期刊名称：PLOS MEDICINE
 期刊简介(About the journal)
投稿须知(Instructions to Authors)
编辑部信息(Editorial Board)
About the journal
PLoS Medicine (eISSN 1549-1676; ISSN-1549-1277) is an open-access, peer-reviewed medical journal published monthly, online and in print, by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a nonprofit organization. The inaugural issue was launched on 19 October 2004.
Further Reading
Open Access
All works published in PLoS Medicine are open access, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Everything is immediately available online without cost to anyone, anywhere - to read, download, redistribute, include in databases, and otherwise use - subject only to the condition that the original authorship is properly attributed. Copyright is retained by the author. Publishing costs are offset by a publication fee charged to authors. PLoS waives the fee for authors with insufficient funds. The ability to pay is not known by the editors, and never affects the decision whether to publish an article.
Scope
PLoS Medicine is an international, multidisciplinary medical journal that aims to publish outstanding human studies that substantially enhance the understanding of human health and disease. We aim to promote translation of basic research into clinical investigation, and of clinical evidence into practice. We encourage papers that cross disciplines.
Contents
- Outstanding primary Research Articles in all areas of medicine; from clinically directed basic science to epidemiology and clinical trials.
- Case Reports that convey a useful clinical lesson.
- All research articles will be accompanied by a Synopsis - a comprehensible summary for physicians in all specialties, as well as patients and their advocates.
- The PLoS Medicine Debate discusses important but controversial issues in clinical practice, public health policy, or health in general. Debates will be commissioned from two or more authors with differing points of view.
- Neglected Diseases either bring a particular disease to the attention of a general audience, or they discuss a novel strategy for approaching neglected health issues in general.
- The Health in Action section provides a place where groups or individuals who are not represented regularly in a medical journal have a forum to describe the important issues from their perspective. Authors might include patient advocacy groups, healthcare workers, or non-governmental organizations.
- Policy Forum provides a platform for health policy makers from around the world to discuss the challenges and opportunities in improving health care to their constituencies.
- Essays are opinion pieces on a topic of broad interest to a general medical audience.
- Perspectives are commissioned from an expert and discuss the clinical practice or public health implications of a published study. The original publication must be freely available online.
- Research in Translation articles discuss a particular drug, treatment, or public health intervention in the context of translation from early research to clinical research, or clinical evidence to practice.
- Learning Forum articles are commissioned by our educational advisors. The section provides a forum for learning about an important clinical problem that is relevant to a general medical audience.
- Correspondence letters are encouraged on articles published in the journal or on topics of widespread interest to the medical community.
Do you have an idea for any of these sections? Please contact our editorial staff at medicine_editors@plos.org.
Call for Art
PLoS Medicine will feature original, contemporary cover art that illuminates an aspect of medicine or health from a cultural or global perspective. We encourage artists from all around the world to submit proposals. This is an ongoing call for cover artwork.
Instructions to Authors
Contents:
About PLoS Medicine
Criteria for Publication
Presubmission Inquiries
Overview of Editorial Process
Are You Ready To Submit Your Manuscript?
Cover Letter
Supporting Information and Materials Required at Submission
Preparation of Research Manuscripts
Figure Guidelines
Other Types of Article
Outline of the Production Process
Embargoes
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1. About PLoS Medicine
PLoS Medicine is the new top-tier open access medical science journal published by the Public Library of Science. PLoS Medicine is an international, modern, general medical journal covering all areas in the medical sciences, from basic studies to large clinical trials and cost-effectiveness analyses. We will publish human studies that substantially enhance our understanding of disease epidemiology, etiology, and physiology; the development of prognostic and diagnostic technologies; trials that test the efficacy of specific interventions and those that compare different treatments; and systematic reviews. We aim to promote translation of basic research into clinical investigation, and of clinical evidence into practice. Academic and professional editors, supported by expert peer-reviewers, will select for publication those studies that drive their respective fields forward. We encourage papers that cross disciplines.
The PLoS open access license allows anyone, anywhere, with a connection to the Internet to read, download, print, copy, and redistribute any article published in PLoS Medicine or to use its contents in derivative works, such as databases, textbooks, or other teaching materials. Under open access, all material is also deposited in an archival public repository (such as PubMed Central), which enhances the usefulness of all deposited papers by allowing sophisticated searching, manipulation, and mining of the literature, using new and emerging tools.
