Free Radical Research is pleased to announce the publication of a forum issue on protein post-translational modifications in cell signalling and disease.
This issue, guest edited by Francesco Galli and Enrique Cadenas, looks at the role of such modifications in apoptotic signalling and redox sensing, as well as their impact on mitochondrial proteins and functions. Connections between the latter and neurodegenerative diseases, in particular through increased oxidative stress, are discussed. The issue also points to links between protein modifications such as glycation, nitration or succination and metabolic disorders.
For more details, you can download the opening editorial for free and view the table of content page.
Free Radical Research is the official journal of the European and Asian branches of the Society for Free Radical Research. Discounted individual subscriptions are available to the members of these societies.
Wednesday 15 December 2010
Monday 13 December 2010
A Special Issue with a Special Offer: Downloads for Donations*
The International Journal of Hyperthermia marked Breast Cancer Awareness Month with a timely Special Issue on the use of hyperthermia as a treatment for this disease. To mark the Special Issue, Informa Healthcare is donating $1 for each download* of the issue’s free-access articles to Susan G. Komen for the Cure®. Susan G. Komen for the Cure® is the world's largest breast cancer charity dedicated to education and research about causes, treatment and the search for a cure.
To date, there have been 3,512 downloads of articles from the Special Issue!
Hyperthermia, as its name suggests, involves raising tumor temperature and the treatment is used to fight disease. Modern advancements in hyperthermia biology have led to refinements for individualized thermochemotherapy approaches to treatments as well as interesting potential for exploiting hyperthermia in conjunction with cancer vaccines. Interest in hyperthermia as a treatment for breast cancer has led to significant advances and research activity which, in turn, has had a significant impact on treatment protocol. Thanks to the volume of research and the impact of published articles, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) now includes hyperthermia in their Breast Cancer Guidelines as a treatment for recurrent cancer.
“The breadth of contributions from the authors in this issue highlights the tremendous progress that has occurred in the role of hyperthermia for the treatment of breast cancer,” says Dr Joan Bull, Co-Guest Editor of the Special Edition.. “This subject has garnered broad national and international interest in this cutting-edge treatment for one of the world’s most high-profile and, unfortunately, prolific diseases.” To view the complete list of articles in the issue, please click here. For more information on the Special Issue, please contact Senior Managing Editor Didi Peng.
*This applies to a full text download of any article from the Special Issue (Volume 26 Issue 7) with a maximum donation of up to $1,500.00.
To date, there have been 3,512 downloads of articles from the Special Issue!
Hyperthermia, as its name suggests, involves raising tumor temperature and the treatment is used to fight disease. Modern advancements in hyperthermia biology have led to refinements for individualized thermochemotherapy approaches to treatments as well as interesting potential for exploiting hyperthermia in conjunction with cancer vaccines. Interest in hyperthermia as a treatment for breast cancer has led to significant advances and research activity which, in turn, has had a significant impact on treatment protocol. Thanks to the volume of research and the impact of published articles, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) now includes hyperthermia in their Breast Cancer Guidelines as a treatment for recurrent cancer.
“The breadth of contributions from the authors in this issue highlights the tremendous progress that has occurred in the role of hyperthermia for the treatment of breast cancer,” says Dr Joan Bull, Co-Guest Editor of the Special Edition.. “This subject has garnered broad national and international interest in this cutting-edge treatment for one of the world’s most high-profile and, unfortunately, prolific diseases.” To view the complete list of articles in the issue, please click here. For more information on the Special Issue, please contact Senior Managing Editor Didi Peng.
*This applies to a full text download of any article from the Special Issue (Volume 26 Issue 7) with a maximum donation of up to $1,500.00.
Wednesday 8 December 2010
Of abstract importance – new abstract style for 2011
The Expert Opinion journals recognise how important an article's abstract is in drawing in the interested reader. The clearer and more insightful the abstract, the more interest, and potentially more citations, the manuscript will attract. For original research and systematic reviews, structured abstracts are typically required, with guidance on how to prepare these provided by the CONSORT Group. For review articles with free, unstructured abstracts, however, it can be difficult to know how best to present the abstract and what information to include to best represent the full paper. To help authors prepare fitting abstracts and to provide consistency for readers across the Expert Opinion series, in 2011 we are requesting authors include the following in their abstracts for review articles:
- Introduction - describing the significance of the topic and reason for the review
- Areas covered - describing the research discussed and the literature review undertaken
- Expert opinion - summarising the article's 'Expert Opinion' section, a unique feature of all Expert Opinion reviews in which the author goes beyond the conclusion to provide their own personal view of the field
Thursday 21 October 2010
Pharmaceutical Biology is now indexed on Medline!
October 21, 2010
Informa Healthcare is pleased to announce that Pharmaceutical Biology has been accepted for indexing by Medline, the widely used online bibliographic citation database.
From the Editor-in-Chief:
“As Pharmaceutical Biology approaches its fifth decade of publication, acceptance for indexing by MEDLINE® is a gratifying acknowledgment of our ever-increasing stature in the field. We can now assure our authors of the broadest dissemination of their important contributions describing the pharmacological basis by which natural remedies and drugs function.”
John M. Pezzuto
From the Managing Editor:
“The acceptance of Pharmaceutical Biology for indexing by MEDLINE®, the widely used online bibliographic citation database, is an indication of the scientific merit of its contributions. This milestone is recognition of the importance of this journal.”
Carol Lewandowski
Informa Healthcare is pleased to announce that Pharmaceutical Biology has been accepted for indexing by Medline, the widely used online bibliographic citation database.
