About Retrovirology

What is Retrovirology?

Retrovirology is an Open Access, online journal that publishes stringently peer-reviewed, high-impact articles on basic retrovirus research.

Retroviruses are pleiotropically found in animals. Well-described examples include avian, murine and primate retroviruses. Two human retroviruses are especially important pathogens. These are the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, and the human T-cell leukemia virus, HTLV. HIV causes AIDS while HTLV-I is the etiological agent for adult T-cell leukemia. There is a large amount of basic research being conducted on HIV and HTLV-I spanning gene expression, virus structure-assembly, integration, replication, and pathogenesis. Retrovirology intends to cover these areas of human and animal retrovirus research.

In any given issue of an extant print virology journal, research papers on retroviruses, especially primate retroviruses, make up the largest subcategory of manuscripts. Retroviruses are responsible for many kinds of medically important pathologies including immunodeficiencies and cancers. Hence, there is a large publication demand and a significant research interest for an Open Access journal, which emphasizes basic retrovirus research. The Open Access format is ideally suited for communicating cutting edge information to a large audience quickly.

Content overview

Retrovirology considers the following types of articles:

• Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the journal's scope. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings. They focus on specific issues and are about 800 words.
• Hypotheses: short articles presenting an untested 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, and be about 1500 words.
• Research: reports of data from original research.
• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the journal's scope. They have an educational aim and are 2000-3000 words.
• Short reports: brief reports of data from original research, usually about 1500 words.

Peer review policies

A manuscript submitted to Retrovirology will be evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief, who may decline it or assign it to an Associate Editor for review. The Associate Editor then recruits one or more of the Editorial Board to give comments, and based on these s/he will reject, accept or request revisions of the manuscript. The Associate Editor can call upon an outside expert should s/he feel the need. It is expected that the review period will not exceed three weeks. Based on the reviews, the Associate Editor will make a recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief for rejection, revision or acceptance. Rejected works are permitted one additional round of re-submission. If the resubmitted work is declined again the decision is final.

Edited by Kuan-Teh Jeang, Retrovirology is supported by an international Editorial Board.

Publishing in Retrovirology

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

Articles in Retrovirology 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:

Retrovirology 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Retrovirology does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Retrovirology, 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 Retrovirology using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Retrovirology 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. Retrovirology however, has taken this further by making all its content Open Access.

Retrovirology'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 Retrovirology will be available.

Retrovirology 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.