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2. Criteria for Publication
Manuscripts should represent a substantial advance in medical science or medical practice in terms of:
Originality
Importance to researchers or practitioners in the field
Interest for researchers or practitioners outside the field
Rigorous methodology with conclusions justified by the evidence presented
Adherence to the highest ethical standards
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3. Presubmission Inquiries
If you are uncertain whether your paper satisfies the criteria for publication in PLoS Medicine, please consider sending a presubmission inquiry. You should submit a brief cover letter explaining why you feel that the work is appropriate for PLoS Medicine, along with a short synopsis of the paper (fewer than 500 words) that describes the background, aims and methodology, key results, and major conclusions of the work. We aim to provide responses to these inquiries within 48 hours. Authors who receive an invitation to submit their manuscripts will then enter the regular editorial process.
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4. Overview of Editorial Process
Our aim is to provide all authors with an efficient, courteous, and constructive editorial process. To achieve its required level of quality, PLoS Medicine is highly selective in the manuscripts that it publishes; rejection rates are high. To ensure the fairest and most objective decision-making, the editorial process is run as a partnership between the PLoS Medicine professional editors and the editorial board, which is comprised of leaders in all fields of medicine.
Submitted manuscripts will be assigned to one of the PLoS Medicine editors, who select as a coeditor a member of the editorial board with expertise in the relevant area. The editor and editorial board member will promptly assess the manuscript and decide if it is likely to meet the requirement of providing a major advance in a particular field and describing a sufficient body of work to support that claim; if so, it will be sent out for peer review.
PLoS Medicine encourages open (non-anonymous) peer-review. As a default, we will pass a reviewer's name on to the authors along with the comments. If reviewers do not wish to have their name revealed, they can request to stay anonymous and we will honor that request. Authors may suggest specific individuals as potential editors or reviewers of their manuscript. They may also request that a small number of specific individuals be excluded as potential reviewers.
Expert reviewers will be asked to assess the technical and scientific merits of the work. Where relevant, work presented in a manuscript will be subject to a rigorous review of the statistical methods used. Once all reviews have been received and considered by the professional and academic editors, a decision letter to the author will be drafted.
There are several types of decision possible: accept the manuscript as submitted; accept it with revision; invite the authors to revise the manuscript before a final decision is reached; rejection with encouragement to resubmit it after extensive revision; or outright rejection, typically because it does not meet the criteria outlined above of originality, importance to the field, cross-disciplinary interest, and sound methodology. Revised manuscripts will be assessed by a professional editor and editorial board member(s). Sometimes, re-review or additional statistical review will be required, but in general we aim to make decisions without involving multiple rounds of review.
Upon acceptance, the manuscript enters our production system. Articles may be published online before a complete issue is assembled, and all will appear online and in print within three months or less. Publication may be further expedited when warranted.
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5. Are You Ready To Submit Your Manuscript?
We have provided an author checklist to help you prepare your materials for submission and to make the online submission process as straightforward as possible. Please take the time to look through the list before submitting your article.
Hard copies of your manuscript are not required. Detailed instructions for submission can be found on the PLoS Medicine Manuscript Submission and Peer Review web site. Files are uploaded individually and are combined into a single PDF file, which must be approved by the author at the end of the submission process. Text files can be submitted in the following formats: Word, WordPerfect, RTF, LaTeX, TeX, and PDF.
Graphics files can be submitted in the following formats: EPS, Excel, GIF, Illustrator, JPEG, Photoshop, PowerPoint, or TIFF. If possible, please label all figures using Times Roman or some other serif font.
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6. Cover Letter
Please include a cover letter explaining why this manuscript is suitable for publication in PLoS Medicine. Why will your paper inspire other members of your specialty or those in other disciplines, and how will it drive the understanding of disease epidemiology, clinical research, or patient care forward?
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7. Supporting Information and Materials Required at Submission
PLoS Medicine is committed to the highest ethical standards in medical research. Accordingly, we ask authors to provide specific information regarding ethical treatment of research subjects, patient consent, patient privacy, protocols, authorship, and competing interests. We also ask that reports of certain specific types of studies adhere to generally accepted standards. Our requirements are in agreement with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, issued by the International Committee for Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org), and are enumerated below.
