Journal of Molecular Psychiatry publishes its first articles today

Alice Ridgway on April 23, 2013 at 1:46 pm - 0 Comments

Journal of Molecular Psychiatry, a new open access journal published by BioMed Central, has launched today with its first published articles.

In the launch Editorial, Editor-in-Chief Professor Johannes Thome highlights that one of the great achievements of molecular psychiatry is to ‘unravel the oversimplification of many theories in biological psychiatry and to open our eyes to the fundamental processes such as gene-environment interaction which enable us to integrate even psychotherapeutic and social concepts of mental health into a new holistic and integrative psychiatry’. In keeping with this objective, this new journal aims to disseminate state-of-the-art research focussing on psychiatric conditions, their diagnosis, therapy and prevention, by providing a platform for the rapid communication of scientific work focussing …

Advancing healthcare quality improvement

lizhoffman on April 19, 2013 at 12:42 pm - 0 Comments

Research is crucial to ensuring that our healthcare and healthcare systems improve and develop to meet the needs of populations. The Academy for Healthcare Improvement fosters an interprofessional community that advances quality improvement in health care through scholarly and educational activities.

Implementation Science is pleased to announce the publication of a new supplement The Proceedings on Advancing the Methods for Healthcare Quality Improvement Research, covering a conference held by the Academy for Healthcare Improvement. The supplement includes presentations on study design, data registries, comparative effectiveness, and healthcare disparities. This conference, held on May 7-8, 2012, was a forum for the current state and future needs of quality improvement research and its methodological and technical …

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: key updates on guidelines and therapeutics

Lisa Phelps on April 18, 2013 at 4:36 pm - 0 Comments

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive lung condition typically affecting adults over 50 years old. There are limited approved treatment options and several complications associated with the condition, which can make treating patients with the condition a challenge.

A review supplement presenting 7 reviews on IPF from the 2011 Advancing IPF Research symposium in Berlin has recently been published in Respiratory Research, the leading open access journal in the field of respiratory medicine. As Professor Ulrich Costabel concludes in his introduction to the supplement “A key take-home message from this meeting is that each patient should be viewed as an individual case when considering the diagnostic and disease management approaches.”

The supplement, supported by …

The Genome Biology special DNA60 Bioinformatics Challenge is nearly upon us: starts Monday!

Naomi Attar on April 18, 2013 at 4:18 pm - 1 Comment

Stand by for an important update on Genome Biology's highly anticipated, ultra-tricky, ultra-cool, *supreme* DNA60 Bioinformatics Challenge with a truly amazing prize…

Recently, we excited informatics enthusiasts with the prospect of a special Genome Biology Bioinformatics Challenge in honor of DNA60, but we were lamentably low on the detail. Here, we are putting that right.

So what is this Challenge all about then?
DNA60 celebrates the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Watson and Crick's Double Helix, and Genome Biology will be marking the occasion, April 25th, with some special content. But we also wanted to have some fun, and to give away some prizes, so we decided to …

Category award winners announced for BioMed Central’s 7th Annual Research Awards

Rebecca Fairbairn on April 18, 2013 at 8:50 am - 0 Comments

Each year BioMed Central’s Annual Research Awards celebrate excellence in scientific research made freely available through open access publishing within our portfolio of biology and medical journals. Now in their 7th year, they are intended to recognize the achievements of particular research teams in ten diverse subject-specific award categories spanning all areas of Biology, Medicine and Health Services Research. We also have an Open Data award recognizing leadership in the sharing of data and a Case Report of the Year Award for the best case report recognized for its originality and significance to clinical practice.We are pleased to announce the winners for the ten subject-specific award categories:

Animal Science, Veterinary Research and Zoology
Cancer sponsored by

Camus enters the clinic: Genome Biology at Genomic Disorders 2013

Naomi Attar on April 17, 2013 at 11:19 am - 1 Comment

It is not unusual per se for Nobel laureates to be quoted at genomics conferences, but it is perhaps a little out of the ordinary when the Nobel Prize in question is for Literature. But, then again, the Wellcome Trust's 'Genomic Disorders 2013: From 60 years of DNA to human genomes in the clinic' was not your run-of-the-mill conference; instead, a mesh of current research and historical (and futuristic) perspective paid tribute to the 60th anniversary of Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix.

So it was not entirely out of keeping with expectations when philosopher (and former candidate for Slovene of the year) Renata Salecl stepped onto the podium and asked:

'Should I kill myself, or have …

antibodies-online.com to sponsor BioMed Central’s overall Research Award

Rebecca Fairbairn on April 17, 2013 at 10:54 am - 0 Comments

BioMed Central welcomes antibodies-online.com , as the overall BioMed Central Research Award Sponsor for the 7th Annual Research Awards. This prestigious award celebrates the very best in open access research across all disciplines published in BioMed Central’s 250 journals for 2012.

antibodies-online.com is the biggest independent distributor for proteomics (eg. ELISA kits, antibodies, proteins) research worldwide serving universities and biotech companies in 53 different countries.

“At antibodies-online we accelerate research. We interact with the research community every day and are happy to sponsor the BioMed Central Overall Research Award winner 2012. The annual BioMed Central Research Awards have become a key event on the open access calendar. The awards program is an excellent …

Looking away from addiction and towards recovery

Alexa Chamay-Berrier on April 16, 2013 at 4:10 pm - 0 Comments

Guest blog post by Dr Stephan Arndt, University of Iowa, USA and Editor-in-Chief of Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy

We know very little about long-term recovery from alcohol and other drug use disorders. As the Director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dr. Nora Volkow recently noted, “Most of the research that has been done up to now has focused on that immediate intervention that would allow a person to stop taking drugs. Much less is known about recovery.”

We know next to nothing about the demographics, epidemiology or life experiences of people in recovery – how they fare in the world, who they are or what their lives are like once they stop …

Open access and the need to turn data into knowledge

Kester Jarvis on April 15, 2013 at 4:27 pm - 0 Comments

BMC Biology began ten years ago, and BioMed Central three years earlier, right at the beginning of open-access publishing in biology. As part of BMC Biology’s 10-year anniversary, Editorial Board member Pat Brown (right) talks about the origins of open access and the circumstances that led him to become one of the early open access agitators. The rapid growth of the internet and the possibility of publishing without print is one obvious enabler of open access, but Brown also discusses another …

COPEing with publication ethics issues – notes from the European Seminar

Shreeya Nanda on April 15, 2013 at 2:19 pm - 0 Comments

The Biology and Medical Editors recently attended the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) European Seminar, held at Charles Darwin House, London. The theme of the seminar was “Publication ethics from student to professional”, and the talks ranged from the role of institutions in investigating research misconduct to plagiarism at the student level.

Professor Pieter Drenth, Honorary President of the All European Academies, provided an in-depth discussion of institutional responses to violations of research integrity. We Editors rely heavily on institutional support in dealing with issues such as authorship disputes and allegations of research misconduct. It was useful to gain an insight into the guidance available for institutions, including for funding agencies and academies of science in addition …