Call for nominations for the BioMed Central Awards 

Nominations for the BioMed Central Research Awards are still open, and all research articles published before the end of December 2006 will be eligible for the awards.

The BioMed Central 2006 Research Awards recognize ground-breaking open access research. Awards will be made to the author(s) of the most outstanding research articles published in BioMed Central's journals during 2006. Two awards of US $5000 will be made - one for biological research, and one for medical research.

To be eligible for the awards articles must have been published during 2006, in one of BioMed Central's 160+ peer-reviewed open access journals. To nominate a published article for the awards, send an email indicating the article you wish to nominate and your reasons to: researchawards@biomedcentral.com.

To submit an article to a BioMed Central journal, visit our Author Central page.

A panel of expert scientists and clinicians will choose the winners from a shortlist of nominated articles and the winners will be announced, and the awards made, in early 2007. To find out more, visit our website.

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New supplement to BMC Bioinformatics

We have just published a new supplement to BMC Bioinformatics: the proceedings to "The Third Annual MidSouth Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Society (MCBIOS) Conference. Bioinformatics: A Calculated Discovery", held in Baton Rouge, LA, USA on 2-4 March 2006.

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BioMed Central on location: SFN and ACR

• The Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, in Atlanta, USA from October 14 to October 18, 2006 (booth #1833).
• The American College of Rheumatology annual meeting, in Washington D.C, USA, from November 11 to November 14, 2006 (booth #1028).

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Image highlight from

Arthritis Research & Therapy features a figure from a recently published article as an image highlight. The latest highlight is a macroscopic picture of a zygapophyseal joint from a patient with ankylosing spondylitis. The image comes from an article by Appel et al. entitled ‘Correlation of histopathological findings and magnetic resonance imaging in the spine of patients with ankylosing spondylitis’.

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Readers of the BioMed Central update have one month's free access to this review article, usually available only by subscription:

Bench-to-bedside review: Potential strategies to protect or reverse mitochondrial dysfunction in sepsis-induced organ failure
Alessandro Protti and Mervyn Singer

Mitochondrial dysfunction occurs during sepsis and may have a significant role in the development of subsequent multiple organ failure. In this review, the authors discuss novel strategies to protect against or reverse mitochondrial dysfunction to improve clinical outcomes.

This article is part of a thematic series on sepsis; click here to view other articles in this series.

Share this article with your colleagues by forwarding this update, or enable your institution to benefit from access to all of Critical Care's commentaries and reviews by recommending the journal to your library.

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Editor’s Choice: ‘Yeast model of Alzheimer's disease’; ‘Aspirin increases gastrointestinal risks’

Yeast model of Alzheimer's disease
BMC Biology 2006, 4:32
A new yeast model allows investigation of the pathways that regulate the accumulation of toxic amyloid oligomers, the causative agents of Alzheimer's disease, providing a means to interfere with this step in the pathogenic process.

Aspirin increases gastrointestinal risks
BMC Medicine 2006, 4:22
The gastrointestinal risk profile of individuals should be considered before prescribing aspirin therapy, because the risk of gastrointestinal complications outweighs the cardioprotective effects of low-dose aspirin in a specific group of people.

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The latest publication in the Primers in Biology series from New Science Press is now available online and in print. “...a wonderful addition to the field, and I’m looking forward to using it in the Cell Cycle course we teach to graduate students here.” Bruce A Edgar, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, USA. The Cell Cycle by David O Morgan, Professor in the Departments of Physiology and Biochemistry & Biophysics at UCSF and well known in his field, is an account of the mechanisms that control cell division for advanced undergraduates and all biologists needing an up-to-date resource on the cell cycle.

“...an excellent book for an advanced undergraduate course or a graduate course." Douglas Kellogg, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA.

Visit the New Science Press website to find out more about the book and others in the series and view free samples from the text.

How cytokinesis and its relationship to mitosis can vary dramatically in different organisms during development.

The Scientist Careers
Job of the Week

Visit BioMed Central's career partner, The Scientist Careers, for thousands of fresh job opportunities in biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and academia.

Use The Scientist Careers' tools and feature content to have new job postings emailed to you, research relocation, gain insight into the job search process and much more.

Visit The Scientist Careers and take the next step on your career path:

The Scientist Careers Job of The Week

Cancer Health Services Research Scientist
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES)

The Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) are jointly recruiting an independent scientist with expertise in biostatistical and epidemiologic methods to collaborate in a cancer health services research program.

The joint ICES/CCO research environment and large collection of population-based administrative health care databases have resulted in leading health services research in many fields. The successful candidate would have an appointment as an ICES scientist and collaborate with other researchers in an established cancer health services research program.

To view all of The Scientist Careers' Academic Job Opportunities, Click Here.

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Faculty of 1000 -- Hidden Jewels

Faculty of 1000 Biology - Hidden Jewel: "Presents an intriguing hypothesis to explain why many bacterial outer membrane proteins are regulated by small RNAs...and proposes several physiological and mechanical advantages of this regulation." See the full evaluation of this paper by Hiroji Aiba (Nagoya University, Japan), one of over 2300 top scientists identifying interesting papers for Faculty of 1000 Biology - the essential, rapid post-publication evaluation service. If you are not a subscriber to Faculty of 1000 Biology, you can register for a free 7 day trial or recommend Faculty of 1000 Biology to your librarian.

Faculty of 1000 Medicine - Hidden Jewel: "This is an extremely important clinical study which directly confirms for the first time that chemotherapy should be used preoperatively for ALL nephroblastoma cases, leading to a change of practice in centers which have not used this policy before." See the full evaluation by Piotr Czauderna (Medical University of Gdansk, Poland), one of nearly 2500 top clinicians and researchers identifying interesting articles for Faculty of 1000 Medicine – the essential, rapid, post-publication evaluation service. If you are not a subscriber to Faculty of 1000 Medicine, you can register for a free 7-day trial or recommend Faculty of 1000 Medicine to your librarian.

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