Ethical Treatment of Research Subjects and Patient Consent
Research involving human participants must have been approved by the authors' institutional review board or equivalent committee, and we ask that authors submit a statement from the ethics committee or institutional review board indicating their approval of the research.
Informed consent for the research must have been obtained from all participants and all clinical investigations must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. PLoS Medicine encourages authors to submit a sample of a patient consent form, and may request submission on particular occasions.
Patient Privacy and Informed Consent for Publication
Our policy conforms to the Uniform Requirements, which states: "Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient be shown the manuscript to be published.
Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, and informed consent for publication should be obtained if there is any doubt. If data are changed to protect anonymity, authors should provide assurance that alterations of the data do not distort scientific meaning.
When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated in the published article."
A signed form of informed consent for publication should be included as supporting material for the editors and reviewers of the manuscript (click here to download Consent Form - 116 KB PDF). PLoS Medicine's open access license means that the images and text we publish online become available for any lawful purpose. This information should be conveyed when obtaining consent for publication from patients.
Reporting Clinical Trials
Authors must submit original protocols as supporting material to allow editors and reviewers to assess manuscripts fully. Any deviation from the protocol must be explained.
Reports of the results of randomized clinical trials should include the CONSORT flow diagram as Figure 1 and authors should complete the checklist contained within the CONSORT statement (accessible at www.consort-statement.org). Information on statistical methods or participants beyond what is indicated in the CONSORT statement should be reported according to the specifications indicated in the Methods section under Preparation of Manuscripts (below).
PLoS Medicine encourages authors to obtain an International Standard Randomized Control Trial Number (ISRCTN), and to submit their clinical trial to a publicly accessible registry.
Reporting Meta-Analyses
Reports of Meta-analyses of randomized controlled studies should use the QUOROM statement as a guide. (Moher D, Cook DJ, Eastwood S, Olkin I, Rennie D, Stroup DF. Improving the quality of reports of meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials: the QUOROM statement. Lancet 1999; 354: 1896-900), and include a copy of the QUOROM checklist (http://www.consort-statement.org/QUOROM.pdf).
Reporting Diagnostic Studies
Reports of Studies of Diagnostic accuracy should conform to the STARD requirements (http://www.consort-statement.org/stardstatement.htm).
Author Status
All Authors are asked to indicate via e-mail at submission that they are aware of and approve the submission of the manuscript, its content, authorship, and order of authorship. Articles will not be published unless all authors have provided their assent to publication.
If a professional writer was involved in the writing of the paper they must be listed and indicated as such.
PLoS Medicine bases its criteria for authorship on those outlined in the Uniform Requirements (www.icmje.org),which are summarized below. However, if you believe that a particular individual should be an author, you may include them, provided they are able to take responsibility for a given part of the study. The contributions of all authors must be described. Contributions that fall short of authorship should be mentioned in the acknowledgements.
"Authorship credit should be based on
1) substantial contribution to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3) final approval of the version to be published.
Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3.
When a large, multi-center group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript (3). These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship defined above and editors will ask these individuals to complete journal-specific author and competing interests disclosure forms. When submitting a group author manuscript, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and should clearly identify all individual authors as well as the group name.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship. All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content."
Competing Interests
All authors are asked via email to declare at submission any competing interests, e.g., financial interests (such as stocks, equity interests, consultancies, or patents), or other interests (such as personal interests) that could be construed to have influenced the reporting of the experimental data or conclusions in their paper. See separate document on competing interests for details. All authors must read this document and indicate that they have done so. A competing interests statement will be included in all in published articles. Reviewers and editors are also asked to declare any competing interests (see guidelines for reviewers).
Prior Publication
When submitting their article, all authors are asked to indicate that they have not submitted a similar manuscript for publication elsewhere. If related work has been submitted, then a preprint must be included with the article submitted to PLoS Medicine. Reviewers will be asked to comment on the overlap between the related submissions.
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8. Preparation of Research Manuscripts
PLoS Medicine publishes original research articles of outstanding medical importance. We will consider manuscripts of any length; we encourage the submission of both substantial full-length bodies of work and shorter manuscripts that report novel findings that might be based on a more limited range of experiments.
