Nature Communications!

Nature Communications is an innovative new online science journal launching in Spring 2010. Nature Communications will provide a unique forum for the rapid publication of high-quality research in all areas of the physical, chemical and biological sciences.

Nature Communications offers:

• An online publishing arena for the entire scientific spectrum

• Rigorous peer review

• High-quality papers reporting fundamental scientific advances

• Rapid dissemination of accepted research to a broad audience

• An open-access publishing opportunity

More

Manuscript Submission

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PLoS Currents FAQs!

Here comes the answer of yesterday’s question!, I found it at the PLoS Currents FAQs page, where you can read more answers about commonly asked questions about PloS Currents: Influenza

Here is the answer;

If I post my work at PLoS Currents: Influenza, will I still be able to publish it in a peer-reviewed journal?

We expect that the authors of many of the contributions to PLoS Currents: Influenza will ultimately want to publish their work in peer-reviewed journals. Because contributions are not peer-reviewed in depth, PLoS encourages authors to submit their PLoS Currents: Influenza contributions, or work that synthesizes ideas and information from PLoS Currents: Influenza, to one of our peer-reviewed research journals where it will go through our normal peer review process. While we cannot speak for them, we do not expect other publishers to consider a work communicated through PLoS Currents: Influenza to be a “prior publication”, but rather like a presentation at a scientific colloquium (one to which the whole world is invited) .

Here is another nice question that I think worth sharing:

Why should researchers submit content to PLoS Currents: Influenza?

PLoS Currents: Influenza is a place to share results and ideas immediately while ensuring that they will be permanently archived and citable. Researchers submitting results to PLoS Currents: Influenza will also be contributing to a global effort to respond to the recent emergence of H1N1 influenza and to the urgent and ever-present public health threat posed by influenza.

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PLoS Currents!

PLoS Currents: Influenza is a way to share results and ideas immediately while ensuring that they will be permanently archived and citable, and it provides immediate open access to all content, ensuring that authors reach the widest possible audience. The content will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution License, enabling unrestricted distribution and use of the published materials, provided that its authors are properly credited.  Every accepted submission will receive a permanent identifier that can be linked to and cited in other publications.

All aspects of research into influenza are considered. Topics will include (but are not limited to) influenza virology, genetics, immunity, structural biology, genomics, epidemiology, modeling, evolution, policy and control.  Contributions may take the form of observations, data (such as a graph or a table), ideas and hypotheses, or complete manuscripts.

The submissions are not peer reviewed in depth, but are screened by a group of leading researchers in the field (“moderators”). The moderators will make a rapid determination as to whether a contribution is intelligible, relevant, ethical and scientifically credible, but will otherwise not impose restrictions on the nature, format or content of the contributions. Those submissions deemed appropriate are posted immediately at PLoS Currents: Influenza and publicly archived at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).

Here comes the Question, if you are a scientist with data in your hand, are you going to expose such data in PLoS currents, or shall you wait till publishing!

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Viruses that make you Healthy!

The results presented in this report demonstrated not only

efficient removal of the bacterial load in infected mice vir-

tually devoid of major functional phagocytes, by prophy-

lactic administration of specific phages, but also revealed

accompanying, beneficial effects on the immune system,

mediated by S. aureus phage preparation in the described

model. It appeared that application of phages in infected

mice may accelerate renewal of cells depleted by CP treat-

ment, both of the myelocytic and lymphocytic lineages.

The first type of cells has significance in the first-line

defense against bacteria as phagocytes and the latter dif-

ferentiate to mature, immunocompetent cells, giving rise

to adaptive, antigen-specific immune response.

“Effects of Prophylactic Administration of Bacteriophages to Immunosuppressed Mice Infected With Staphylococcus aureus”

This is the title of a paper that came out recently, I have been reading some papers and reviews about phages and phage therapy, but I think this one was the first one that I came by alluding to “Immunosuppression”, I think that this could actually open a very wide new venue for phage therapy, think of all those under radio or chemo therapies fighting cancer, think of HIV patients, organ transplant patients …

On the other hand there is something that I always ask myself during reading papers or reviews about phage therapy, why after all these papers and sometimes really “astonishing” results phage therapy is not in the right “place” in the word of bacterial therapeutics!, I have no any conclusive opinion on this issue but I think this is the fate of anything that comes initially from the ‘east’ to the west! And not the reverse! (think of it), what if we changed the names of authors on the phage therapy publications and replaced them with American names from famous American institutes! (I think the picture will be completely different)

Let’s get back to science J, the paper states “The results presented in this report demonstrated not only efficient removal of the bacterial load in infected mice virtually devoid of major functional phagocytes, by prophylactic administration of specific phages, but also revealed accompanying, beneficial effects on the immune system, mediated by S. aureus phage preparation in the described model. It appeared that application of phages in infected mice may accelerate renewal of cells depleted by CP (cyclophosphamide – immunosuppressant) treatment, both of the myelocytic and lymphocytic lineages. The first type of cells has significance in the first-line defense against bacteria as phagocytes and the latter differentiate to mature, immunocompetent cells, giving rise to adaptive, antigen-specific immune response.”

Don’t forget to leave a comment!

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Why AIDS Vaccine Is Difficult!

An Interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci (Audio)

Anthony Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Bethesda, MD.

An HIV Vaccine — Challenges and Prospects [NEJM review on why AIDS vaccine is difficult (pdf)]

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