From the Editor-in-Chief:
“As Pharmaceutical Biology approaches its fifth decade of publication, acceptance for indexing by MEDLINE® is a gratifying acknowledgment of our ever-increasing stature in the field. We can now assure our authors of the broadest dissemination of their important contributions describing the pharmacological basis by which natural remedies and drugs function.”
John M. Pezzuto
From the Managing Editor:
“The acceptance of Pharmaceutical Biology for indexing by MEDLINE®, the widely used online bibliographic citation database, is an indication of the scientific merit of its contributions. This milestone is recognition of the importance of this journal.”
Carol Lewandowski
Thursday 14 October 2010
Critical Reviews in Toxicology Vol 40, Special Supplements alert!
October to November 2010
Critical Reviews in Toxicology is pleased to announce that it is producing three special supplements with Volume 40.
Supplement 1 contains 3 open access review articles on the toxicology of Butadiene:
• 1, 3-Butadiene: I. Review of metabolism and the implications to human health risk assessment by C.R. Kirman et al.
• 1, 3-Butadiene: II. Genotoxicity profile by R. J. Albertini .
• 1, 3-Butadiene: III. Assessing carcinogenic modes of action by C.R. Kirman et al.
Supplement 2 reviews the current literature on Benzene and its leukemogenic effects by D. Galbraith et al.
Supplement 3 is an open access comprehensive review paper addressing endocrine disrupting activity by R. J. Witorsch and J. A. Thomas.
Critical Reviews in Toxicology is pleased to announce that it is producing three special supplements with Volume 40.
Supplement 1 contains 3 open access review articles on the toxicology of Butadiene:
• 1, 3-Butadiene: I. Review of metabolism and the implications to human health risk assessment by C.R. Kirman et al.
• 1, 3-Butadiene: II. Genotoxicity profile by R. J. Albertini .
• 1, 3-Butadiene: III. Assessing carcinogenic modes of action by C.R. Kirman et al.
Supplement 2 reviews the current literature on Benzene and its leukemogenic effects by D. Galbraith et al.
Supplement 3 is an open access comprehensive review paper addressing endocrine disrupting activity by R. J. Witorsch and J. A. Thomas.
Monday 27 September 2010
Issue focus "Antibiotics versus resistant bacteria: recent patents"
In celebration of 20 years of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents, we are delighted to introduce the October issue Guest Edited by Dr Herbert A. Kirst who has supported the journal on its Editorial Board since its early days. For this issue, Dr Kirst has selected a series of reviews discussing results from recent research devoted to finding new antibacterial agents that will improve treatment of infectious diseases, including those caused by strains resistant to current antibiotics.
In his Editorial, Dr Kirst comments that 20 years of calls for action have slowly been heeded since resistance problems first became widely recognized in the late 1980s and early 1990s prompted by the unexpected appearance of resistance to vancomycin.
The reviews in this issue reflect the current state of the competition between evolution of resistance to antimicrobial agents and the development of new agents to overcome such resistance by describing a variety of recent research efforts that have led to new antibacterial agents that are now proceeding through development and regulatory pathways.
We hope you will find the articles insightful and thought provoking.
In his Editorial, Dr Kirst comments that 20 years of calls for action have slowly been heeded since resistance problems first became widely recognized in the late 1980s and early 1990s prompted by the unexpected appearance of resistance to vancomycin.
The reviews in this issue reflect the current state of the competition between evolution of resistance to antimicrobial agents and the development of new agents to overcome such resistance by describing a variety of recent research efforts that have led to new antibacterial agents that are now proceeding through development and regulatory pathways.
We hope you will find the articles insightful and thought provoking.
Friday 24 September 2010
Special Issue Alert: Transporter-drug interactions and transporter-mediated toxicity in the liver/hepatocyte
Drug Metabolism Reviews
August 2010 Vol. 42, No. 3.
From the Editor-in-Chief:
In the last 20 years, transporters have become the target of many investigations. Their roles in the disposition and development of drugs have been recognized by scientific researchers, drug authorities, and clinicians. The wide substrate specificity or "unspecificity" of these proteins, their presence in many membranes, and their contribution to pharmacokinetics have produced a lot of, as yet, unanswered questions. It has turned out that these proteins may also be the base of drug-drug interactions in human therapy. The investigation of mutations of transporters may contribute to understanding the mechanism of some human diseases. Transporters are also potential targets of new drugs. This special issue edited by Dr. Laszlo Vereczkey, contains seven articles that may be of interest to people dealing with the structure, regulation, activity, and clinical significance of these proteins.
Jack Hinson
August 2010 Vol. 42, No. 3.
From the Editor-in-Chief:
In the last 20 years, transporters have become the target of many investigations. Their roles in the disposition and development of drugs have been recognized by scientific researchers, drug authorities, and clinicians. The wide substrate specificity or "unspecificity" of these proteins, their presence in many membranes, and their contribution to pharmacokinetics have produced a lot of, as yet, unanswered questions. It has turned out that these proteins may also be the base of drug-drug interactions in human therapy. The investigation of mutations of transporters may contribute to understanding the mechanism of some human diseases. Transporters are also potential targets of new drugs. This special issue edited by Dr. Laszlo Vereczkey, contains seven articles that may be of interest to people dealing with the structure, regulation, activity, and clinical significance of these proteins.
Jack Hinson
Monday 19 July 2010
Two Expert Opinion authors are awarded young researchers' prizes by EFMC
The European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry has awarded prizes to two Expert Opinion authors.
