The value of the GWAS approach has been questioned recently, with the argument put forward that it “flatters to deceive” and fails to deliver the anticipated paradigm shift in disease understanding.8 In

this sense, therefore, PBC represents a triumph for GWASs because the PBC studies are likely to turn out to be landmarks in our understanding of the disease. It is also likely that the findings will translate into new approaches to therapy sooner than GWAS findings typically do, with modulation of the IL-12 pathway representing one obvious potential approach. The findings of these studies also, however, suggest that PBC may be not only an important disease to study in its own right but also an important paradigm for our understanding of immune regulation in humans as a result of its homogeneity and the diagnostic accuracy. It is often forgotten that PBC was a landmark disease GSK-3 assay in the study of autoimmunity and represented one of the first disease settings in which autoantibodies were described and in which the autoantigens associated with human disease were identified.19-21 We may now

be at the point at which PBC returns to the forefront of the study of the mechanistic immunobiology of autoimmunity. These are interesting times. “
“Over our term as editors for HEPATOLOGY, we have published over 1,645 original research articles as well as 160 reviews and meeting proceedings. These publications were cited over 32,000 上海皓元 times, and over 5.2 million downloads occurred. We are grateful

to our authors, reviewers, and, especially Rapamycin from my perspective, to our associate editors. The associate editors were comprised of a remarkable group of physician scientists. All of our associate editors, with the exception of Dr. Margaret Koziel, who was replaced by Dr. David Nelson, remained in this position for the entire term. During our tenure, this group of individuals undertook several professional moves, all for promotions, yet managed to maintain their excellent, timely overview of the flow of papers to and through the journal. During our term, we were privileged to be involved with a rapid evolution in discoveries regarding liver disease. We saw the emergence, in this journal, of descriptions of targeted therapy for hepatocellular cancer, the introduction of new treatments for hepatitis B and C, and new treatments for the complications of cirrhosis. We also saw more individualized medicine in hepatology with tests for interleukin-28B for interferon response and PNPLA3 for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and hepatic fibrosis after liver transplant, as well as the rapid development of applications in the field of stem cell biology to liver disease. The introduction of Comments From the Editors, suggested by Dr. Greg Gores, and Master’s Perspective, suggested by Dr. Saul Karpen, were new additions to the journal, but also ones for which we received many favorable comments.