On behalf of the editorial board and associate editors of Journal of Clinical and Translational Pathology (JCTP), we would like to invite you to join us in welcoming and celebrating our inaugural issue. JCTP is the official journal of the Chinese American Pathologists Association (CAPA). On this special occasion, we would like to express our sincerest gratitude and deepest appreciation of CAPA leadership and its Board of Directors for their forwarding-thinking, great vision, and unwavering support for JCTP.

CAPA, formerly Hua Tuo Society of Pathology, Inc., is a registered non-for-profit organization of Chinese American pathologists in the United States and Canada who are either practicing or in training. With continuous and collective efforts from its valuable members, CAPA, since its establishment in 2004, has become a nationally- and internationally-recognized pathologist organization with over 800 registered members today. Achieving pathology professional excellence through collaboration between CAPA members and the pathology community at large is one of the CAPA’s major missions, and we firmly believe that there is no better way to accomplish this mission other than by having our own professional journal. We anticipate with great enthusiasm that JCTP can serve as an excellent platform for broader and deeper academic exchange and communication. By embracing diversity and inclusion in the rapidly ever changing world, we hope that JCTP can serve as a bridge to bring CAPA members, pathologists and scientists of minority ethnicities, and the members of other pathology communities together to promote and advance humanity and academic excellence.

We are launching JCTP at a time when pathology is transforming from its traditional morphology-based medical specialty to a multimodal medical specialty. With an increasing demand for precision and personalized medical care, pathology is incorporating new emerging techniques including molecular and genomic medicine, digital pathology, and artificial intelligence into its practice. It is time, now more than ever, to get pathology back to its roots as a medical specialty that “translates” the basic sciences and clinical medicine. JCTP is committed to facilitating this translation. JCTP publishes high quality peer-reviewed original research articles, reviews, perspectives, and letters that are pertinent to clinical and translational pathology, including but not limited to anatomic pathology, clinical pathology (also known as laboratory medicine), and experimental pathology. Basic scientific research on the pathogenesis of diseases as well as application of pathology-related diagnostic techniques or methodologies also fit the scope of the JCTP.

JCTP recognizes the distinct advantages of using an open access publication model for timely dissemination of innovative and important research findings. Unrestricted free access to our publications is anticipated to foster intellectual discourse across geographic and disciplinary boundaries. To support the success of our open access approach, we ensure the integrity and high quality of research published in our journal by practicing a rigorous peer review process and by following strict guidelines for ethics in publication and in conduct of the scientific research.

Finally, it is our honor and privilege to be the first editors-in-chief of the new CAPA official journal. We welcome your suggestions, submissions, and contributions to the journal. With the assistance of the reviewers, associate editors, editorial board members, and editorial office staff, we are confident that JCTP will soon become a prominent journal in the field of pathology.