Latest news

The Editor in Chief has issued a new call for papers.  Read it here. 

Journal newsletter sent to subscribers in week 26, 2009. Register to receive future newsletters. 

New call for papers sent to newsletter subscribers in week 10 2009.  Readers who wish to be elligible to receive CFPs should subscribe to the newsletter.

Peer reviewers are sought. Click here to apply or to update your details.

Check the Publisher's Blog for recent news

Journal overview

Aims and scope:

Lipids Insights is a peer-reviewed, open-access online journal that covers all aspects of lipids. This includes biochemistry, synthesis, pharmacology, toxicology, function and role in tissue and organisms, and new compounds. It also incorporates articles on lipid signalling and pathways.

Lipids are increasingly an area of focus in terms of both biochemical signalling and obesity issues for individuals and society. The devotion of a journal exclusively to the subject, which can deliver ground-breaking information more rapidly, is of great benefit to this field.

Editorial standards and procedures:

Submissions, excluding editorials, letters to the editor and dedications, will be peer reviewed by two reviewers.  Reviewers are required to provide fair, balanced and constructive reports.  

Under our Fairness in Peer Review Policy authors may appeal against reviewers' recommendations which are ill-founded, unobjective or unfair.  Appeals are considered by the Editor in Chief or Associate Editor.

Papers are not sent to peer reviewers following submission of a revised manuscript. Editorial decisions on re-submitted papers are based on the author's response to the initial peer review report.

Indexing:

This journal is indexed by:

• DOAJ 
• CAS
• OAIster
  

National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy compliant:

As of April 7 2008, the US NIH Public Access Policy requires that all peer reviewed articles resulting from research carried out with NIH funding be deposited in the Pubmed Central archive.

If you are an NIH employee or grantee Libertas Academica will ensure that you comply with the policy by depositing your paper at Pubmed Central on your behalf. 

Information for authors

Call for papers:

Read the Editor in Chief's latest call for papers here.

Submission types accepted:

Submissions of the following types of manuscripts are accepted:

• Original research articles.
• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the journal's scope. They may cover basic science and clinical reviews, ethics, pro/con debates, and equipment reviews.
• Commentaries: focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the journal's scope. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue.
• Hypotheses: articles that present an original hypothesis backed solely by previously published results rather than any new evidence. They should outline significant progress in thinking that would also be testable.
• Letters to the Editor: these can be either a re-analysis of a previously published article, or a response to such a re-analysis from the authors of the original publication.
• Methodology articles: these discuss a new experimental method, test or procedure. The article must describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available. The method needs to have been well tested and ideally, but not necessarily, used in a way that proves its value.
• Short reports: brief reports of data from original research.
• Meeting reports: a report pertaining to activity at a meeting or conference Articles published in this journal are immediately available without delay upon publication and enjoy substantial visibility.
• Case reports: reports of clinical cases that can be educational, describe a diagnostic or therapeutic dilemma, suggest an association, or present an important adverse reaction. Case reports must meet appropriate ethical standards.

All submissions are subject to prompt, objective and fair peer review in compliance with our Fairness in Peer Review Policy.  Copyright in published articles remains with the author(s).  Authors are continually informed of the progress of their paper and our staff are friendly and responsive. 

One author recently wrote: "I would like to say that this is the most author-friendly editing process I have experienced in over 150 publications. Thank you most sincerely."

Criteria for publication: 

Publication is dependent on peer reviewers' judgement of papers.  Reviewers are asked to provide thoughtful and unbiased feedback to authors to ensure that the conclusions of papers are valid and manuscripts achieve reasonable standards of scholarliness and intelligibility. 

Previous work in the field must be acknowledged and papers should read without unreasonable difficulty.  Papers should fit comfortably within the scope of the journal.

Reviewers are asked to act in a fair, objective and constructive manner which maintains quality standards and helps authors to communicate their research.  They are instructed that in areas of genuinely novel research issues may be raised which cannot immediately be resolved and that absolutely rigorous validation of data may therefore not be possible. 

