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

This journal has been accepted for indexing by Elsevier's highly regarded SCOPUS index

Journal overview

Aims and scope:

Bioinformatics and Biology Insights is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on computational methods used in the analysis and annotation of structures, in addition to other areas of computational biology and the broader field of biology.

It both complements Libertas Academica’s subject-specific journals in the area and also seeks to place bioinformatics in the broader context of biology. The journal welcomes all submissions in the field of bioinformatics and also submissions dealing with the relationship between bioinformatics and the broader field of biology. Submissions of original research, reviews, tutorials, rapid communications, expert commentaries, letters, application notes, and point–counter-point articles are welcomed for peer review. No word limits are imposed, but authors are reminded that excessive word-counts may attract adverse comment by peer reviewers and discourage readers.

The submission of tutorial-type articles is encouraged, in which methods which have been developed in the recent past are reviewed in such a way as to make them readily comprehensible for Biologists. Papers discussing methodologies are discouraged unless they explicitly demonstrate that new biological insights have been gained or that earlier methods used to gain a new insight can be replaced.

Authors are encouraged to consider submitting their manuscripts to Evolutionary Bioinformatics and Cancer Informatics, if they consider that their manuscript is exclusively or specifically relevant to those journals’ audiences.

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 the following services:

• Pubmed
• Pubmed Central
  
• Google Scholar
• CAS
• DOAJ
• Embase
  
• Intute
• SCOPUS
• OAIster

SPARC Europe Seal award winner:

This journal has been awarded a SPARC Europe Seal. The Seal is an initiative of SPARC Europe (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) which is awarded to journals applying a Creative Commons CC-BY copyright license and that make journal metadata accessible to DOAJ.  

 Amongst other important services DOAJ makes metadata OAI-compliant.  This in turn enhances the visibility of papers and allows OAI-harvesters to include the details of journal articles in their services. We encourage readers to make use of this valuable resource.  The DOAJ search page is available here.

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:

The Editor in Chief welcomes submissions.  Submissions of the following types are invited:

• 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.  Papers discussing methodologies are discouraged unless they explicitly demonstrate that new biological insights have been gained or that earlier methods used to gain a new insight can be replaced.
• 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.
• The submission of tutorial-type articles is encouraged, in which methods which have been developed in the recent past are reviewed in such a way as to make them readily comprehensible for Biologists.
  

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 Erich Bornberg-Bauer is a Professor of Bioinformatics at the School of Biological Sciences, Westfälische Wilhelms University, Münster, Germany, and Head of Division of the Evolution of Biopolymers and Biochemical Pathways (EBB) group.

His areas of research include principles of molecular evolution and genotypic variation, modular evolution of proteins, evolution of networks and pathways, and evolution and adaptation in response to biotic and abiotic stress. He is the author of 40+ peer reviewed articles.

Dr Bornberg-Bauer's profile on the Westfälische Wilhelms University's website is available here.

>> Read Dr Bornberg-Bauer's latest call for papers

Editorial Board

Associate Editor:

Rainer Breitling, PhD

Dr Rainer Breitling is currently Professor of Systems Biology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and Honorary Professor of Computational Systems Biology in the Groningen Bioinformatics Centre, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. His research interests include the development of innovative computational approaches for post-genomic systems biology, statistical methods for gene expression, proteomics, and metabolomics experiments, and the dynamic modelling of cellular systems. Dr Breitling's profile is available on the University of Groningen website.

Editorial Board:

Fernando G. Alvarez-Valin, PhD
Associate Professor, Sección Biomatemática, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay 

Maia Angelova, PhD
Professor, Intelligent Modelling Lab, School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom

Sophia Ananiadou, PhD
Professor, School of Computer Science, National Centre for Text Mining, Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Ivet Bahar PhD
John K. Vries Chair, Department of Computational Biology, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Marc Henrik Baumann, BM, PhD
Assistant Professor, Director, Protein Chemistry/Proteomics Unit, Institute of Biomedicine, Biomedicum Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Doris M. Benbrook, PhD
Professor and Director of Research, Section of Gynecologic Oncology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Olaf Bininda-Emonds, PhD
Heisenberg Scholar, Institut für Spezielle Zoologie und Evolutionsbiologie mit Phyletischem Museum Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany

