Abstract
We opened our Experimental Biology and Medicine (EBM) and Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine (SEBM) Asian office at the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) on 7 January 2008 during a ceremony that I was privileged to attend. My hosts were President Michael Lai, Executive Vice President Da Hsuan Feng, Dean Charles Lin and Huan-Yao Lei, who had become our first EBM Asian Editor. Huan-Yao was a Professor in the NCKU Department of Microbiology & Immunology and Chairman of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences and an international leader in the study of infectious diseases such as that caused by dengue virus. Once coming on-board, Huan-Yao set up a procedure where all manuscripts coming from Asia Pacific were read for English prior to being reviewed scientifically. This procedure, which was conducted in an amazing average of three days, greatly increased the acceptance rate for manuscripts coming from this part of the globe. Huan-Yao converted all of our Eurekalert press releases, on Featured articles, into Mandarin to make them more accessible to our Chinese readers. During his time as Asian Editor, the percentage of manuscripts coming from Asia Pacific increased from about 30% to approximately 50% of our total.
Huan-Yao Lei passed away on 26 March 2012 at 19:18 hours after a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. His passing leaves a large hole in our EBM team, but far more importantly, we have lost a great friend. All of you who have had the honor of meeting Huan-Yao have known him to be a warm, kind gentleman who was a person who made all around him better human beings. He will be greatly missed by me and all of us at EBM and SEBM.
I want you all to see a picture of Huan-Yao (top right) at the opening of the EBM/SEBM Asian office. This was a very happy day for both of us and is the way that I will remember him.
During Huan-Yao's illness, Sean Tsai, a member of our Editorial Board in the Physiology category and a Distinguished Professor of Physiology at NCKU, has been handling the Asian Editor duties. He has done a great job during Huan-Yao's illness at a time when we have received a large percentage of our manuscripts from Asia Pacific. I have therefore recommended to the Publication Committee that Sean Tsai become our next Asian Editor and they voted to support this recommendation to the SEBM Council. I am pleased that the SEBM Council also supported Sean's appointment. Sean was a close friend of Huan-Yao and has written a beautiful memorial article that appears in this issue.