More information on the role of peer reviewers is available on the information for reviewers page.  Where authors consider that reviewers have made recommendations which are unreasonable, unobjective or ill-founded they may appeal them to the Editor in Chief or Associate Editor under our Fairness in Peer Review Policy.

Articles submitted to other journals:

We are willing to consider papers which have been peer reviewed by other journals but not accepted for publication. 

Services for authors:

Prior to peer review of your paper we can:

• Have your paper's reference style revised to meet our requirements,
• Have your paper's English revised by specialist English-speaking technical editors.

After peer review of your paper we can:

• Have your paper revised in accordance with peer reviewer's recommendations and have a summary of responses to the reviewers created by our specialist external substantive editors,
• Provide bound reprints of your article in colour or black and white ,
• Provide online-early rapid publication if your paper prior to typesetting.

What other authors have said:

Libertas Academica actively requests, receives and acts upon feedback from authors, readers and editorial boards.  Here's what some recent authors have said about us:

"Within a couple of days the reviewers had been procured and the manuscript was out."

"The communication between your staff and me has been terrific.  Whenever progress is made with the manuscript, I receive notice.  Quite honestly, I've never had such complete communication with a journal."

"LA is different, and hopefully represents a kind of scientific publication machinery that removes the hurdles from free flow of scientific thought."

Article processing fees:

All submissions to this journal are subject to an article processing fee if they are accepted for publication.  Article processing fees are used to fund the processing of your paper and development of the journal.  Article processing fees are the only compulsory charge you will face and do not vary according to word count, page count, colour figures or any other factor.  There is no additional charge for the author(s) to make any use of their article and no charge to readers to access it.

Full fee waivers are available for authors working in undeveloped nations and partial discounts of 20-50% are available to authors in other nations.  Authors must be able to verifiably demonstrate their suitability for a discount or waiver.  Availability of waivers and discounts is subject to monthly availability and is given at the publisher's discretion.  Waivers and discounts must be applied for prior to submission.  Neither are available after submission.

Register as a peer reviewer:

Do you wish to register as a peer reviewer?  Or are you already a registered peer reviewer but you need to update your contact details?   To register or update your details visit the peer reviewer registration form. 

Applicants must be able to demonstrate at least five years of continuous experience in the journal's subject area including at least two in the previous 24 months.

Editor in Chief profile

Tim Levine is a Lecturer in Cell Biology at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, London, where he has been since 2000. His main interest is the cell biological context of intracellular lipid traffic. In 1996 as a post-doc at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, he began studies on oxysterol binding protein homologues in the secretory pathway. His own lab focuses on the role in lipid traffic of intracellular membrane contact sites, where he has found many lipid transfer proteins to be targeted.

Originally Dr. Levine trained in medicine, and worked briefly as a histopathologist before entering science. For his PhD (1993), he studied endocytosis in antigen presenting cells with Prof Benny Chain, UCL, and then worked on mitotic disassembly of the Golgi apparatus in the lab of Dr Graham Warren at Cancer Research UK.

>> Dr Levine's latest call for papers

Editorial Board

Gholamreza Bahrami, PhD
Associate Professor of Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran

Nicolas G. Bazan, MD PhD
Boyd Professor, Ernest C. and Yvette C. Villere Professor of Ophthalmology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Neurology, LSU School of Medicine; Director, Neuroscience Center of Excellence, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Mabrouk Benhamou, PhD
Professor, Polymer Physics and Critical Phenomena Laboratory, Physics Department, Sciences Faculty Ben M'sik, Hassan II-Mohammedia University, Casablanca, Morocco

Emma Chiavaro, PhD
Researcher, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Parma, Parma, Italy

Joan Clària, PhD
Consultant, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, Hospital Clínic; and Associate Professor, School of Medicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Mohamed Damak, PhD
Professor, Department of chemistry (Laboratory of Natural Products), Faculty of Science, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia

