Last week we were proud to reveal the winner of the prestigious BioMed Central Research Award 2012, supported by antibodies-online.com, picked from a shortlist consisting of the winners of the ten subject categories, selected by a panel of top scientists and clinicians from the editorial boards of our portfolio of over 250 journals.

The winners are, Geoffrey S Diemer and Kenneth M Stedman, from Portland State University, for their article A novel virus genome discovered in an extreme environment suggests recombination between unrelated groups of RNA and DNA viruses, was published in Biology Direct, that also won the Computational and High-Throughput Studies in Genomics and Systems Biology Category Award.

The article won accolades not only for the method used to uncover the virus, but for its biological insights into the novel viral genome. It makes a significant contribution to our understanding of viruses and has implications well outside the immediate finding.

Ken commented on winning the award and said, “We’re extremely honored at this award considering all of the wonderful research that is being published at BioMed Central, and particularly pleased to be able to accept this award at the 10th anniversary at BMC Biology, which is a celebration of open access and the accessibility of great science to the public.”

The awards were commemorated as part of an evening celebrating BioMed Central and open access, including the tenth anniversary of the initial publication of BMC Biology, the flagship biology journal of BioMed Central, and the launch of the new medical and biology online magazine Biome. The evening also included a panel discussion on the hotly-debated topic of how to avoid the ‘tyranny’ of current peer review practices, which was fitting since Biology Direct, which published the award-winning article, has pioneered a novel form of peer review. For more information on the panel discussion please read our blog.

Deborah Kahn, Publishing Director of BioMed Central, said: “I would like to thank our fantastic panel of judges and to congratulate all the deserving winners of the 7^th Annual BioMed Central Research Awards for their outstanding achievements. We would also like to thank our new partners antibodies-online.com for their support.”