BMC Oral Health gets its teeth into the Section Editor model

Christopher Foote on June 17, 2013 at 1:11 pm - 0 Comments

For over a decade, BMC Oral Health has been pioneering the open access model in dental research. From small beginnings, the journal has steadily grown, publishing more articles and receiving more recognition from those working in the field. All this is reflected in the news that the journal will this month receive an official impact factor for the first time.

Now, just as a child’s milk teeth must one day be replaced by a larger, more permanent set of adult teeth, so the time has come for BMC Oral Health to move to a new editorial model to ensure it can continue to serve the needs of its community. From this week the journal will be divided up into …

Portable peer-review to prevent a pillar-to-post process

Simon Harold on June 11, 2013 at 1:42 pm - 0 Comments

A new cross-publisher initiative to help make the peer-review process a little less protracted aims to prevent wasted reviewer effort by allowing authors to take their reviewers’ reports to the BMC-series if their manuscript is rejected from eLife.

Peer review takes time. Sometimes, a lot of time. For many researchers, finding the balance between getting their blood-sweat-and-tears research into a top tier journal, and simply getting it into the literature, can be a maddeningly frustrating process. In fast-paced fields where the risk of being scooped by a rival lab only adds to the pressure, finding that your manuscript is cascading down a list of selective journals is enough to make even the most seasoned professor blanch. Endless cycles of repetitious …

BMC at the British Society of Gastroenterology

Christopher Foote on June 5, 2013 at 3:15 pm - 0 Comments

BMC Gastroenterology will be attending the annual meeting of the British Society of Gastroenterology taking place this year from June 24th-27th at the SECC in Glasgow. In addition to attending the ever-interesting range of talks and poster presentations, Executive Editor Christopher Foote is very interested in meeting with researchers to discuss their work and interests. If you would like to arrange a meeting with Chris at the conference then please do get in contact.

Highlights of the BMC-series: May 2013

Simon Harold on June 3, 2013 at 12:20 pm - 0 Comments

Antibiotic avoidance • Conversion of Coccidioides • The geography of mutation • A structural mystery, resolved • Snowflake the albino gorilla • A hidden mechanism of signalling? • Evolution and medicine across Africa • Is it right to recruit by genotype?

Healthcare: Antibiotic avoidance

Over a third of women presenting with urinary tract infection symptoms are happy to delay antibiotic treatment when asked by their GP, with the majority of these patients showing an improvement in symptoms without the need for further treatment. This intriguingly suggests that patients are much more open to reducing unnecessary antibiotic use than is often thought. More on this study over on our blog.

Microbiology: Conversion of Coccidioides

Coccidioides immitis is a disease-causing fungus …

Overuse of antibiotics – doctors, not patients, to blame?

Christopher Foote on May 31, 2013 at 1:18 pm - 0 Comments

Women consulting their GP with symptoms of urinary tract infections are often happy to delay antibiotic treatment when their GP requests it. This intriguingly suggests that patients are much more open to reducing unnecessary antibiotic use then is often thought.

The rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria poses one of the biggest threats to human health. The UKs chief medical officer, in a report on the threat of increasing bacterial resistance, described it ‘as big a risk as terrorism’.

A number of factors contribute to this problem, such as the lack of financial incentives for drug companies to develop new antibiotics (see Gerard Wright’s recent Q&A article in BMC Biology for more on this), but there is no doubt …

Call for papers: Health Policy and Systems in Emerging Economies

Emily Crow on May 15, 2013 at 3:10 pm - 0 Comments

BMC International Health and Human Rights announces a call for submissions to a thematic series on health policy and systems in emerging economies. The “emerging economies” are fast growing and changing societies. They are the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) that make up over 40 percent of the world’s population as well as other successful economies including Indonesia, Vietnam, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey and South Korea. Such countries face important questions about how best to promote equitable and inclusive development – domestically, regionally and globally. The aim of this thematic series is to explore the challenges of creating policies for health in these settings.

We welcome submissions regarding all aspects of health policy and …

Auf Wiedersehen ECCMID 2013

Philippa Harris on May 10, 2013 at 1:46 pm - 0 Comments

Caravaggio is not an artist traditionally associated with Berlin, but discussion of potential causes of his death–postulated to be due to sepsis– at a recent microbiology conference held in the city–mean that sometime in future he just may be! Luckily the eventful life of the famous Italian painter was not emulated by the participants at the 23rd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2013) and we, BMC Infectious Diseases included, instead enjoyed a diverse set of presentations covering the whole spectrum of infectious disease research.

The focus of many of the talks was on prevention, rather than the treatment of diseases, from Linos Vandekerckhove’s review of early initiation of HIV treatment to prevent transmission, …

Disease outcomes in ophthalmology – time for a multidisciplinary approach

Simon Harold on May 7, 2013 at 1:09 pm - 0 Comments

By Emilie Aimé, Executive Editor BMC Ophthalmology

Translational research in ophthalmology is a fast growing field, with many centers now having dedicated groups focussing on bench to bedside approaches to research. There have been many recent major advances in the fields of cell biology, biochemistry and elsewhere, for example in stem cell research and nanotechnology based drug delivery systems. This means that multidisciplinary research projects looking to allow these novel technological advances to make a real difference to disease outcomes in a clinical setting is more important than ever.

In order to provide a dedicated home for this exciting translational research BMC Ophthalmology is launching a new article collection entitled Translational Ophthalmology: Looking to the future. The collection particularly encourages submission …

How our evolutionary past could help guide drug therapies of the future

Simon Harold on May 6, 2013 at 10:35 am - 0 Comments

It is now well established that different human populations may exhibit very different responses to therapeutic drugs. However, to what extent this may have been influenced by our evolutionary history is less well known. In this guest blog, Ripudaman K Bains from University College London outlines why understanding our past can help inform our future, and describes her recent work published in BMC Genetics with colleagues from Addis Ababa University, Henry Stewart Group and Uppsala University on molecular diversity and population structure at the Cytochrome P450 3A5 gene in Africa.

One of the most significant accomplishments of the genomics revolution has been an improvement in our understanding of why certain populations have elevated risks for developing specific diseases. …

All eyes on Seattle: BMC Ophthalmology at ARVO 2013

Emilie Aime on May 3, 2013 at 5:03 pm - 0 Comments

BMC Ophthalmology is excited to be going to this year’s ARVO meeting. 2013 sees the annual ARVO conference stopping in Seattle, home of grunge, that famous high street coffee chain and for one week only BMC Ophthalmology. We are looking forward to a diverse range of talks and would be happy to meet you there. If you are attending and would like to discuss anything please contact Executive Editor Emilie Aimé