Alexander Bolshoy, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

Jean-Francois Boulicaut, PhD
Professor in Computer Science, LIRIS CNRS UMR5205, INSA-Lyon, Villeurbanne, France

Werner Braun, PhD
Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology: Senior Scientist, Sealy Center for Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, USA

Charles William Caldwell, MD, PhD
Director, Ellis Fischel Cancer Center, CRC Missouri Chair in Cancer Research, Professor of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, University of Missouri Health Care, Columbia, Missouri, USA

Chuan-Hsiung Chang, MD
Assistant Professor & Director of Bioinformatics Program, Center for Systems & Synthetic Biology, Institute of Bioinformatics, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

Lillian T. Chong, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, School of Arts & Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Lieping Chen, MD, PhD
Professor of Dermatology, Oncology and Immunology, Investigator, Institute for Cell Engineering Director of Dermatology Research Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Thomas Dandekar, PhD
Professor, Chair of Bioinformatics, Department of Bioinformatics, Biocenter, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany

Marc Delarue, PhD
Department of Structural Biology and Chemistry, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

Drena L. Dobbs, PhD
Dept. of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA

Joaquin Dopazo, PhD
Bioinformatics, Centro de Investigacion Principe Felipe (CIPF), Valencia, Spain

Finn Drabløs, PhD
Professor, Department of Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

Bell Raj Eapen, PhD
Department of Dermatology, Kaya Skin Clinic, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Ron Elber, PhD
W.A. "Tex" Moncrief Chair in Computational Life Sciences and Biology, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Institute of Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES), University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

Wael El-Rifai, MD, PhD
Professor, Surgery, Medicine & Cancer Biology Director, Surgical Oncology Research Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Hany A. El-Shemy, PhD
Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biochemistry Department,Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

Mark H. Ellisman, PhD
Center for Research on Biological Structure National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, California, USA

Mario A. Fares, PhD
Lecturer and head of the Evolutionary Genetics and Bioinformatics Laboratory, Department of Genetics, Smurfit Institute of Genetics, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, UK

Thomas Ferrin, PhD
Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Biopharmaceutical Sciences, Director, Resource for Biocomputing, Visualization, and Informatics, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA

Eric A. Gaucher, PhD
Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Florida, USA

Jill E. Gready, PhD
Professor and Head, Computational Proteomics and Therapy Design Group,Division of Molecular Bioscience, John Curtin School of Medical Research, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Andrei V. Gudkov, PhD, DSci
Senior Vice President for Basic Science, Chair, Department of Cell Stress Biology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York, USA

Yuriy Gusev, PhD
Assistant Professor of Bioinformatics, Department of Surgery, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Institute for Breast Health, Co-Director, Bioinformatics Core facilities, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Jin-Kao Hao, PhD
Professor, LERIA - Faculty of Sciences, University of Angers, Angers, France

Manuela Helmer-Citterich, PhD
Professor of Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology, Department of Biology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Jaap Heringa, PhD
Professor of Bioinformatics and Director, Centre for Integrative Bioinformatics VU (IBIVU), Faculty of Sciences and Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Tirso Pons Hernandez, PhD
Associate Professor in Bioinformatics, Group Leader Computational Biology & Protein Design Center for Protein Studies, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biology, University of Havana, Havana, Cuba

Josephine Hoh, PhD
Associate Professor, Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Vasant Honavar, PhD
Professor of Computer Science and of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Director, Center for Computational Intelligence, Learning, and Discovery, Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA

Robert E. Hurst, PhD
Professor of Urology, Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Adjunct Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Jim Jarvis, MD
Professor of Pediatrics and Section Chief, Pediatric Rheumatology, University College of Medicine, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Robert L. Jernigan, PhD
Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology, Director, L. H. Baker Center for Bioinformatics and Biological Statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA

François Képès, PhD
Director, Epigenomics Project, Genopole, Centre Nationale de la Recherché Scientifique, University of Évry, Évry, France

