Dear readers,

We would first like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy, prosperous, and productive New Year!
The year of 2011 has been very special for our journal, Neural Regeneration Research (NRR). Many positive changes have been made to the journal making us ready to move to another level of success in the New Year.
First of all, we were honored to take the leadership as the new Editors-In-Chief for NRR in January 2011. We appreciate the trust from the journal and the opportunity to serve the contributors and readers. We hope that our journal will serve as a unique platform for reporting exciting new scientific discoveries as well as for exchanging scientific information among scientists at all levels who are interested in neural regeneration research. We thank you for your past support and look forward to your continued support in the years to come. 
Secondly, on May 5th, 2011, NRR hosted its First International Neural Regeneration Symposium in Shenyang, China. The symposium was a great success and the responses from the meeting attendees were overwhelmingly positive. Therefore, the journal has decided to make it an annual event. This year, as has been announced (http://www.nrronline.org/), the 2012 International Neural Regeneration Symposium will be held in Shenyang, China between September 22-25. One reason that we chose these dates is because September will be the best time to see colorful leaves in Shenyang, a city located in the northeastern part of China. In this meeting, 20 leading scientists from the international community will present their cutting-edge research. Furthermore, Dr. Bruce Alberts, the Editor-in-Chief of Science, has kindly accepted our invitation to deliver a keynote speech at the Symposium.
Thirdly, in June 2011, our journal has received the first impact factor from Journal Citation Report (JCR). Although the first impact factor for the journal was only 0.18 for the Year 2010, this is a very encouraging number and a solid starting point. We will continue to strive toward our goal of publishing high quality papers and to promote our journal to be one of the leading journals in this field.
Fourthly, as one critical step towards reaching our goal to be one of the leading journals in the field, we have reorganized our Editorial Board by inviting leading scientists to join the editorial board. The new Editorial Board members will appear in the first issue of 2012 (this issue). As you may recognize, the new Board members are highly internationally represented and are all experts in their respective fields associated with neural regeneration research. We warmly welcome the new Editorial Board members and express our sincere thanks to each of them for their support and service for NRR. 
Last but not the least, in 2011, we have defined the journal’s scope to focus primarily on 10 hot areas. These areas include: ① Development, Plasticity and Regeneration, ② Peripheral Nervous System Regeneration, ③ Central Nervous System Regeneration, ④ Stem cells and Cell-Based Regeneration, ⑤ Neural Degeneration and Regeneration, ⑥ Gene Therapy and Neural Regeneration, ⑦ Tissue Engineering and Neural Regeneration, ⑧ Emerging Technology in Neural Regeneration, ⑨ Chinese Medicine and Neural Regeneration, ⑩ Translational Neural Regeneration. We welcome potential contributors with original papers as well as review papers within the scope of this journal to consider NRR as your primary choice for submission. 
We hope that 2012 will be a continued success for NRR. In this year, we will continue to focus on advancing the quality and reputation of NRR. Two new strategies will be implicated: first, we would like to publish more review papers on special topics from scientists who are established in the field to provide readers with the most recent advances in a particular field. Second, we would like to publish special issues on a routine basis (e.g. monthly). Scientists who are interested in serving as a Guest Editor for a special issue on a special topic are encouraged to submit your proposal to NRR. In general, a special issue will include 3-5 review papers contributed by experts in their respective field. We look forward to reading your submissions and working with you closely to advance both the field of neural regeneration research and the quality and prominence of the journal, Neural Regeneration Research.
The key for the success of the journal is to timely publish innovative and creative papers. We are devoted to publishing both basic and clinical research that reflects the highest standard of neural regeneration research. Also, a focus on research that is highly translational from bench side to bedside will make NRR a leading journal in the field. Such a message has been clearly delivered by our Editorial Assistant Ms. Meng Zhao who was recently interviewed by Science magazine (Science 334:30, 2011).
Lastly, we hope you will take a close look at the program for the 2012 International Neural Regeneration Symposium to be held in Shenyang (http://www.nrronline.org/conference/). We warmly welcome you to participate in this exciting meeting and look forward to seeing you in the golden autumn season of the year.

Best Wishes for the New Year,
Editors-in-Chief
Kwok-Fai So, Ph.D.
Xiao-Ming Xu, Ph.D.