Dr Andreas Bender received the EFMC prize for young researchers in academia. Dr Bender published recently a review in Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery on "Computational methods to support high-content screening: from compound selection and data analysis to postulating target hypotheses" and is presently preparing a perspective article entitled "How similar are those molecules after all? Use two descriptors and you will have three different answers."
Dr Antonio Nardi is the winner of the prize for young researchers in industry. Dr Nardi contributed a couple of review articles on potassium channel openers to Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents in 2007 and 2008.
Details of the announcement and a lab presentation by the authors is available on the EFMC's website at http://www.efmc.info/medchemwatch-2010-2/lab.php.
Dr Andreas Bender received the EFMC prize for young researchers in academia. Dr Bender published recently a review in Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery on "Computational methods to support high-content screening: from compound selection and data analysis to postulating target hypotheses" and is presently preparing a perspective article entitled "How similar are those molecules after all? Use two descriptors and you will have three different answers."
Dr Antonio Nardi is the winner of the prize for young researchers in industry. Dr Nardi contributed a couple of review articles on potassium channel openers to Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents in 2007 and 2008.
Details of the announcement and a lab presentation by the authors is available on the EFMC's website at http://www.efmc.info/medchemwatch-2010-2/lab.php.
Friday 9 July 2010
Author interview on ‘Taking advantage of tumor cell adaptations to hypoxia for developing new tumour markers and treatment strategies’
Peter Ebbesen, Erik O. Pettersen, Thomas A. Gorr, Gerhard Jobst, Kaye Williams, Jochen Kieninger, Roland H. Wenger, Silvia Pastorekova, Ludwig Dubois, Philippe Lambin, Brad G. Wouters, Twan Van Den Beucken, Claudiu T. Supuran, Lorenz Poellinger, Peter Ratcliffe, Arvydas Kanopka, Agnes Görlach, Max Gasmann, Adrian L. Harris, Patrick Maxwell, and Andrea Scozzafava
Dr Claudiu Supuran works at the University of Florence in the department of bioorganic chemistry, and is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry. His research focuses on medicinal chemistry, design of enzyme inhibitors and activators, heterocyclic chemistry, chemistry of sulfonamides, sulfamates and sulfamides, biologically active organo-element derivatives, QSAR studies, X-ray crystallography of metallo-enzymes, metal complexes with biologically active ligands (metal-based drugs), carbonic anhydrases, cyclooxygenases, serine proteases, matrix metalloproteinases, bacterial proteases, and amino acid derivatives among others. He has published more than 600 original research papers in these fields, several patents and two books. Dr Supuran was a co-author of the above paper, and provides an overview of the research and article below.
What was the EUROXY programme and what were the aims of the research?
An integrated EU 6th Framework project which started in 2004 and ended in 2009, termed EUROXY, demonstrated that several biochemical pathways are involved in the transcriptional and translational control of the hypoxic cell phenotype, and evidenced the crosstalk between the many proteins involved in it with responses to pH and redox changes. All these issues are highly significant for the management (treatment and imaging) of hypoxic tumors, and the main scope of this project was just to find such pathways, which are the important enzymes/transcription factors involved in it, and how can they be targeted for eventually finding new drug targets (it would be too ambitious to think we can find a new drug in such a short period of time). The project involved many partners, including Aalborg University, Oslo University, University of Zurich, University of Manchester, University of Florence, University of Oxford, University of Freiburg, Slovak Academy of Sciences – Institute of Virology, Karolinska Institute, University of Maastricht, Lithuanian Institute of Biotechnology, Technical University München, Imperial College, London, as well as several small companies such as, among others, Jobst Technologies.
Could you briefly summarise the key findings of the EUROXY research and their significance?
EUROXY was a highly scientifically successful project. Several hundred original papers were published in the 5 years of the project by the members of this consortium, which led to a much deeper understanding of hypoxia and more precisely to its relevance in cancer. One of the most important finding was that carbonic anhydrase IX (CA IX), one of the enzymes/proteins involved in pH regulation, cell-to-cell contact and other processes that are dysregulated in hypoxic tumors, is a drug target which is useful both for the treatment (as its inhibition leads to a normalization of the tumor pH) and imaging of hypoxic tumors (as, for example, fluorescent CA IX inhibitors bind to the enzyme specifically only in the hypoxic cells over expressing this enzyme, otherwise found in small amounts in normal tissues).
Are there any planned follow up studies or future developments into therapeutic applications of the research findings? Fortunately this project is continuing, under the name of METOXIA, in FP7, being financed by EU for a further 5 years. METOXIA uses many of the great results we obtained in EUROXY, first of all for understanding metastasis of primary hypoxic tumors. The CA IX inhibitors which were initially investigated in EUROXY are now evaluated in animal models with the real hope this time to develop new treatment strategies or imaging of hypoxic tumors.
Why do you think the EUROXY research has been highly cited?
Cancer cells in hypoxic areas of solid tumors are to a large extent protected against the action of radiation as well as many chemotherapeutic drugs, and thus do not respond well to radio- or chemotherapy. Furthermore, many of the basic aspects (biochemistry, molecular biology, physiology) of these cells are poorly understood. EUROXY shed some light on many of these issues, and came up with an alternative to classical chemotherapy: development of CA IX selective inhibitors to be used (in combination therapy) with other agents for the management of these tumors. In addition, pharmacological agents of the same class might be used also for the imaging of such tumors. Thus, we brought new understanding of basic scientific issues together with possible solutions for the management (treatment and imaging) of a type of tumors with poor prognosis.