Jan Komorowski, PhD
Professor and Chair of Bioinformatics, The Linnaeus Centre for Bioinformatics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden 

Sophia Kossida, DPhil
Investigator, Assistant Professor, Head of the Bioinformatics & Medical Informatics Group, Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens Athens, Greece

Sudhir Kumar, PhD
Professor and Director, Center for Evolutionary Functional Genomics The Biodesign Institute & School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

William B. Lawson, MD, PhD, DFAPA
Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Howard University College of Medicine and Hospital, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Ben Lehner, PhD
EMBL-CRG Systems Biology unit, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain

Hiroyuki Matsumoto, PhD
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Donald Massaro, MD
Cohen Professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine Lung Regeneration Lab, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Stephen J. Meltzer, MD
Professor of Medicine and Oncology, Director, GI Early Detection Biomarkers Laboratory The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Vincent Moulton, PhD
Professor, School of Computing Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

Vincent Murray, PhD
Associate Professor, School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Haruki Nakamura, PhD
Professor, Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan

Shuming Nie, PhD
Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Chair, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Materials Science & Engineering, and Hematology/Oncology Director of Emory-Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Center Associate Director for Nanotechnoloy and Bioengineering, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology. Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Ruth Nussinov, PhD
CCR Nanobiology Program, Head, Computational Structural Biology Group, Senior Investigator (Contr), NCI at Frederick, Frederick, Maryland, USA, and Department of Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel

Paolo De Paoli, MD
Professor, Scientific Direction, Centro di Riferimento Oncologico, IRCCS, Aviano, Italy

Yves Van de Peer, PhD
Professor in Bioinformatics and Genome Biology, Group Leader Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Genomics, VIB Department of Plant Systems Biology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

Jose Pereira-Leal, PhD
Computational Genomics Laboratory & Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Unit, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Oeiras, Portugal

Jasna Rakonjac, PhD
Senior Assistant Professor, Institute for Molecular BioSciences, School of Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Paolo Romano, PhD
Researcher, Bioinformatics, National Cancer Research Institute, Genova,Italy

Burkhard Rost, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (C2B2), Irving Centre for Cancer Research, Columbia University, New York, USA

Tamar Schlick, PhD
Professor of Chemistry, Mathematics, and Computer Science, Department of Chemistry and Courant Institute of Mathematical Science, New York University, New York, New York, USA

Dong-Guk Shin, PhD
Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Department and Director of Bioinformatics and Bio-Computing Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA

Desk Deepak Singh, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Bioinformatics and Structural Biology, Indian Institute of Advanced Research, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

Manfred J.Sippl, PhD
Professor of Bioinformatics, Department of Bioinformatics, Division of Molecular Biology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

Phil Stashenko, DMD, PhD
Head of Department of Cytokine Biology, Sr. Vice President for Research & Development, The Forsyth Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Florence Tama, PhD
Assistant Professor, University of Arizona, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Pei Tang, PhD
Associate Professor, Departments of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology, & Computational Biology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

May Dongmei Wang, PhD
Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar Director of Bioinformatics and Biocomputing Core of CCNE Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hematology and Oncology, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology. Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Yue Wang, PhD
Professor of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering, Virginia Tech, Arlington, Virginia; Affiliated Faculty of Radiology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Dan Wells, PhD
Professor, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA

Marc R. Wilkins, PhD
Professor of Systems Biology, School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

David Wong DMD, DMSc
Associate Dean of Research, School of Dentistry Professor, Division of Oral Biology & Medicine Director, Dental Research Institute, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA

Di Wu, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Western Kentucky Unversity, Bowling Green, KY, USA

Mohd. Abdul Hai Zahid, PhD
Asstant Professor, Center for Soft Computing Research, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India

Zhao-Bang Zeng, PhD
William Neal Reynolds Professor of Statistics and Genetics Director, Bioinformatics Research Center and Bioinformatics Graduate Program North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

Aidong Zhang, PhD
Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, USA

Shunyi Zhu, PhD
Professor, Group of Animal Innate Immunity, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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