BMC Medical Genomics is celebrating its first anniversary with the publication of its 70^th paper. This is a great achievement
for a new open access journal in such an emerging field of research.

BMC Medical Genomics focuses on functional genomics,
genome structure, genome-scale population genetics, epigenomics, proteomics,
systems analysis and pharmacogenomics in relation to human health and disease
and complements the launch last week of our ‘big-sister’ journal Genome
Medicine, which will provide a further outlet for high-quality medical genomics research
as well as topical commentary and review articles.

Articles published in BMC Medical
Genomics have been highlighted by Faculty of 1000 Medicine,
used for ‘Webinar’ online tutorials, and press-released,
reflecting the quality research it publishes.

BMC Medical Genomics has already covered many of the exciting areas of
our wide scope, such as pharmacogenomics, network analysis,
genome-wide association studies (this one utilising 500K single-nucleotide
polymorphism arrays in nearly 6000 individuals), proteomics,
and tissue microarrays.
With much expected from the NIH’s announcement of $190 million funding for an epigenomics
initiative,
epigenomics has also already been well covered.

Systems medicine is another exciting
area covered by the journal. Leroy Hood’s group at the Institute for Systems
Biology
have just published a detailed transcriptome atlas of the pancreatic beta cell. Also Douglas Kell has used a systems medicine perspective to give an overarching
view of the otherwise highly disparate literature linking inappropriate iron
chelation and human disease. The sheer size and scope of this review would be in practice impossible to publish in a single issue of a print-based journal, further demonstrating the need for and
flexibility of online open-access journals such as the BMC series.

BMC Medical Genomics, along with BMC Systems Biology, was one of the first journals in the BMC-series
to embrace the involvement of Associate Editors in the peer review process. We
would like to thank all of our Associate Editors as well as members of our
Editorial Board for their help and support since the launch of the journal. We would also like
to thank all our authors and reviewers for helping us this first year. Submit your next paper to BMC Medical Genomics to take part in the
future success of the journal!

Scott Edmunds PhD
In-house Editor
BMC Medical Genomics