Peter Ebbesen, Erik O. Pettersen, Thomas A. Gorr, Gerhard Jobst, Kaye Williams, Jochen Kieninger, Roland H. Wenger, Silvia Pastorekova, Ludwig Dubois, Philippe Lambin, Brad G. Wouters, Twan Van Den Beucken, Claudiu T. Supuran, Lorenz Poellinger, Peter Ratcliffe, Arvydas Kanopka, Agnes Görlach, Max Gasmann, Adrian L. Harris, Patrick Maxwell, and Andrea Scozzafava
Dr Claudiu Supuran works at the University of Florence in the department of bioorganic chemistry, and is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry. His research focuses on medicinal chemistry, design of enzyme inhibitors and activators, heterocyclic chemistry, chemistry of sulfonamides, sulfamates and sulfamides, biologically active organo-element derivatives, QSAR studies, X-ray crystallography of metallo-enzymes, metal complexes with biologically active ligands (metal-based drugs), carbonic anhydrases, cyclooxygenases, serine proteases, matrix metalloproteinases, bacterial proteases, and amino acid derivatives among others. He has published more than 600 original research papers in these fields, several patents and two books. Dr Supuran was a co-author of the above paper, and provides an overview of the research and article below.
What was the EUROXY programme and what were the aims of the research?
An integrated EU 6th Framework project which started in 2004 and ended in 2009, termed EUROXY, demonstrated that several biochemical pathways are involved in the transcriptional and translational control of the hypoxic cell phenotype, and evidenced the crosstalk between the many proteins involved in it with responses to pH and redox changes. All these issues are highly significant for the management (treatment and imaging) of hypoxic tumors, and the main scope of this project was just to find such pathways, which are the important enzymes/transcription factors involved in it, and how can they be targeted for eventually finding new drug targets (it would be too ambitious to think we can find a new drug in such a short period of time). The project involved many partners, including Aalborg University, Oslo University, University of Zurich, University of Manchester, University of Florence, University of Oxford, University of Freiburg, Slovak Academy of Sciences – Institute of Virology, Karolinska Institute, University of Maastricht, Lithuanian Institute of Biotechnology, Technical University München, Imperial College, London, as well as several small companies such as, among others, Jobst Technologies.
Could you briefly summarise the key findings of the EUROXY research and their significance?
EUROXY was a highly scientifically successful project. Several hundred original papers were published in the 5 years of the project by the members of this consortium, which led to a much deeper understanding of hypoxia and more precisely to its relevance in cancer. One of the most important finding was that carbonic anhydrase IX (CA IX), one of the enzymes/proteins involved in pH regulation, cell-to-cell contact and other processes that are dysregulated in hypoxic tumors, is a drug target which is useful both for the treatment (as its inhibition leads to a normalization of the tumor pH) and imaging of hypoxic tumors (as, for example, fluorescent CA IX inhibitors bind to the enzyme specifically only in the hypoxic cells over expressing this enzyme, otherwise found in small amounts in normal tissues).
Are there any planned follow up studies or future developments into therapeutic applications of the research findings? Fortunately this project is continuing, under the name of METOXIA, in FP7, being financed by EU for a further 5 years. METOXIA uses many of the great results we obtained in EUROXY, first of all for understanding metastasis of primary hypoxic tumors. The CA IX inhibitors which were initially investigated in EUROXY are now evaluated in animal models with the real hope this time to develop new treatment strategies or imaging of hypoxic tumors.
Why do you think the EUROXY research has been highly cited?
Cancer cells in hypoxic areas of solid tumors are to a large extent protected against the action of radiation as well as many chemotherapeutic drugs, and thus do not respond well to radio- or chemotherapy. Furthermore, many of the basic aspects (biochemistry, molecular biology, physiology) of these cells are poorly understood. EUROXY shed some light on many of these issues, and came up with an alternative to classical chemotherapy: development of CA IX selective inhibitors to be used (in combination therapy) with other agents for the management of these tumors. In addition, pharmacological agents of the same class might be used also for the imaging of such tumors. Thus, we brought new understanding of basic scientific issues together with possible solutions for the management (treatment and imaging) of a type of tumors with poor prognosis.
Monday 28 June 2010
Expert Opinion 2009 Impact Factors
The 2009 ISI Impact Factors (IFs) have just been released, and Expert Opinion has had a good year:
Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs = 4.218
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets = 3.713
Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy = 3.215
Expert Opinion on Drug Metabolism and Toxicology = 3.076
Expert Opinion on Drug Safety = 2.496
Expert Opinion on Emerging Drugs = 2.407
Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy = 2.018
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents = 1.280
Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery has now received its first IF, emerging with a strong first showing of 3.345.
The IF indicates a publication’s influence within the global research community. In a given year, the IF of a journal reflects the average number of citations to those papers that were published during the two preceding years. Expert Opinion’s 2009 IFs therefore account for the number of articles published from 2007-2008, which were cited in 2009.
Further information on IF’s can be found on the ISI Web of Knowledge website, under Journal Citation Reports.
Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs = 4.218
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets = 3.713
Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy = 3.215
Expert Opinion on Drug Metabolism and Toxicology = 3.076
Expert Opinion on Drug Safety = 2.496
Expert Opinion on Emerging Drugs = 2.407
Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy = 2.018
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents = 1.280
Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery has now received its first IF, emerging with a strong first showing of 3.345.
The IF indicates a publication’s influence within the global research community. In a given year, the IF of a journal reflects the average number of citations to those papers that were published during the two preceding years. Expert Opinion’s 2009 IFs therefore account for the number of articles published from 2007-2008, which were cited in 2009.
