BioMed Central Blog
This week BioMed Central exhibited at the Experimental Biology meeting in Anaheim, USA where 10,000 delegates descended upon the Convention Centre which was conveniently located next door to Disneyland.
This meeting provided the ideal opportunity to celebrate the relaunch of our new improved BMC Biology incorporating Journal of Biology. To mark the occasion, the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, Miranda Robertson, hosted a party on Monday night. We were thrilled that Greg Petsko, President of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Angelo Azzi, President of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology came along. We were also fortunate to be joined by the distinguished Editors-in-Chief of three of our journals, Hin Wing Yeung (Chinese Medicine), Kuan-Teh Jeang (Retrovirology) and Andrew Lumsden (Neural Development) and a host of other people too numerous to mention.
Naturally, like any party there was cake and champagne. Plus, there were presents. We gave away our new BMC Biology t-shirts which proved to be a hit – so much so that there was a stampede and a lot of disappointed delegates.
Most importantly, we got to meet a lot of open access fans and plenty more were interested to hear about open access. It was encouraging to hear so many delegates say ‘it’s the way science will go’.
Pictures from the event can be found at our fan page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/biomedcentral
Posted by Charlotte Webber at 13:34 Comments (2)
Meeting the challenges of supplement publishing
Publishing supplements in journals is a practice that frequently comes under scrutiny due to the external sources of funding involved. Some journals choose to avoid publishing supplements altogether to protect against any potential perception that industry involvement might lead to lost objectivity. In an editorial in the latest issue of Arthritis Research & Therapy however, the Editors set out how supplements can be published without risking scientific integrity.
Editorial
Challenges and opportunities of publishing
supplements at Arthritis Research & Therapy
Frances Mulvany, Jo Baker, Peter E Lipsky,
Ravinder N Maini
Arthritis
Research & Therapy 2010, 12:113
(28 April 2010)
They outline the rigorous peer-review process that supplement articles undergo before publication, and the full and transparent disclosures that are made by all parties throughout the supplement process – from the initial consideration of an idea through to publication.
Supplements can be a valuable educational resource and, provided relevant guidelines and procedures are followed, editorial independence can be maintained when publishing these articles, which are described by the ICMJE as serving useful purposes.
Posted by Iain Hrynaszkiewicz at 11:46 Comments (0)
Improvements always possible: EQUATOR promoting transparent reporting
In a recent commentary published in BMC Medicine, researchers from the EQUATOR network (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) talk about improving the reporting of healthcare studies. Transparency and quality of reporting for biomedical research seriously affects the value and utility of literature. Not only that, but shortcomings in both of these are a waste of increasingly scarce resources being invested in this research.
The commentary further discusses the goals and progress of EQUATOR, as well as outlining some of the ways that all those involved can
act - including authors, institutions, funding agencies, and journals. The network is an international initiative with the aim of advancing high quality reporting in health research through, among other things, promoting good reporting practice and the wider implementation of reporting guidelines.
BioMed Central is fully committed to supporting a more complete and useful scientific record. Why not visit the website and read the full commentary for yourself to find out what interesting activities EQUATOR have been undertaking, and what you can do to help improve this important aspect of health research?
Posted by Robin Cassady-Cain at 16:59 Comments (0)
New standards for comparative effectiveness research
Posted by Victoria Thompson at 10:10 Comments (0)
Evolution and cancer: a mathematical biology approach
“Cancer is, in some sense, a condensed-time laboratory of evolution” says Marek Kimmel, in an Editorial to introduce a new thematic series published in Biology Direct.
The series brings together cancer researchers and mathematicians to provide insight into the various ways that evolutionary mechanisms relate to cancer, and how these mechanisms can be modeled mathematically. Articles in the series focus on three broad themes; carcinogenesis and the emergence of cancer, evolution and progression of cancer cells and structures, and implications for therapy.
A broad spectrum of areas where evolutionary forces such as mutation and selection are at work are considered; from the level of gene regulation and DNA repair mechanisms disrupted in cancer, to the development of resistance and invasion mechanisms in cancerous tumors themselves.
Mathematical models of the processes relating to cancer have become progressively more infused with genetic and biological details, with the aim of being able to develop functional models reconcilable with the epidemiology of given cancers.
