About Genetic Vaccines and Therapy

What is Genetic Vaccines and Therapy?

Genetic Vaccines and Therapy is an Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal dedicated to applying new knowledge about genetics in treating human disease

Genetic Vaccines and Therapy is aimed at researchers, clinicians and biotechnologists, worldwide, in the field of gene-based therapy and drug delivery. Examples of current topics of interest include: development of new biocompatible delivery materials, design of effective and safe vectors, exploration of new strategies for targeting drugs, and application of siRNA gene silencing to specific disease therapies. The field of genetic therapy is just beginning to see an increase in interest and applicability in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology community, and we have positioned this journal to meet the needs of workers in this new and highly promising area.

Our goal in creating this new journal was to provide a platform for materials scientists and gene-delivery specialists, to come together with researchers and clinicians to explore new ways of combating disease by using DNA-based therapeutic agents. Traditional gene therapy has been aimed primarily at correcting hereditary problems; our focus is more broad, including the use of gene expression vectors for the endogenous production of factors designed to interfere with a wide range of diseases, including: asthma, viral infection, cancer and Alzheimer's disease. We hope that our efforts will be rewarded by an increased awareness of the tremendous medical potential of gene-based therapeutics, and an accelerated application of these materials to the prevention and treatment of a host of diseases.

Content overview

Genetic Vaccines and Therapy considers the following types of articles:

• Research - reports of original research, detailing new knowledge in the field.
• 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.
• Commentaries - short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the scope of Genetic Vaccines and Therapy; these articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings.
• Methodology articles - present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may be either completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method.
• Reviews - comprehensive, authoritative descriptions of specific areas of gene-based therapeutic agents; these are usually written by opinion leaders, invited by the Editorial Board.

Peer review policies

• Peer review in Genetic Vaccines and Therapy is designed to ensure that the research published is scientifically sound, appropriate to the aims of the journal, and at the forefront of its field.
• Genetic Vaccines and Therapy considers manuscripts on gene therapy spanning a wide range of scientific interests as long as the conclusions are scientifically justified.
• Submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by two external experts.
• In accepting or rejecting a manuscript, a reviewer should decide whether or not the scientific community is better served by its publication. Peer reviewers will have three options for a manuscript: (1) accept without revision, (2) accept or reject after authors make revisions and resubmit, and (3) reject as inappropriate or scientifically unsound.
• Genetic Vaccines and Therapy allows authors a maximum of two revisions of a manuscript. Reviewers are asked to say if a manuscript is not written sufficiently clearly for publication. In such cases, authors are asked to rewrite the manuscript, seeking if necessary, the assistance of colleagues or a commercial editing service before resubmitting.

Reviewers will indicate which articles they consider to be especially interesting or significant, and these will be given greater prominence within Genetic Vaccines and Therapy.

Edited by Shyam S Mohapatra, Genetic Vaccines and Therapy is supported by an international Editorial Board.

Publishing in Genetic Vaccines and Therapy

All articles will be listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and will be covered by PubMed Central, CAS and Embase.

Articles in Genetic Vaccines and Therapy should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Genet Vaccines Ther 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Genetic Vaccines and Therapy does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Genetic Vaccines and Therapy, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Genetic Vaccines and Therapy using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Genetic Vaccines and Therapy is published  by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is Open Access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Genetic Vaccines and Therapy however, has taken this further by making all its content Open Access.

Genetic Vaccines and Therapy's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also in repositories at the University of Potsdam in Germany, at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

BioMed Central is working closely with the Thomson Reuters (ISI) to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in Genetic Vaccines and Therapy will be available.

Genetic Vaccines and Therapy is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.