Further information on IF’s can be found on the ISI Web of Knowledge website, under Journal Citation Reports.
Friday 25 June 2010
Supplementary material for journal articles
On our online platform, informahealthcare.com, we encourage authors to take advantage of our multimedia supplementary material feature when publishing their articles in any Informa Healthcare journal. As an author, you may wish to publish additional files containing information that is peripheral to the conclusions of the paper, but that further demonstrate the results or significance of your work, alongside the main article content that will be printed in an issue. This supplementary material could be valuable to specialist readers, while not necessary for other readers to understand and appreciate the methods and conclusions in the main article files. This material is hosted online together with your article PDF and HTML and is viewable to all subscribers and pay-per-view customers and can, on request (and with agreement of the Editor), be made free to all users.
This feature provides authors with a number of options to further enhance their work. For example, by using video or animated figure files, it is possible to visually demonstrate a biological or technical process. Audio files may be used to support topics discussed in speech and language pathology articles. You can include large data sets within your papers, containing some background information (e.g., genome sequences, gene expression profiles, extended data), which may allow readers to use the information to fully investigate the implications of your research. Surveys, presentation slides and detailed chemical/metabolic pathways are just three more examples of what can be included.
The informahealthcare.com site can accept supplementary material in almost any format, including .doc, .xls, .ppt, .gif, .jpg, .mov, .mp3, .wma, .wav and .pdf. Any supplementary files that you wish to include should be submitted to the editorial office together with the main article files, and will be reviewed as part of the normal manuscript peer-review process. The Editor will make a decision regarding whether the additional content is suitable for inclusion.
Jonathan Collard
Electronic Production Manager
This feature provides authors with a number of options to further enhance their work. For example, by using video or animated figure files, it is possible to visually demonstrate a biological or technical process. Audio files may be used to support topics discussed in speech and language pathology articles. You can include large data sets within your papers, containing some background information (e.g., genome sequences, gene expression profiles, extended data), which may allow readers to use the information to fully investigate the implications of your research. Surveys, presentation slides and detailed chemical/metabolic pathways are just three more examples of what can be included.
The informahealthcare.com site can accept supplementary material in almost any format, including .doc, .xls, .ppt, .gif, .jpg, .mov, .mp3, .wma, .wav and .pdf. Any supplementary files that you wish to include should be submitted to the editorial office together with the main article files, and will be reviewed as part of the normal manuscript peer-review process. The Editor will make a decision regarding whether the additional content is suitable for inclusion.
Jonathan Collard
Electronic Production Manager
Tuesday 22 June 2010
Rising Impact Factors, Strong Growth, Solidifies Journals as Leading Resources
Informa Healthcare – one of the world’s leading medical and scientific publishers – has released its latest Journal Impact Factor* results, with outstanding performances across the division’s diverse selection of peer-reviewed journals.
Highlights included Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, which registered a staggering 10.216 Impact Factor, up 23% from 8.306 last year; The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, increased more than 55% to 5.564; and Chronobiology International jumped up to 3.987.
Impact Factors are a method of measuring the influence which a journal has on the scientific community. They are calculated by Thomson Reuters and are designed to indicate how many times the published articles of a journal are cited during the course of a year, providing an insight to how much ‘impact’ the journal is making on the scientific community.
“The Impact Factor can help validate the importance of our journals to the medical and scientific communities we serve,” explains Phil Garner, Divisional Managing Director at Informa Healthcare.
“We are extremely proud of the high quality information which we publish for our readers and the wide range of healthcare fields covered by our titles. We are delighted that this year’s Impact Factor increases for each journal clearly reflect the quality and importance of the research and pinpoint how much it is being used throughout the year”
Informa’s Expert Opinion series – which provides in-depth analysis of the pharmaceutical R&D pipeline – has registered noteworthy performances in Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs which increased its Impact Factor to 4.218, and Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery which impressed with a first-ever Impact Factor of 3.345.
“These results demonstrate the comprehensive, intelligent content that makes our Expert Opinion journals the definitive reference source for leading pharmaceutical scientists,” says Phil.
Four other Informa titles to enter the market with a remarkable impact include: Journal of Immunotoxicology with a first-ever impact factor of 1.218; Computer Aided Surgery with an impact factor of 1.221; Logopedics, Phoniatrics Vocology had a 1.175 Impact Factor in its first year; and Australasian Psychiatry entering the market at 0.657.
“We are justifiably proud of the performance of all of our journals,” adds Phil. “Our established journals have continued to move from strength to strength, with many titles solidifying an upward trend in their respective rankings.”
The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry moved up 22 places in the Psychiatry category, while the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Impact Factor increased 63% to 2.963, moving 37 places up within its Clinical Neurology sector. The Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care also moved up 13 places with a 27.9% Impact Factor increase to 2.205.
Other titles that registered impressive Impact Factor performances were: Cancer Investigation, with an increased impact factor of 2.105; Autoimmunity at 2.813; Critical Reviews in Microbiology with 3.207; Leukemia & Lymphoma at 2.397; and Nanotoxicology which registered a 72.5% increase to 5.774.
“Our overall performance – together with the outstanding individual performances of many of our titles – ensures that Informa continues to serve as a leading force in medical and scientific publishing, providing the market with the lion’s share of must-read titles,” explains Phil.
*© Thomson Reuters, Journal Citation Reports® 2010
Highlights included Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, which registered a staggering 10.216 Impact Factor, up 23% from 8.306 last year; The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, increased more than 55% to 5.564; and Chronobiology International jumped up to 3.987.