Kimmel states that “qualitative and quantitative understanding of cancer is a necessary condition for engineering approaches to fight it - the latter are still scarce”; the articles in the series illustrate the substantial progress that has been made in this field over the past decade.Posted by Ciaran O'Neill at 16:29 Comments (1)
BioMed Central journals indexed in ACM and CINAHL
Selected BioMed Central journals have recently been added to two specialist indexing services, ACM and CINAHL.
ACM indexes a wide range of journals relevant to computing and recently accepted the following journals:
- Algorithms for Molecular Biology
- Automated Experimentation
- BioData Mining
- BMC Bioinformatics
- Source Code for Biology and Medicine
CINAHL, a literature service focusing on nursing and allied healthcare, already indexes over 30 BioMed Central journals and recently added the following titles:
- Asia Pacific Family Medicine
- Head & Neck Oncology
- Health & Quality of Life Outcomes
- Human Resources for Health
- Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance
- Tobacco Induced Diseases
In addition, all of these titles are included in PubMed, PubMed Central and a wide range of other databases. Full details of all indexing services which cover BioMed Central journals are available from our website.
Posted by Charlotte Hubbard at 10:32 Comments (0)
Reporting bias widespread in medical literature
The selective reporting of trial results is a concern for those basing clinical or policy decisions on the results of published studies. In a review published last week in Trials, McGuaran and colleagues assess the prevalence of publication bias (non-publication of studies with negative or inconclusive results) and outcome reporting bias (non-reporting of specific outcomes within a published study) in the medical literature.
Review
Reporting bias in medical research - a narrative review
Natalie McGauran, Beate Wieseler, Julia Kreis, Yvonne-Beatrice Schuler, Heike Kolsch, Thomas Kaiser
Trials 2010, 11:37 (13 April 2010)
This review of published articles on reporting bias identified cases relevant to 40 different conditions - including depression, coronary heart disease and Alzheimer's disease - and involving more than 50 different interventions. Overestimation of efficacy and safety due to reporting bias have the potential to harm patients, and these worrying statistics prompt the authors to recommend worldwide, mandatory trial registration and publicly accessible results databases to help reduce reporting bias and allow for fully informed decision making.
Posted by Victoria Thompson at 12:30 Comments (0)
BioMed Central prize winners announced for BSP 2010
Congratulations to those who left The British Society for Parasitology Spring Meeting 2010 with a £150 prize, awarded by BioMed Central on behalf of Parasites & Vectors and Malaria Journal, for exceptional presentations.
The meeting brought together parasitologists from the UK and overseas, with over one hundred oral and poster presentations entered for the Student Prize. Whilst the standard was high throughout the meeting, prizes were awarded to the following oral and poster presentations:
-
Will
Proto for ‘Best oral presentation’ – awarded on behalf of Parasites & Vectors:
Trypanosoma brucei metacaspases – surprises from the fourth family member
- Hanafy
M. Ismail for ‘Best poster presentation’ – awarded on behalf of Parasites & Vectors: Developing Novel Chemical Probes to Identify
Cytochrome P450s Associated with Pyrethroid Resistance in Malaria Vectors
- Karen J. Fairlie-Clarke for ‘Best oral presentation’ –
awarded on behalf of Malaria Journal:
Why do antibodies induced by malaria and helminths cross-react?
BioMed
Central will host an international conference, 'Parasite to Prevention: Advances in the understanding of malaria',
in October 2010. For more information, please see www.parasitetoprevention.com.
Posted by Elizabeth Bal at 09:58 Comments (0)
Research by Valerie Hu and colleagues, recently published in Genome Medicine, suggests that microRNAs (miRNAs) have a role in the gene expression changes which can underlie autistic spectrum disorders.
Autism spectrum disorders are neurodevelopmental in origin and often include behavioral and language abnormalities. In their article “Investigation of post-transcriptional gene regulatory networks associated with autism spectrum disorders by microRNA expression profiling of lymphoblastoid cell lines”, Hu and colleagues suggest that expression changes in 43 miRNAs are seen in patients with this condition. These miRNAs may regulate genes which have previously been linked to roles in autism and other comorbid disorders.
