Annual Review of Physiology, 2017

The personal reflections of a scientist, which has been part of so many earlier Annual Reviews of Physiology, is missing in this particular volume. I found that disappointing – there is something about being taken along a life’s journey, sharing the pain, tribulations and ultimate triumph that has marked the lives of so many great scientists. Personal reflections allow scientists to share the uncertainties that they have faced and the measures they took to overcome them. These are lessons which are increasingly difficult to understand from published scientific papers, given the constraints of space and editorial oversight.