A Digital Journal for a Digital Era

In the early 21st century, we have tools that can fundamentally advance our understanding of health in ways that we can barely imagine. Just as imaging and genetics have revolutionized our understanding of health, altered our definition of diseases, revealed our ignorance, and changed therapeutic development, these new digital biomarkers – objective, quantifiable measures of biology or health collected and measured through digital devices – can do the same. Fundamental questions, such as where do asthma attacks occur, when does someone with Parkinson disease have tremor, and how does bipolar disorder affect socialization, can now be assessed in novel ways objectively. Many of these tools, including portables (e.g., smartphones), wearables, digestibles, and implantables, were introduced earlier this century and usually for purposes other than measuring and improving health. However, the interest and desire to use these tools for health are immense as was demonstrated with Apple’s release of ResearchKit, an open source platform for building smartphone applications for research purposes, in March 2015. In the first 24 h after its release, over 10,000 individuals signed up to participate in a heart health study [2] and in the first 7 months after the release, over 70,000 individuals signed up to participate in the first 5 research applications [3]. This new field of digital biomarkers needs a digital journal. The mission of Digital Biomarkers is to foster this emerging field to enhance health by (1) disseminating the best ideas, (2) advancing research, (3) supporting a community that spans disciplines and industries, and (4) developing novel ways to advance the field. Currently, the best papers and ideas in the field are often not well received by current journals and are scattered in journals of Published online: May 18, 2017