A recent article from the same group, published in The FASEB Journal, suggests that differential methylation may also have a role in autism, providing further evidence for an epigenetic origin of autistic spectrum disorders. With evidence growing for a genetic overlap between autism and other conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, it will be interesting to consider whether the same factors are at work in other neurological and neurodevelopmental conditions.
Posted by Rebecca Furlong at 15:29 Comments (0)
Last month, the National Institutes of Health announced a new initiative to strengthen medical education in Sub-Saharan Africa, in collaboration with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR. This program is in support of PEPFAR's goal to increase the number of new health care workers by 140,000, and will also serve the related objectives of strengthening host-country medical education systems and enhancing clinical and research capacity in Africa.
A Thomson Reuters report found that Africa's contribution to the global body of scientific research is very small due to a "chronic lack of investment in facilities for research and teaching" – something which the authors of the report hope is remedied soon. The report noted that South Africa Egypt and Nigeria currently dominate the continent’s scientific output.
Meanwhile the BBC hosted a debate last week entitled ‘Is science Africa's doorway to success?’, following the establishment of Ethiopia’s first science academy. Readers were asked ‘Should African governments pour more money into science? Or concentrate on business and trade?’. All comments can be found at the BBC website.
In another article regarding the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences, Linda Nordling examines its recent launch, noting that hopes for government funding and independence remain high despite concerns over academic freedom.
South Africa is vying for a place in an international competition to host what will be the world’s biggest radio telescope, highlighting the mounting economic interest in ‘big science’ projects around the world. A remote spot in South Africa's Karoo desert hopes to provide a home to one of the most powerful scientific instruments in history, to shed light on how the universe began.
Finally, science journalists in Africa are to participate in a mentoring programme established by the World Federation of Science Journalists in conjunction with the UK's Department for International Development. The CAD$4.3-million (R31.5-million) SjCOOP project pairs experienced science journalists with beginners and offers training in Arabic, French and English.
Posted by Charlotte Webber at 11:57 Comments (0)
Section Editors leading peer-review for BMC series journals
BMC Cancer, BMC Genomics, BMC Bioinformatics, and BMC Neuroscience have all begun operating under an enhanced editorial structure with the appointment of academic Editors to head up different sections of each journal. We are proud to be working with such esteemed scientists and we look forward to other journals in the BMC series adopting this editorial structure in the near future.
Under the new structure, each journal is categorised into sections, and each section is led by a Section Editor with extensive knowledge of the discipline. The Section Editors work closely with a group of Associate Editors to peer-review manuscripts and with the Editor-in-Chief and BioMed Central’s editorial staff to develop their journals by formulating journal policies and encouraging submissions.
This editorial structure ensures that manuscripts are handled by members of the scientific community with expert knowledge of the field, helping to speed up review times and reduce the need for re-review. This continues the BMC series’ mission to provide the most rapid and reliable service to our authors.
Posted by Lisa Phelps at 11:35 Comments (0)
SPIRIT: New guidance for protocol authors
Taking an evidence-based approach comparable to that used in the development of the recently-updated CONSORT statement, an overlapping group of expert trialists recently finalized a new checklist of 33 essential items for trial protocols.
Developed in response to increasing calls for transparency and thoroughness in published protocols, the Standard Protocol Items for Randomized Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines are intended to address the sub-standard reporting of protocols by providing authors with the tools they need to ensure that key methodological, ethical and administrative details are included. The importance of protocol publication is not a new issue. Like prospective trial registration, protocol publication provides a permanent, public record of a clinical trial, helping to reduce the potential for bias due to non-publication of negative or inconclusive results.
Once published, the SPIRIT guidelines will help to improve the quality of trial protocols, allowing readers, systematic reviewers and policy makers to critically evaluate trial results and draw comparisons between what was planned, and what was done.
Posted by Victoria Thompson at 10:27 Comments (0)
Ten free review articles published in Critical Care
The latest issue of Critical Care features 10 free review articles co-published as part of a joint effort with the Springer Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine. The articles were selected by Editor-in-Chief Prof Jean-Louis Vincent, Belgium, for their relevance to health care professionals and researchers working in the area of intensive care medicine. Contributions include a paper by Julia Wendon and colleagues, King’s College Hospital, UK, on renal dysfunction in liver disease; the prevention of infections caused by catheters written by Olivier Mimoz’s group, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, France, and venous oxygen as a physiological transfusion trigger by Editorial Board member Benoit Vallet et al, University Hospital of Lille, France.
