Building maps of disease biology; Open Network Biology is now accepting submissions

“The failure of
biology to identify the molecular causes of disease has led to disappointment
in the rate of development of new medicines.”
Derry et al. in
Nature Precedings

Understanding the complex interactions that underlie human disease is key
to developing better targets for new drug discoveries and more personalized
healthcare for patients. With the age of blockbuster
drugs coming to an end
, there is a growing need for open collaboration and
data sharing to continue progress in the fight against serious disease. Open Network Biology, a new journal from BioMed
Central that is now accepting submissions, aims to facilitate this goal by
publishing network-based models of living systems linked to the corresponding
coherent datasets upon which the models are based. The models and associated
datasets will be fully available to all, allowing a broad readership to expand
the models towards a more complete understanding of the complex phenotypes.

These models are a new type of article which describe in short form the vital basis
of network biology, which is the integration of a diversity of
high-dimensional, large scale data with clinical data that inform on disease. The
Editorial Board are building a repository to store the data and code; please
contact the Editors if you would like to discuss
contributing data to the repository or would like to know more.  In addition to articles describing these
large data sets, the journal also welcomes submissions of original research,
software and methods, along with reviews and commentary, relevant to the
emerging field of network biology.

The journal joins the recently-announced GigaScience in providing its authors
with a dedicated, open access repository for the data supporting their publications,
and complements BioMed Central’s growing portfolio of journals that aim to make
supporting
data
a first class citizen in science publishing.

Open Network Biology is edited by Dr Eric Schadt (Pacific Biosciences) who first announced the journal at this
year’s Sage
Bionetworks Commons Congress
– a conference organized by Sage BioNetworks, a not-for-profit organization that aims to
revolutionize research into human disease. Eric is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Please visit the website for more information
and details on how to submit a manuscript. If you would like to make a pre-submission enquiry, please
email the Editors.

 

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