Impact Factors are a method of measuring the influence which a journal has on the scientific community. They are calculated by Thomson Reuters and are designed to indicate how many times the published articles of a journal are cited during the course of a year, providing an insight to how much ‘impact’ the journal is making on the scientific community.
“The Impact Factor can help validate the importance of our journals to the medical and scientific communities we serve,” explains Phil Garner, Divisional Managing Director at Informa Healthcare.
“We are extremely proud of the high quality information which we publish for our readers and the wide range of healthcare fields covered by our titles. We are delighted that this year’s Impact Factor increases for each journal clearly reflect the quality and importance of the research and pinpoint how much it is being used throughout the year”
Informa’s Expert Opinion series – which provides in-depth analysis of the pharmaceutical R&D pipeline – has registered noteworthy performances in Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs which increased its Impact Factor to 4.218, and Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery which impressed with a first-ever Impact Factor of 3.345.
“These results demonstrate the comprehensive, intelligent content that makes our Expert Opinion journals the definitive reference source for leading pharmaceutical scientists,” says Phil.
Four other Informa titles to enter the market with a remarkable impact include: Journal of Immunotoxicology with a first-ever impact factor of 1.218; Computer Aided Surgery with an impact factor of 1.221; Logopedics, Phoniatrics Vocology had a 1.175 Impact Factor in its first year; and Australasian Psychiatry entering the market at 0.657.
“We are justifiably proud of the performance of all of our journals,” adds Phil. “Our established journals have continued to move from strength to strength, with many titles solidifying an upward trend in their respective rankings.”
The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry moved up 22 places in the Psychiatry category, while the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Impact Factor increased 63% to 2.963, moving 37 places up within its Clinical Neurology sector. The Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care also moved up 13 places with a 27.9% Impact Factor increase to 2.205.
Other titles that registered impressive Impact Factor performances were: Cancer Investigation, with an increased impact factor of 2.105; Autoimmunity at 2.813; Critical Reviews in Microbiology with 3.207; Leukemia & Lymphoma at 2.397; and Nanotoxicology which registered a 72.5% increase to 5.774.
“Our overall performance – together with the outstanding individual performances of many of our titles – ensures that Informa continues to serve as a leading force in medical and scientific publishing, providing the market with the lion’s share of must-read titles,” explains Phil.
*© Thomson Reuters, Journal Citation Reports® 2010
Computational Sciences in Drug Metabolism and Toxicology
This month Expert Opinion on Drug Metabolism and Toxicology is proud to introduce its first themed issue, focusing on Computational Sciences in Drug Metabolism and Toxicology.
Computational chemistry and bioinformatics have gained considerable importance in the pharmaceutical field to the extent that they are now integrated and indispensable to any R&D programme. This is particularly relevant in drug metabolism and toxicology studies, where in silico methods hold the potential to reduce the attrition rate throughout the drug development cycle and improve regulatory productivity and quality through faster, cheaper and better informed decision making.
Guest Edited by Dr Luis Valerio Jr., an internationally recognized expert in this topic, this issue is very unique and explores, among regulatory perspectives and reviews by leading experts, the variety of approaches in the field, their usage and development. Most importantly, it also stresses the limits of the tools and the need for their thorough understanding, testing and validation before implementation. In his free editorial, Dr Valerio Jr details the coverage of each article, and points out how these tools are evidence-based and represent an integrated science.
I hope you will find the articles insightful and thought provoking.
Joris Roulleau
Senior Editor
Computational chemistry and bioinformatics have gained considerable importance in the pharmaceutical field to the extent that they are now integrated and indispensable to any R&D programme. This is particularly relevant in drug metabolism and toxicology studies, where in silico methods hold the potential to reduce the attrition rate throughout the drug development cycle and improve regulatory productivity and quality through faster, cheaper and better informed decision making.
Guest Edited by Dr Luis Valerio Jr., an internationally recognized expert in this topic, this issue is very unique and explores, among regulatory perspectives and reviews by leading experts, the variety of approaches in the field, their usage and development. Most importantly, it also stresses the limits of the tools and the need for their thorough understanding, testing and validation before implementation. In his free editorial, Dr Valerio Jr details the coverage of each article, and points out how these tools are evidence-based and represent an integrated science.
I hope you will find the articles insightful and thought provoking.
Joris Roulleau
Senior Editor
Friday 18 June 2010
GPR119 agonists for the treatment of type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the most common form of diabetes, already affecting millions of people worldwide, with cases expected to rise significantly in the future. Given some of the unpleasant and sometimes dangerous side effects of current anti-diabetic therapies, which include hypoglycaemia, gastrointestinal problems, weight gain and edema, there is ongoing research to find more promising targets that can effectively reduce blood glucose. One target that has gained considerable interest is GPR119, a G-protein coupled receptor. Agonists of this receptor have been shown to increase both glucose –dependent insulin release and incretin release (which, in turn, causes insulin release). Jones and colleagues review currently known chemical GPR119 agonists focusing on the chemical structure of the compounds and discuss their effects in animal models of diabetes and early clinical trials. The authors claim GPR119 agonists could be used effectively with DPP-IV inhibitors to control glucose levels if their actions can be repeated in human clinical trials.
Tuesday 8 June 2010
Informa Healthcare redesigns website, adds book content
Informahealthcare.com offers improved navigation with new look and ability to search across journals and books
Informa Healthcare – one of the world’s leading medical and scientific publishers¬ – has unveiled plans to redesign and add recently published book content to the informahealthcare.com web platform. The change is set to go live in July 2010, when the site will deliver more than 170 journals and approximately 600 online books. The combination of books and journals allows users to search across both products to find key data on one platform – saving researchers time and helping site administrators track usage more effectively.
