2005 marks the 20th year John A. Smith, MD, PhD, MMM, professor and director, Division of Laboratory Medicine, has served as a founding editor of the Current Protocols series, published by J. Wiley & Sons, Inc. In 1985, seven Harvard professors from the departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology, Genetics, and Pathology, including Dr. Smith, developed the idea of a loose-leaf, quarterly-updated publication, Current Protocols in Molecular Biology. "We envisioned a laboratory manual to make molecular biology methods available in a step-by-step protocol reproducible by scientists anywhere in the world," he notes.

At the time, the predominant molecular biology methods text was Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual by Maniatis, Fritsch, and Sambrook. "The static nature of their traditionally published book, coupled with the dynamic nature of molecular biology, provided us with an opportunity to compete and, at the same time, improve publications for novice and expert molecular biologists," Dr. Smith adds.

Since then, the "Red Book" has become an indispensable reference for molecular biology laboratories worldwide and one of the top earning books in the history of scientific publishing. The Current Protocols series now has expanded to 12 books covering key methods used in other areas of biomedical research (eg, bioinformatics, cell biology, cytometry, human genetics, immunology, magnetic resonance imaging, neuroscience, nucleic acid chemistry, pharmacology, protein science, and toxicology).