The writing style should be concise and accessible, avoiding jargon so that the paper is understandable for readers outside a specialty or those whose first language is not English. Editors will make suggestions for how to achieve this, as well as suggestions for cuts or additions that could be made to the article to strengthen the argument. Our aim is to make the editorial process rigorous and consistent, but not intrusive or overbearing. Authors are encouraged to use their own voice and to decide how best to present their ideas, results, and conclusions. Although we encourage submissions from around the globe, we require that manuscripts be submitted in English. Authors who do not use English as a first language may contact us for additional information. As a step towards overcoming language barriers, we encourage authors fluent in other languages to provide copies of their full articles or abstracts in other languages. Translations should be submitted as supporting information and listed, together with other supporting information files, at the end of the article text.
Organization of the Manuscript
Most articles published in PLoS Medicine will be organized into the following sections: title, authors, affiliations, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references, acknowledgments, and figure legends. Uniformity in format will help readers and users of the journal. We recognize, however, that this format is not ideal for all types of studies. If you have a manuscript that would benefit from a different format, please contact the editors to discuss this further. Although we have no firm length restrictions for the entire manuscript or individual sections, we urge authors to present and discuss their findings concisely.
Our submission system can support a large range of formats for text and graphics, but if you experience difficulties with the site or are concerned about the suitability of your files, please contact the production department, production@plos.org.
Title (75 characters)
The title should be specific to the study yet concise, and should allow sensitive and specific electronic retrieval of the article. It should be comprehensible to readers outside your field. Avoid specialist abbreviations if possible. Titles should be presented in title case, meaning that all words except for prepositions, articles, and conjunctions should be capitalized. If the paper is a randomized controlled trial or a meta-analysis, this description should be in the title.
Examples:
Climate Change and Increased Spread of Malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa
A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Rrial of a Nurse-Led Intervention after Stroke
Please also provide a brief "running head" of approximately 40 characters.
Authors and Affiliations
Provide the first names or initials (if used), middle names or initials (if used), and surnames and affiliations ?department, university or organization, city, state/province (if applicable), and country ?for all authors. One of the authors should be designated as the corresponding author. If the article has been submitted on behalf of a consortium, all author names and affiliations should be listed at the end of the article. (For authorship criteria, see Supporting Information and Materials Required at Submission)
Abstract
The abstract succinctly introduces the paper. It should mention the techniques used without going into methodological detail and summarize the most important results. The abstract is conceptually divided into the following three sections: Background, Methodology/Principal Findings, and Conclusions/Significance. Please do not include any citations in the abstract. Avoid specialist abbreviations.
Introduction
The introduction should discuss the purpose of the study in the broader context. As you compose the introduction, think of readers who are not experts in this field. Include a brief review of the key literature. If there are relevant controversies or disagreements in the field, they should be mentioned so that a non-expert reader can delve into these issues further. The introduction should conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the experiments and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.
Methods
This section should provide enough detail for reproduction of the findings. Protocols for new methods should be included, but well-established protocols may simply be referenced. Detailed methodology or supporting information relevant to the methodology can be published on our web site.
This section should also include descriptions of any statistical methods employed. These should conform to the criteria outlined by the Uniform Requirements, as follows: "Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as the use of P values, which fails to convey important quantitative information. Discuss the eligibility of experimental subjects. Give details about randomization. Describe the methods for and success of any blinding of observations. Report complications of treatment. Give numbers of observations. Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated) rather than to papers in which the designs or methods were originally reported. Specify any general-use computer programs used."
Reagents used in research should be indicated according to their chemical name rather than their brand name. Please provide the Recommended International Non-proprietary Name (rINN) of drugs.
For studies in humans or animals, information should be included according to guidelines in the Uniform Requirements as follows: "Describe your selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly. Identify the age, sex, and other important characteristics of the subjects. Because the relevance of such variables as age, sex, and ethnicity to the object of research is not always clear, authors should explicitly justify them when they are included in a study report. The guiding principle should be clarity about how and why a study was done in a particular way. For example, authors should explain why only subjects of certain ages were included or why women were excluded. Authors should avoid terms such as "race," which lacks precise biological meaning, and use alternative descriptors such as "ethnicity" or "ethnic group" instead. Authors should specify carefully what the descriptors mean, and tell exactly how the data were collected (for example, what terms were used in survey forms, whether the data were self-reported or assigned by others, etc.)."
Results
The results section should include all relevant positive and negative findings. The section may be divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading. Large datasets, including raw data, should be submitted as supporting files; these are published online alongside the accepted article. The results section should be written in past tense.