The redesigned site will improve navigation and optimize current functionality. Enhancements include:
• Deeper content in special therapeutic areas including cardiology, dermatology, neurology, pharmaceutical science, respiratory medicine, toxicology, and urology
• Option to save searches to help manage advanced research results
• Improved navigation options to highlight most popular articles and chapters, share journal or book developments and connect related content or authors to improve and expand research
• More links to key resources such as audio or video content, social networking pages, users guides, and the Informa Healthcare blog to diversity product offerings and maximize subscription investments
“Adding more electronic content from our recently published books will offer our customers more research and opinion within specific therapeutic areas,” said Phil Garner, Divisional Managing Director, Informa Healthcare. “With additional links to video content and our ability to search across journals or books, we’ll be able to deliver a richer online experience to our customers.”
The new platform also allows librarians, information officers or department heads to evaluate usage and traffic on the site to ensure their patrons or staff are regularly accessing the data and help quantify subscription investments. As administrators, customers can access COUNTER-compliant usage reports, manage IP ranges, and view general account details. Users can also receive new data published online through free alerts services – including eTOC alerts, early online article alerts or RSS feeds to share any research or developments with peers.
Informahealthcare.com covers all aspects of healthcare—including drug discovery and development, medical technology, bioscience, clinical medicine and toxicology—offering access to specialized research and insight from an international body of experts. The site will now offer more than 3 million pages of research and approximately 16,000 new book chapters. Content will continue to increase as new issues and books are added.
For more information, visit http://informahealthcare.com.
Informa Healthcare – one of the world’s leading medical and scientific publishers¬ – has unveiled plans to redesign and add recently published book content to the informahealthcare.com web platform. The change is set to go live in July 2010, when the site will deliver more than 170 journals and approximately 600 online books. The combination of books and journals allows users to search across both products to find key data on one platform – saving researchers time and helping site administrators track usage more effectively.
The redesigned site will improve navigation and optimize current functionality. Enhancements include:
• Deeper content in special therapeutic areas including cardiology, dermatology, neurology, pharmaceutical science, respiratory medicine, toxicology, and urology
• Option to save searches to help manage advanced research results
• Improved navigation options to highlight most popular articles and chapters, share journal or book developments and connect related content or authors to improve and expand research
• More links to key resources such as audio or video content, social networking pages, users guides, and the Informa Healthcare blog to diversity product offerings and maximize subscription investments
“Adding more electronic content from our recently published books will offer our customers more research and opinion within specific therapeutic areas,” said Phil Garner, Divisional Managing Director, Informa Healthcare. “With additional links to video content and our ability to search across journals or books, we’ll be able to deliver a richer online experience to our customers.”
The new platform also allows librarians, information officers or department heads to evaluate usage and traffic on the site to ensure their patrons or staff are regularly accessing the data and help quantify subscription investments. As administrators, customers can access COUNTER-compliant usage reports, manage IP ranges, and view general account details. Users can also receive new data published online through free alerts services – including eTOC alerts, early online article alerts or RSS feeds to share any research or developments with peers.
Informahealthcare.com covers all aspects of healthcare—including drug discovery and development, medical technology, bioscience, clinical medicine and toxicology—offering access to specialized research and insight from an international body of experts. The site will now offer more than 3 million pages of research and approximately 16,000 new book chapters. Content will continue to increase as new issues and books are added.
For more information, visit http://informahealthcare.com.
Sunday 24 January 2010
10 years of Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy
Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy is now in its 10th volume! In the foreword to the first volume, J. Desmond Fitzgerald stated that “the broader field of biologic therapy has only come of age in the last 20 years but now is poised to make a major impact on therapeutics.” We now look back over the last 10 years’ manuscripts in EOBT and are struck by how complex this transition into therapeutic application has been and how EOBT has provided the expert commentary that distills, explains, and prioritizes the issues involved, highlighting the most promising technologies and, frequently, identifying the technologies that may seem to be “outside the box’ but which could also represent new strategies for managing difficult-to-treat medical conditions. Illustrating the complexity in development and approval of biologics are the many reports on cancer vaccines. These articles point out how the success of clinical trials of immunotherapy for cancer will require further understanding of the ideal patient groups, immune correlates, and most appropriate clinical endpoints. The reporting on the development of dendritic cell vaccines for prostate cancer including Provenge and DCVax illustrates excellent commentary on these complex issues. Now Provenge stands at the threshold of an approval decision by FDA which would make it the first true anti-cancer vaccine to be approved. Therapeutic antibodies have continued to expand in number and range of targets. This is most apparent in the most recent issue of EOBT with reviews of antibodies against targets as diverse as folate receptor α, CD80, and RANK-ligand. Another area that has continued to gain momentum is that of stem cell therapy and it is expected that the next ten years will see this used more routinely as a therapeutic option for diverse medical conditions. Finally, glimpses of the future are suggested by manuscripts describing strategies for creating vascular structures to support development of new organs. While the ability to generate new tissue to replace damaged organs and structures routinely may be far in the future, we see the first glimpses of this possibility now 10 years into EOBTs coverage of biologic therapy.
Dr Michael Morse
Editor-in-Chief
Dr Michael Morse
Editor-in-Chief
Saturday 2 January 2010
Celebrating the 20 years of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents
This month celebrates the 20th anniversary of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents. Behind this slightly esoteric title, EOTP has for two decades offered a bird’s eye view of the latest advances in the discovery of therapeutically promising molecules. During this period the scientific and regulatory landscapes in drug R&D inevitably evolved, the number of peer-reviewed publications worldwide increased steadily and the Expert Opinion journals changed hands. Yet, I think it is fair to say that EOTP’s distinct approach and relevance have remained unaltered.