Eric A. Decker
Professor, Department of Food Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA

Frédéric Destaillats, PhD
Research Scientist, Bioanalytical Sciences Department, Nestlé Research Center, Lausanne, Switzerland

Ibrahim Mohammed El-Ashmawy, PhD
Professor, Pharmacology Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Alexandria University, Edfina, Rossett Line, Behera, Egypt

Nils Joakim Færgeman, PhD
Associate professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

Beate Fuchs, PhD
Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Medical Physics and Biophysics, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Saxony, Germany

Ronald Alan Holser, PhD
Food Quality and Safety, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Athens, Georgia, USA

Fong-Fu Hsu, PhD
Research Professor, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, Metabolism, and Lipid research, Department of Internal Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Dean G. Karalis, MD FACC
Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Department of Cardiology, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Naim Akhtar Khan, PhD DSc
Professor, Department of Physiology, UPRES EA4183 "Lipides & Signalisation Cellulaire", UFR Sciences de la Vie, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France

Rumiana Koynova, PhD DSc
Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

Anton I.P.M. de Kroon, PhD
Membrane Enzymology, Bijvoet Institute and Institute of Biomembranes, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Marie Kunešová, MD PhD
Associate Professor & Head of the Obesity Managament Centre, Institute of Endocrinology, Prague, Czech Republic

Vinod Labhasetwar, PhD
Professor and Head, Division of BioMEMS and NanoMedicine, Department of Biomedical Engineering/ND20, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio

Brigitte Lefevre, PhD
Research director, UMR 566 INSERM, CEA; Laboratory Gametogenesis, Apoptosis and Genotoxicity (LGAG), INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale), Fontenay-aux-Roses, France

Sima Lev, PhD
Associate Professor, Molecular Cell Biology Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Gloria Márquez-Ruiz, PhD
Researcher, Instituto del Frío, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council), Madrid, Spain

Michael A. R. Meier, PhD MSc
University of Potsdam, Institute of Chemistry, Laboratory of Sustainable Organic Synthesis, Potsdam, Germany

Harry J. Mersmann, PhD
Retired Research Chemist, Agricultural Research Service, US Department of Agriculture; and Retired Professor, Children's Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine; now Florida, USA

Biswajit Mukherjee
Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Vesa Olkkonen, PhD
Adjunct Professor & Senior Scientist, National Public Health Institute, and Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), Biomedicum, Helsinki, Finland

Salvatore Pepe, PhD FAHA FSCANZ
Head, Laboratory of Cardiothoracic Surgical Research, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Alfred Hospital; Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

José Luis Pérez-Castrillón, MD
Assistant Physician, Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital Universitario Rio Hortega de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain

Thomas Pomorski, PhD
Professor, Department of Biology/Biophysics, Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Raylene A. Reimer, PhD RD
Associate Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Robert Ringseis, PD Dr troph rer nat habil
Chair of Animal Nutrition, Centre for Food and Life Sciences, Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany

Manfredi Rizzo, MD PhD
Assistant Professor, Internal Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine and Emerging Diseases, University of Palermo, Italy

Marcio Lourenço Rodrigues, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of General Microbiology, Microbiology Institute, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Brian M. Ross, PhD
Professor, Division of Medical Sciences, Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

Norbert Stefan, MD PhD
Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetology, Vascular Medicine, Nephrology and Clinical Chemistry, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Wolfgang Stremmel, MD
Professor, Department of Medicine, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Rita K. Upmacis, PhD
Associate Research Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Center of Vascular Biology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, USA

Vasundara Venkateswaran, MSc MPhil PhD
Assistant Professor, Division of Urology, Department of Surgery, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Dirk Michael Zajonc, PhD
Assistant Member, Division of Cell Biology, La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, La Jolla, California, USA

Marija Žakelj-Mavrič, PhD
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Institute of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

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