We’re going to gaze into our mystical scrying device (it might be a crystal sphere, or perhaps we are simply staring into the dark and steaming depths of our morning coffee) and give you a glimpse of the future. Actually, come to think of it, our scrying device probably looks a lot like the page from the DDNews 2020 media kit with the header “2020 Editorial Planner.”

 

So, if you were expecting any guaranteed winning stock market tips or supernatural knowledge of the next big blockbuster drug target, we are sorry to disappoint. We’re not that good. But we are happy to give you a preview of what’s coming for next year’s special content for the magazine, now that we’re at the end of this year.

 

Certainly, all our content is special (or so we like to think), but as you know if you’re a regular reader (and not a random visitor to an R&D lab picking up a copy of DDNews to keep you busy), in addition to our regular news sections, commentary section and the like, we also feature special features—at least one each month—providing previews of upcoming scientific conferences/annual meetings and coverage of various focused topics (therapeutics or technological approaches usually).

 

On the show preview side in 2020, we will cover ToxExpo, analytica, the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Association of Immunology, the International Society for Stem Cell Research, the Immuno-Oncology Summit, the American Society of Human Genetics, the Society for Neuroscience and the American Society for Cell Biology.

 

For our Focus Features, in which the DDNews editors provide a roundup of recent news in a particular area of interest, we will cover tox screening, CRISPR gene editing and neuroscience, as well as run three cancer research news Focus Features. And maybe one or two surprise Focus Features, too—we’ll see.

 

Finally, for our Special Reports, in which Features Editor Randall C Willis provides an in-depth look at an area of interest, we will see gene therapy, proteomics, neuroscience, cancer, organs-on-a-chip, stem cells, metabolic syndrome and infectious disease covered in 2020—details of the specifics for each to emerge as Randy gets closer to researching and writing them.

 

Whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, Kwanzaa or maybe something else is your holiday celebration of choice for December, may you have the best of times and come back to us in January refreshed and ready to tackle another year of drug discovery and development.