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ launch aimed at filling a gap in the life science literature by explicitly including patents within the scope of its review articles. Key to a legal system designed to promote innovation, patents provide exclusive rights to the inventor in return for the full disclosure of the invention to the public. In the specific context of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, this makes patents a particularly valuable source of information for medicinal chemists and other researchers involved in drug discovery. In effect, to protect their promising compounds, companies reveal them at an early preclinical stage and for the first time in patents. Not only do patents divulge the novel compounds, but they also show which are deemed to show clinical potential and offer insights into the competitors’ research programmes.
Patents are not alien to researchers in the industry. However, despite being largely freely available and easily searchable, patents present the information in a somewhat cryptic way. They don’t follow the rules of scientific writing and extracting the relevant knowledge can be time consuming. Patents are long documents worded in legal jargon by specialist attorneys. They often cover dozens of compounds, only a few of which are of genuine interest. These compounds need to be reconstructed from generic structures and of course, they need to be put into context with other related patents as well as the scientific literature.
EOTP’s review articles provide a dramatic shortcut to the essential information by summing up the important scientific content of dozens of patents, putting it into a wider perspective and, of course, expressing the authors’ own critical opinion. They answer fundamental questions such as “what are the structural types of inhibitors? “ and “who are the major players in the field?,” but also go beyond and suggest which compounds are likely to progress to the clinic. In that respect, Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ reviews offer exceptional added value.
I know from many first-time authors that preparing a manuscript for the journal is a surprisingly taxing undertaking. I can but acknowledge this and I would like to thank our authors for their hard work. The constant increase in EOTP’s usage testifies that the drug discovery community clearly values such efforts. Moreover, the readership is very likely to continue to grow as EOTP has eventually been accepted for indexing on Medline last year – an unfortunately tardy development.
Last year, Expert Opinion’s editorial team gathered feedback from the advisory boards and our readers. This 20th volume of EOTP should reap the first benefits of this consultation. First, the abstract’s structure has been redesigned to better reflect the content of the article. Second, an ‘article highlights’ box has been added to guide the reader through the main points of the paper. Third, EOTP will start publishing one to two themed issues in each volume. The first one, guest-edited by Dr Herbert Kirst from our Editorial Board, will cover antibacterials and will be due later this year.
I expect in 2010 the acceleration of another more gradual addition to the journal. The biotechnologies are now fully integrated to the pharmaceutical area and bear novel promises of therapeutic advances. Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents will logically increase its coverage of biologicals to echo this trend.
I hope this agenda meets our readers’ expectations and that EOTP will remain, above all, a useful resource to professionals in the field.
Joris Roulleau
Senior Editor
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ launch aimed at filling a gap in the life science literature by explicitly including patents within the scope of its review articles. Key to a legal system designed to promote innovation, patents provide exclusive rights to the inventor in return for the full disclosure of the invention to the public. In the specific context of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, this makes patents a particularly valuable source of information for medicinal chemists and other researchers involved in drug discovery. In effect, to protect their promising compounds, companies reveal them at an early preclinical stage and for the first time in patents. Not only do patents divulge the novel compounds, but they also show which are deemed to show clinical potential and offer insights into the competitors’ research programmes.
Patents are not alien to researchers in the industry. However, despite being largely freely available and easily searchable, patents present the information in a somewhat cryptic way. They don’t follow the rules of scientific writing and extracting the relevant knowledge can be time consuming. Patents are long documents worded in legal jargon by specialist attorneys. They often cover dozens of compounds, only a few of which are of genuine interest. These compounds need to be reconstructed from generic structures and of course, they need to be put into context with other related patents as well as the scientific literature.
EOTP’s review articles provide a dramatic shortcut to the essential information by summing up the important scientific content of dozens of patents, putting it into a wider perspective and, of course, expressing the authors’ own critical opinion. They answer fundamental questions such as “what are the structural types of inhibitors? “ and “who are the major players in the field?,” but also go beyond and suggest which compounds are likely to progress to the clinic. In that respect, Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ reviews offer exceptional added value.
I know from many first-time authors that preparing a manuscript for the journal is a surprisingly taxing undertaking. I can but acknowledge this and I would like to thank our authors for their hard work. The constant increase in EOTP’s usage testifies that the drug discovery community clearly values such efforts. Moreover, the readership is very likely to continue to grow as EOTP has eventually been accepted for indexing on Medline last year – an unfortunately tardy development.
Last year, Expert Opinion’s editorial team gathered feedback from the advisory boards and our readers. This 20th volume of EOTP should reap the first benefits of this consultation. First, the abstract’s structure has been redesigned to better reflect the content of the article. Second, an ‘article highlights’ box has been added to guide the reader through the main points of the paper. Third, EOTP will start publishing one to two themed issues in each volume. The first one, guest-edited by Dr Herbert Kirst from our Editorial Board, will cover antibacterials and will be due later this year.
I expect in 2010 the acceleration of another more gradual addition to the journal. The biotechnologies are now fully integrated to the pharmaceutical area and bear novel promises of therapeutic advances. Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents will logically increase its coverage of biologicals to echo this trend.
I hope this agenda meets our readers’ expectations and that EOTP will remain, above all, a useful resource to professionals in the field.
Joris Roulleau
Senior Editor
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