May 12, 2021: Bioinformatics Advances, an Online Open Access Journal

ISCB, in Partnership with Oxford University Press (OUP) Launches Bioinformatics Advances, an Online Open Access Journal

It is with great enthusiasm and much anticipation that the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) announces the launch of a new online only open access journal, Bioinformatics Advances. ISCB believes that Bioinformatics Advances will rapidly become another leading journal in the area of bioinformatics and computational biology, and as an official journal of ISCB, will be an important venue in which ISCB members will publish (at a discount) their findings and learn of the work of others, both ISCB members and non-members. ISCB is committed to providing high-quality publications and disseminating scientific content globally by supporting open access to scientific research as a means of more rapidly disseminating scientific advances, and of communicating the findings to scientists around the world. Open access also provides distinct advantages to scientific authors, including greater freedom to reuse and republish text, and greater availability of text for electronic data mining. In combination with rapid publication, high editorial standards, the need to meet ISCB members needs were the compelling reasons for ISCB to launch Bioinformatics Advances in partnership with Oxford University Press (OUP).

Bioinformatics Advances will be an online only interdisciplinary journal on bioinformatics and computational biology, addressing the continuing topical growth and evolution within the field of bioinformatics and computational biology. Due to the vast interdisciplinary nature of the field, many of its contributions are spread over a wide variety of topical journals. ISCB has aimed to develop a journal that would strengthen the awareness of the central role bioinformatics and computational biology play in the life sciences among the scientific community and creates a home for research to be published beyond the topical nature of other journals.

Bioinformatics Advances will illuminate the field of bioinformatics and computational biology in its entirety by providing a balance between methodical contributions and data analyses providing novel biological insights. The journal aims at providing a venue for high-quality contributions to our field that, so far, are at the risk of disappearing in the vast landscape of topical journals. Aside from original research contributions, the journal will offer formats that reflect the development of the field and its community, special collections and sections on important scientific meetings, reviews and opinion pieces, as well as personal profiles of and perspectives by special contributors to our field. Furthermore, ownership of the journal by ISCB enables a close-working and strategic relationship with the journal’s Editorial Board to ensure the journal is meeting the needs of the ISCB membership and supports the advancement of the ISCB mission.

ISCB is keen to be working with OUP as joint owners of Bioinformatics Advances. The current long-standing agreement to promote Bioinformatics as an official journal of the Society and the organization had already helped foster a very close relationship between ISCB and OUP. The partnership seemed like a natural one when ISCB was working on the proposal for the new journal. The partnership with OUP also allowed for a cascading submissions model between Bioinformatics and Bioinformatics Advances. This means that contributions that are not considered suitable for Bioinformatics may be eligible for direct transfer to Bioinformatics Advances. Both journals will have compatible submission guidelines to enable simple and speedy transfer without the need for reformatting. Transferring manuscripts with reviews from Bioinformaticswill reduce the burden on reviewers of papers. In a similar vein, Bioinformatics Advances will also consider papers that have been reviewed previously for other journals. If the other journal will confirm the veracity of the reviews, our editors will take them into account in their decision making.

Bioinformatics Advances will be led jointly by Alex Bateman, EMBL EBI, and Thomas Lengauer, Max-Planck Institute for Informatics, serving as Editors in Chief and they are joined by a stellar group of renown researchers serving as Associate Editors, representing scientific expertise from around the world.

Alex Bateman, former OUP Bioinformatics Chief Editor, brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise related to successful journal management. Dr. Bateman is an ISCB Fellows and has served for many years strategically leading ISCB. Dr. Bateman shared, “I am very excited about the opportunities that Bioinformatics Advances presents and look forward to working with ISCB, OUP and the Editorial Team."

Thomas Lengauer, ISCB Fellows, is the immediate past president of ISCB. A founder of ISCB, Dr. Lengauer has been instrumental over the years stewarding the Society in many different leadership roles, his most recent serving as ISCB president (2018-2021). Dr. Lengauer noted, "I am honored to continue to serve ISCB in the capacity of Co-Editor in Chief. This new journal targeted to strengthen the visibility of bioinformatics and computational biology and its role in bridging information sciences and life sciences is an important component of the mission of the Society and an exciting publishing opportunity for its members and the topical scientific community."

