Top 5•The year in Biology• The year in Medicine•BMC in the news•BMC in the Blogosphere•BMC in the community

All this week we’ll be bringing you a summary of what’s been happening in the BMC-series over the last 12 months. Today, we take a look back at the medical side of things:

The year in Medicine

Bridging the gap between biology and medicine saw several BioMed Central journals join forces to present a thematic series onCancer Bioinformatics, integrating systems biology, clinical science, omics-based technology, bioinformatics and computational science to improve diagnosis, therapies and prognosis of cancer.

Two areas of biology and medicine also came together to produce a new addition to theBMC-series family, asBMC PharmacologyandBMC Clinical Pharmacologymerged to forma new journal: BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology.The journal operates an open-peer review policy, and continues to publish high-quality research and reviews to facilitate connections between pre-clinical and clinical research. You can read more about the Editorial Board behind the journal in a series of interviews with the Section Editors (e.g.Lucio G. Costa and Michael Aschner,andPhilip Biggin), and more about the launch of the journalon our blog.

We also eagerly anticipate the arrival of another new face to the series, with the official launch in 2013 ofBMC Psychology.The journal is now accepting submissions, so keep your eyes open for the very first articles to be published here very soon…

Although all medical journals in theBMC-series operate a policy of open peer-review– with all reviewer reports being signed and openly available– we also support initiatives that try to improve the quality of peer-review. With this in mind,BMC Ophthalmologyannounced in November that itofficially endorsesthe Cochrane Eyes and Vision Group’s free online peer review course“Translating Critical Appraisal of a Manuscript into Meaningful Peer Review”, in an effort to maintain its already high standards.

All journals intheBMC-seriesare evolvingtowards a model of peer review whereby manuscripts are handled by a group of distinguished academic Section Editors, with the able assistance of expert Associate Editors. These Editorial Board Members are crucial to the continued success of the journals, a number of which have received valuable additions to their teams this year: in NovemberBMC Nephrologywelcomedseven new Section Editorsand over 50 Associate Editors and Editorial Advisers, whilst back in FebruaryBMC Geriatrics也完成了完整的外部Editors. We look forward to further additions to this coming soon fromBMC Women’s HealthandBMC International Health and Human Rights, includingVincent Iacopinowho is already an active Section Editor for the latter, in their Section on the health and human rights of prison inmates and victims of violence.

We also warmly welcomeProfessor David Hunteras Section Editor for the “Health policies, systems and management” section ofBMC Public Health, andProfessor Kirsten HowardtoBMC Health Services Researchas she oversees the “Utilization, expenditure, economics and financing systems” Section. DrVijayalakshmi Ravindranth, ProfessorZaza Katsaravaand Professor Jos van Roosmalen are also now making invaluable contributions to the editorships ofBMC Neuroscience,BMC NeurologyandBMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, respectively.

我们很高兴我们的热情Editorial Board engages with their journals, no more so than when editors become authors – such as in April, whenBMC Infectious DiseasesSection Editor DrStephen Lawn published a Reviewon the detection of specificantigensin the point-of-care diagnosis of HIV-associated tuberculosis.

Other research highlights from the year include a systematic review of the evidence forassociations between gestational diabetes and adverse outcomes, whichBMC Pregnancy and ChildbirthSection Editor Robert Powers felt

“clearly demonstrates the overwhelming importance of gestational diabetes on adverse pregnancy outcome, and the subtlety of gestational diabetes effects… Strong systematic review data such as this begs for greater investigation into the mechanisms underlying this increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcome, especially with the understanding that GDM is so prevalent and will likely continue to be so as a result of the signifiant prevalence of obesity“

InBMC Public Health, Section Editor Lea Maes picked out asurvey focusing on methods for environmental changein planning health promotion interventions:

“There is a long tradition in using theory based methods and strategies for individual behaviour change but there is far less information on how changing environmental conditions can have an impact on the behaviour of individuals.”

She went on to explain that

“This manuscript can enhance a more thoughtful use of theories to change environmental conditions important to facilitate individual behaviour change, and as such enhance the effectiveness of environmental change interventions.“

Next up:BMC in the news