Latest news

Read an interview with Associate Editor Dr Barbara Guinn here.

Journal newsletter sent to subscribers in week 36, 2009. Register to receive future newsletters. 

Journal newsletter sent to subscribers in week 35, 2009. Register to receive future newsletters. 

Read an interview with editorial board member Dr Stéphanie McArdle

Journal newsletter sent to subscribers in week 30, 2009. Register to receive future newsletters. 

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. 

Dr Barbara Guinn appointed to role of Associate Editor for Immunotherapy Insights.

Read an interview with the Editor in Chief, and the announcement of the launch of the journal.  

Check the Publisher's Blog for recent news

Journal overview

Aims and scope:

Immunotherapy Insights is an open access, peer reviewed journal which covers all aspects of manipulation of the immune system to treat disease or allergies. Types of immunotherapy may include cancer immunotherapy (BCG, topical, dendritic cell or T-cell based), immunization (active, passive, secondary), and allergy immunotherapy. Related topics may include immune suppression and tolerance, vaccination administration and debate, and research on the allergens and factors causing the immune responses or lack thereof.

Indexing:

This journal is indexed by:

• CAS
  
• OAIster
  

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.

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

Dr John Barrett is Section Chief of Stem Cell Allotransplantation in the Hematology Branch of the National Heat Lung and Blood Institute at the NIH. Previously he was Professor of Hematological Medicine and Honorary Consultant at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London. Prior to that appointment Dr Barrett was Professor of Hematology and Head of the Hematology Department at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, and Honorary Consultant for the Riverside Health District.

Dr Barrett has published over 260 original articles, and 120 reviews and book chapters. He has also co-written 6 books. He has been awarded a number of honours including an NIH Director’s Award, Marcelo Cardenas Excellence Award for service to Spanish –speaking communities, and the MAPAVI Humanitarian Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Pathologists, Secretary of the Specialist Sub-Committee in Hematology at the University of London, and President of the Pathology Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He is also a councillor, member or advisor for many other organizations and committees and reviews for several journals.

Br Barrett’s immunotherapy background is based on a career in stem cell transplantation, use of immunosuppressive agents,  immune cell therapy and vaccine development which includes basic laboratory and translational research in transplant immunology, as well as clinical expertise in transplantation and leukemia vaccines.

>> Dr Barrett's latest call for papers

Editorial Board

Associate Editor:

Barbara A Guinn, PhD
Principal Investigator, Department of Haematological Medicine, King's College London School of Medicine, London, UK

Dr. Guinn is a Senior Research Fellow at The University of Southampton and a visiting scientist at King’s College London. Dr. Guinn gained her B.Sc. in Genetics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1991 and a Ph.D. in Medicine from the University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff in 1995. Dr. Guinn was one of the first Leukaemia Research Fund Gordon Piller Ph.D. students in the year this prestigious award was initiated. Dr. Guinn undertook two postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Toronto (Autologous Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Toronto General Hospital and Department of Immunology) and has maintained a history of support from the Leukaemia Research Fund throughout her career. In addition, Dr Guinn has received funding from Cancer Research U.K., the Elimination of Leukaemia Fund, Wessex Cancer Trust and British Society for Haematology. Dr. Guinn has published over 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts. She is on the editorial board of five journals and reviews manuscripts for more than 30 scientific journals on an ad hoc basis.

Dr. Guinn’s research at King’s College London, and more recently at the University of Southampton, has focused on the identification of leukaemia antigens in acute myeloid leukaemia using SEREX, microarray and RT-PCR. A number of epitopes from these antigens have been inserted into DNA vaccines and tested for suitability for near-future clinical trials. Dr. Guinn’s group has also worked on whole cell vaccines for acute myeloid leukaemia and B-cell lymphoma, and the development of tetramer arrays as a clinical end-point assay.  Read an interview with Dr Guinn here.

Editorial Board:

Persis Amrolia, PhD
Reader in Transplantation Immunology, Consultant in Bone Marrow Transplantation, Molecular Immunology Unit, Institute of Child Health, Great Ormond St Children's Hospital, London, UK

Weibo Cai, PhD
Assistant Professor, Radiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

Dario Campana, MD, PhD
Vice Chair for Laboratory Research, Department of Oncology, Member, Departments of Oncology and Pathology, St jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA

Richard Champlin, MD
Chairman, Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, MD Anderson Cancer Centre, Houston, TX, USA

Daniel Douek, PhD
Senior Investigator, Vaccine Research Centre, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

Hermann Einsele, PhD
Director of Department, Department of Internal Medicine II, University Hospital Wurzburg, Wurzburg, Germany

JH Frederik Falkenburg, PhD
Professor of Hematology, Hematology, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, Netherlands

Stephen Gottschalk, PhD
Associate Professor, Pediatrics and Immunology, Centre for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

Els Goulmy, PhD
Staff Member, Research Section Leader, Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands

Peiman Hematti, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Medicine, Hematology, Oncology, Bone Marrow Transplant, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

Franco Locatelli, PhD
Full Professor of Pediatrics, Director, Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

Arvind Madaan, MD, MBBS
Consultant, Allergy and Immunology, Danville Ent, Lynchburg, VA, USA

Stéphanie McArdle, PhD  (Interview)
Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom

Jan Joseph Melenhorst, PhD
Staff Scientist, Hematology, National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA

Jaroslav Michalek, PhD
Professor of Pediatrics, Head, University Cell Immunotherapy Center, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

Katayoun Rezvani, PhD
Clinical Senior Lecturer, Haematology, Imperial College London, London, UK

Anthony P Schwarer, PhD
Haematologist, Box Hill, Melbourne, Australia

Shimon Slavin, PhD
Medical and Scientific Director, International Center for Cell Therapy and Cancer Immunotherapy, Tel Aviv Medical Complex and The Sourasky Medical Centre, Tel Aviv, Israel

Freda K Stevenson, PhD
Professor of Immunology, Cancer Sciences Division, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

Paul Szabolcs, MD
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Assistant Professor of Immunology, Pediatrics, Duke University Medical Centre, Durham, NC, USA

Frits van Rhee, MD, PhD, MRCP, FRCPath
Professor of Medicine, Director of Clinical Research, Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR, USA

Adrian J Thrasher, PhD
Professor of Paediatric Immunology, Molecular Immunology Unit, Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK

Robert Yarchoan, MD
Chief, HIV and AIDS Malignancy Branch, Centre for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA

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