ISCB welcomes the inaugural Associate Editors:

Bissan Al-Lazikani, Institute of Cancer Research, London
Bissan Al-Lazikani's research focuses on developing and applying multidisciplinary computational techniques for drug discovery and clinical application. She is also Head of Data Science at the ICR, where she leads the Knowledge Hub Big Data Team for intelligent application of computers in adaptive, individualized therapy.

Ivet Bahar, University Pittsburgh School of Medicine, USA
Ivet Bahar is Distinguished Professor and John K. Vries Chair, Department of Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of Biomolecular system interactions and their binding, catalytic and allosteric signaling effects. A major research goal of her lab is to investigate the dynamics of molecular systems in the cellular environment cellular using fundamental principles of physical sciences and engineering.

Sofia Forslund, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany
Sofia Kirke Forslund is a computational biologist and a junior group leader at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC), a joint venture between the Berlin Max Delbrück Center (MDC) and the Charité University Hospital. Her research group focuses on host-microbiome factors in cardiovascular diseases, working towards the goal of data-driven models for how human host and microbiome develop together under different conditions toward either health or disease.

Marieke Kuijjer, Centre for Molecular Medicine Norway, University Oslo, Norway
Marieke Kuijjer is a Group Leader at the Centre for Molecular Medicine Norway (NCMM), University of Oslo, Norway; adjunct Assistant Professor at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), the Netherlands. Her research focuses on developing computational frameworks that place genomic data into the context of gene regulatory networks and on exploring how these networks influence cancer and complex disease.

Nicola Mulder, University Cape Town
Nicola (Nicky) Mulder is a Professor and the Head of Division, Computational Biology, Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences; Member of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town. She also serves as the Principal investigator of H3ABioNet, a Pan African bioinformatics network for H3Africa. Her main research interests lie in the areas of genomics and its application to human diseases of relevance to Africa.

Aïda Ouangraoua, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
Aïda Ouangraoua is an associate professor at the Department of Computer Science of Université de Sherbrooke where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Computational and Biological Complexity. She leads the Computational Biology (CoBIUS) Team at the Computer Science Department of Université de Sherbrooke. Her research focuses on developing algorithms and comparative genomics methods to study the evolution of genome structures, gene splicing structures, and RNA structures.

Alexandros Stamatakis, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Alexandros Stamatakis is the head of the Computational Molecular Evolution (CME) research group at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS) and is the Chair in High Performance Computing in the Life Sciences (Department of Informatics) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). His research interests are in algorithms, parallel computing, parallel architectures, computational phylogenetics, and evolutionary bioinformatics.

Zhang Zhang, National Genomics Data Center, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences & China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing, China
Zhang Zhang is a Distinguished Professor and Associate Director of National Genomics Data Center (NGDC), Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences & China National Center for Bioinformation (CNCB). His research focuses on big data integration and curation, computational health genomics, and computational molecular evolution.

Christine Orengo, ISCB President, remarked, “It is an exciting time for ISCB. The ISCB leadership has been discussing for years the development of a journal that would truly support its members and the evolution of the field. Here we are! I am so thankful to the ISCB Board of Directors, Publications Committee, and Task Forces that worked hard to develop this plan and put the dreams of many into action. I am also especially thankful to the inaugural editorial team who are working to launch this journal.”

Rhodri Jackson, Publishing Director for Open Access at OUP, said, “OUP is committed to providing high quality open access publishing options. We’re really pleased to launch Bioinformatics Advances with the International Society for Computational Biology, and are confident that the new journal will quickly become an important venue for research that will advance science in the field of bioinformatics and computational biology.”

Bioinformatics Advances is now accepting submissions for publishing consideration. ISCB members will enjoy a 20% discount off publishing fees. If you are not an ISCB member, you can learn more about membership and its benefits at https://www.iscb.org/become-a-member.

To learn more about Bioinformatics Advances visit:

General Information: https://academic.oup.com/bioinformaticsadvances
Submission Information: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bioadv
Author Guidelines:
https://academic.oup.com/bioinformaticsadvances/pages/instructions-to-authors
Editorial Board Information:
https://academic.oup.com/bioinformaticsadvances/pages/editorial-board