It is my great pleasure and distinct honor to be named Editor-in-Chief of Frigid Zone Medicine, a high-quality, open access, medical journal in the English language, sponsored by the Heilongjiang Health Commission under the supervision of the Heilongjiang Health Development Research Center.

As a once somewhat inadequately valued research field, cold-region illness and other diseases or syndromes caused by cold stress of any kinds have been increasingly aware by the scientific community globally. Cold-temperature related diseases are especially manifested by cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, respiratory, and virus-transmitted diseases (such as COVID-19), particularly in regions relatively unaccustomed to winter weather, which constitutes a threat to global public health. Clinicians and researchers around the world have also perceived a need to bring together the growing body of fundamental and translational researches exploring in breadth and depth the cold weather-related health issues with clinical applications. This trend is reflected by a steady increase in scientific publications on the subject.

The increasing need for addressing cold-region illness and medicine makes the periodical Frigid Zone Medicine come into being to fill the gaps of the field. Frigid zone is defined as the regions with an average temperature below 0℃ in the winter. Accordingly, Frigid-zone Medicine refers to the medical research and practice on the cold weather-related health problems. Prior to its official lunch, the journal has been brought into the “High-Starting-Point New Journal” project of the “Excellence Action Plan of Chinese Science and Technology Journals” supported by the China Association for Science and Technology.

Frigid Zone Medicine aims to build a high-end international medical science platform for medical and healthcare professionals and basic researchers all over the world for disseminating their innovative scientific thoughts, cutting-edge research technologies, state-of the art technologies, and most updated scientific information from fundamental, preventive, clinical and translational researches, so as to fosters the worldwide interest in multi-disciplined research in and clinical applications of knowledge and technologies to cold-region diseases.

Turning to journal content, today’s research in the medical sciences is more methodologically complex, mechanistically in-depth, and interdisciplinary than ever. The scope of Frigid Zone Medicine encompasses all of the subspecialties pertinent to cold-region illnesses and related topics including but not limited to non-communicable diseases, internal medicine, basic medical science, mental disease, cardiology, rheumatology, pneumology, angiology, altitude stress, frostbite, aging health, and health policy. It welcomes submissions of manuscripts in the forms of original research articles, clinical reports, case study reports, clinical commentaries, reporting and conduct guidelines, study protocols, methods papers, review articles, short communications, correspondence and technical progress, and position papers. 

Frigid Zone Medicine is committed to provide fair, fast, and expert peer-review to authors and to make the content freely available to readers. The editorial board members are selected from an international pool of researchers and clinicians with high levels of professional achievement and recognition in their fields and stellar reputations in their disciplines, as well as sound experience in publishing services and management. As scientists, we value veracity above all other virtues. It is the view of our editorial team that, now more than ever, science needs reliable mechanisms for assessing quality and trueness with a highest-standard and rigorous peer-review process. I and my editorial team, as well as all other editorial personnel will strive with enthusiasm to achieve the aims of the journal as a world-class forum for cold-region medical sciences with the highest scientific standard.

Frigid Zone Medicine is scheduled to launch its first issue in May, 2021. Based in China, this journal is fully open to scientific community from all over the world. Peers and fellows are all welcome to join us as editorial board members, reviewers, or contributors to the journal.