The Yearbook compiles the most recent
developments in experimental and clinical research and practice in one
comprehensive reference book. By
co-publishing these selected articles, we hope to bring this resource to a
wider audience of intensivists. Review articles published in Critical Care normally require a
subscription to read. In order to access our reviews, commentaries and other
commissioned content, non-subscribers to can register for a free 30-day trial.
Surayya Johar
In-house Editor, Critical Care
Posted by Victoria Thompson at 12:39 Comments (0)
Sloth fur has symbiotic relationship with green algae
Sloth hair is long and coarse and depending on the species can contain either a number of grooves or irregular transverse cracks that increase in number and size with the age of the animal. These features are ideal for inhabitation by a wide variety of organisms, ranging from moths, beetles, and cockroaches to ciliates, fungi, and algae. It is a popular assumption that algae in particular form a symbiotic relationship with the sloth, obtaining shelter and a good supply of water as sloth fur absorbs water extremely readily, and providing in return camouflage and extra nutrients via diffusion and absorption through the hair and skin.
Until now, there has been no good evidence to support this hypothesis. New research published recently in BMC Evolutionary Biology is the first to use molecular methods to explore evolutionary relationships among the algae inhabiting the fur of all six sloth species.
Research article
Molecular evidence for a diverse green algal community growing in the hair of sloths and a specific association with Trichophilus welckeri (Chlorophyta, Ulvophyceae)
Milla Suutari, Markus Majaneva, David P Fewer, Bryson Voirin, Annette Aiello, Thomas Friedl, Adriano G Chiarello, Jaanika Blomster
BMC Evolutionary Biology 2010, 10:86 (30 March 2010)
[Abstract] [Provisional PDF] [PubMed] [Related articles]
Milla Suutari and colleagues found that the predominant algae inhabiting sloth fur was Trichophilus welckeri. It is passed directly from mother to offspring and young sloths gain the algae and other parasites by the time they are a few weeks old. This species of algae is host specific and has not been found to occur in any other environment. This finding adds strong support to the hypothesis that there is a co-evolutionary relationship between the sloths and the algae of the genus Trichophilus, which may well only exist as a symbiont.
In fact, most of the varied eukaryote organisms living in the individuals’ fur differ between sloth species and this is suggested to reflect the divergence of the sloth genera about 20 million years ago, which may have led to the separation of the cohabiting communities.
Posted by Genevieve Horne at 14:53 Comments (0)
The two flagship biology journals of BioMed Central, BMC Biology and Journal of Biology, are combined today to become a single title with all the best features of both. The combined journal will be called BMC Biology, reflecting the strong relationship with the subject-specific BMC-series journals, but will include high-profile commissioned content that to date has appeared only in Journal of Biology.
The new BMC Biology will publish research and methodology articles of special importance and broad interest across all areas of biology and biomedical sciences, importing from Journal of Biology the re-review opt-out experiment introduced last year to answer the widespread frustration of researchers with current peer review procedures.
The fused journal will be edited by Miranda Robertson, who explains in an inaugural editorial how the journal will reflect and build on the strengths of both parent publications.
BMC Biology is already listed in Web of Science, tracked by ISI and ranked within the top 2% of all journals listed in Scopus (212 of 17,124). The journal has close to 50,000 registrants and research published in the journal regularly features in the scientific and mainstream press. Highly-cited articles often received upwards of 50 citations and highly-accessed articles receive over 15,000 unique downloads from the journal website.
The journal fusion is marked by a special collection of articles, which introduces a new feature - Video Q&A articles with prominent scientists that provide a platform for leading researchers to express a personal perspective on a variety of scientific topics. The first Video Q&A features Martin Raff from University College London, who explains, as a grandfather and a neuroscientist, his interest in what goes wrong in autism, and how he thinks genomic and stem cell technology may lead to answers.
Also published today are the first of a series of ‘Hope of progress’ articles on biology relevant to clinical problems, including reviews on biology-based cancer therapy and on vaccine adjuvants.
Stay up-to-date with new content from BMC Biology, update your RSS feed and sign up for articles alerts.
Posted by Charlotte Webber at 13:13 Comments (0)