The AAAS has announced the launch of Science Translational Medicine. This is further and critical recognition of this discipline and we are deeply gratified that translational medicine has risen to the level of recognition by one of the world's most prestigious scientific organizations. We believe that Science Translational Medicine will provide another valuable venue for the rapid and broad dissemination of important articles in the field and contribute to enhancing the effectiveness of translational medicine overall. It has been almost six years since we launched the Journal of Translational Medicine as an open-access journal with Biomed Central. At the beginning, we faced the inevitable skepticism and received several inquires among others also from Science reporters questioning both the significance of translational medicine in today's biomedical world and the need for a new journal dedicated to it.