title: By the scientists, for the scientists.
abstract: My association with the JCB began very early in my scientific career. In fact, it predated my understanding that there would even be a scientific career. In the mid-1970s while still an undergraduate, the JCB published my very first paper, a contribution noted perhaps less so for its reporting the characterization of the first known protein in plant cell walls than for a footnote that called attention to the evolutionary conservation of a relationship between "sex and slime" throughout the plant and animal kingdoms.
authors.forename: Ira
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Mellman
mesh_terms: D011643:Publishing / Q000639:trends*; D012108:Research Personnel; D012693:Serial Publications / Q000639:trends*