reasons for authors to publish in Pathogens and Disease?

”FEMS is a not-for-profit organisation that supports our research community. There are 2 other points that also immediately come to mind:

1. Pathogens and Disease is a broad scope journal where quality research can reach a global audience.
2. We have a diverse editorial board of world-renowned leaders in all aspects of Pathogens and Disease who are enthusiastic to support the publication of novel findings.”

We wish Hayley Newton the very best in her new role and encourage potential authors to reach out if they have relevant papers to publish.

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Why Publish With The FEMS Journals?

The FEMS journals are run by microbiologists, and for microbiologists. Every article published by us has been rigorously reviewed for soundness of science by our community of academic peer reviewers – and any surplus revenue generated by the journals goes directly into supporting microbiology and microbiologists.