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

Automated Function Prediction: selected proceedings from the ISMB 2011 special interest group

Simon Harold on May 3, 2013 at 1:06 pm - 0 Comments

BMC Bioinformatics has published proceedings from the Automated Function Prediction Meeting 2011 featuring the CAFA Challenge: Critical Assessment of Function Annotations.

Vienna, Austria. 15-16 July 2011.
Edited by Iddo Friedberg and Predrag Radivojac

The Critical Annotation of protein Function Prediction (CAFA) is a new community-wide experiment to assess the performance of protein function prediction methods. Thirty research groups participated in the first CAFA meeting , presenting a total of 54 methods. The results are published in an article in Nature Methods co-authored by all the attending groups.

The supplement is free to access, and is a companion to the Nature Methods article. The 15 articles describe some of the participating methods in depth.

CAFA is organized by Predrag Radivojac from Indiana …

Urology – En Vogue research in London, Milan and… San Diego

Simon Harold on May 2, 2013 at 1:31 pm - 0 Comments

Urology, like fashion, evolves at a fast pace with every season, bringing with it new trends in medical knowledge, in addition to unveiling exciting and innovative advances in surgical technology.

Here in London, BMC Urology were unable to attend this year’s Annual European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Milan. However, Dr Gianmarco Isgro’, an Associate Editor for BMC Urology, and his colleague, Dr Giovanni Battista Di Pierro, were in attendance and spoke to us about how the EAU Congress is an important and invaluable experience for the young urologist.

The Annual EAU Congress is a platform for the international urological community to share the latest and the most relevant knowledge with medical experts practising across the board. The use …

Highlights of the BMC-series: April 2013

Simon Harold on May 1, 2013 at 4:27 pm - 0 Comments

A grand plan for understanding life on Earth • (re)moving the mark of modification • Never say nematode again • Profiling the immune responses of deer mice • Looking forward, looking back • Heavy metal affects brain function • Lending a helping ligand

Biodiversity: a grand plan for understanding life on Earth

Understanding what drives the huge diversity of life on earth is perhaps the grand challenge of ecological research. Alex Hardisty and Dave Roberts bring us a little closer to realising this dream by outlining a grand vision for the future of biodiversity research that puts technological innovation and data sharing at its heart, following a huge community consultation effort with the Biodiversity Informatics Community. Our blog explains how …

BMC Biochemistry will see you at Experimental Biology 2013

Tom Rowles on April 18, 2013 at 1:10 pm - 0 Comments

BMC Biochemistry will be attending Experimental Biology 2013, which is being held at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center from the 20th-24th of April. In addition to taking advantage of the wide range of talks on offer, our Executive Editor Tom Rowles is very interested in meeting with researchers to discuss their work and interests. If you would like to arrange a meeting with Tom at the conference then please do get in contact. BioMed Central will also have a booth in the exhibition hall (Booth 515), so please feel free to drop by there to say hello, or to arrange a convenient time to talk.

We would be particularly interested in discussing any research pertaining to …

BMC Infectious Diseases ist ein Berliner

Philippa Harris on April 17, 2013 at 3:54 pm - 0 Comments

Berlin has seen more than its fair share of microbiology pioneers, including Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich. In light of this it is only fitting that Berlin will be the host city for the 23rd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2013) from the 27th-30th April. BMC Infectious Diseases will be attending and are looking forward to a diverse range of talks. If you are interested in meeting to discuss anything please contact the Executive Editor Philippa Harris.