Since founded in November, 1959, for forty-eight years The Microbiological Society of Korea (MSK) is now the largest microbiological society in Korea. MSK has promoted basic research and application of microbiology as an academic society to spread the knowledge of microbiology.

As a result of the significant disruption that is being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic we are very aware that many researchers will have difficulty in meeting the timelines associated with our peer review process during normal times.  Please do let us know if you need additional time. Our systems will continue to remind you of the original timelines but we intend to be highly flexible at this time.

Journal of Microbiology (JM) announces a new guideline regarding the category of Microbial Systematics and Evolutionary Microbiology, effective from October 15, 2019, as follows:

1. JM no longer accepts a paper reporting novel species based on single strain species descriptions. Only manuscripts reporting the descriptions of novel taxa using multiple strains will be considered for publication. Single strain species descriptions will be considered only in the following exceptional cases:

1) isolation and characterization of ecologically important ‘candidatus’ or ‘uncultured’ taxa,

2) description of novel taxa above the rank of genus,

3) description of multiple species in a genus,

4) description of metabolically novel or important prokaryotic species.

The authors who want to publish a manuscript describing an exceptional single strain must submit a cover letter to the editor-in-chief emphasizing why a proposed taxon is of exceptional importance and interest.

2. For genome sequencing data, the closed or almost complete genome sequence of the type strain of the proposed type species must be provided at the manuscript submission stage.

3. Besides describing the overall genome relatedness index of the strains compared, the interpretation of genome data according to ecology, metabolism, biotechnology, and other biological context is highly encouraged.

4. JM no longer considers DNA-DNA hybridization results produced by wet experiments as a measure of genomic DNA relatedness, but only accepts in silico overall genome relatedness indices, such as average nucleotide identity (ANI).

5. Certificates convincing deposition of novel type strains in two recognized culture collections in two different countries should be included with the manuscript submission.