As outlined in the Uniform requirements, authors that present statistical data in the Results section, should "...specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Avoid nontechnical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as "random" (which implies a randomizing device), "normal," "significant," "correlations," and "sample." Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols."
Discussion
The discussion should spell out the major conclusions of the work along with some explanation or speculation on the importance of these conclusions. How do the conclusions affect the existing assumptions and models in the field? How can future research build on these observations? What are the key experiments that must be done? The discussion should be concise and tightly argued. The results and discussion may be combined into one section, if desired. Include a summary of the limitations of your study.
References
Only published or accepted manuscripts should be included in the reference list. Meetings abstracts, conference talks, or papers that have been submitted but not yet accepted should not be cited. Limited citation of unpublished work should be included in the body of the text only. All personal communications should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors.
Download EndNote style file
Download Reference Manager style file
Download BibTeX style file (kindly provided by Tim Holy)
Windows users, hold down "Ctrl" key and click the link to download the file to your computer.
Mac users, hold down "option" key and click the link to download the file to your computer.
PLoS uses the numbered citation (citation-sequence) method. References are listed and numbered in the order that they appear in the text. In the text, citations should be indicated by the reference number in brackets. Multiple citations within a single set of brackets should be separated by commas. Where there are more than three sequential citations, they should be given as a range. Example: "...has been shown previously [1,4-6,22]." Make sure the parts of the manuscript are in the following order before ordering the citations: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, captions for Supporting Information files, Acknowledgments, Figure captions, Tables.
Because all references will be linked electronically as much as possible to the papers they cite, proper formatting of the references is crucial. Please use the following style for the reference list:
Published papers
1 Sanger F, Nicklen S, Coulson AR (1977) DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 74: 5463-5467.
Please list the first five authors and then add "et al." if there are additional authors. Use of a DOI number to the full-text article is acceptable as an alternative to or in addition to traditional volume and page numbers.
Accepted papers
Same as above, but "in press" appears instead of the page numbers. Example: Adv Clin Path. In press.
Electronic journal articles
1 Loker WM (1996) "Campesinos" and the crisis of modernization in Latin America. Jour Pol Ecol 3. Available: http://www.library.arizona.edu/ej/jpe/volume_3/ascii-lokeriso.txt via the Internet. Accessed 1996 Aug 11.
Books
1 Bates B (1992) Bargaining for life: A social history of tuberculosis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 435 p.
Book chapters
Hansen B (1991) New York City epidemics and history for the public. In: Harden VA, Risse GB, editors. AIDS and the historian. Bethesda: National Institute of Health. pp. 21-28.
Acknowledgments
People who contributed to the work, but do not fit the criteria for authors should be listed in the Acknowledgments, along with their contributions. This section should also include details of the funding sources that have supported the work, and their involvement, if any, in the work, or the publication of it.
Author Contributions
This section should contain a detailed list of the contributions of each of the authors.
Competing Interests
This section should list specific competing interests associated with any of the authors. If authors declare that no competing interests exist, we will print a statement to this effect.
Abbreviations
Please keep abbreviations to a minimum. List all non-standard abbreviations in alphabetical order, along with their expanded form. Define them as well upon first use in the text. Non-standard abbreviations should not be used unless they appear at least three times in the text.
Nomenclature
The use of standardized nomenclature in all fields of biology and medicine is an essential step toward the integration and linking of scientific information reported in published literature. We will enforce the use of correct and established nomenclature wherever possible. Here are some brief guidelines for PLoS Medicine:
Species names should be italicized (e.g., Homo sapiens).
Genes, mutations, genotypes, and alleles should be indicated in italics. Use the recommended name by consulting the appropriate genetic nomenclature database, e.g., HUGO. It is sometimes advisable to indicate the synonyms for the gene the first time it appears in the text. Gene prefixes such as those used for oncogenes or cellular localization should be shown in roman: v-fes, c-MYC, etc.
Gene products (proteins and phenotypes) should be indicated in roman (not italicized) text. Again, use the recommended name.
When referring to a specific chromosome, the c should be capitalized (e.g., Chromosome 2). Chromosome anomalies are not italicized.
Sequences, loci, and deletions follow the standard convention for the species and are not italicized.
Plasmids are shown in roman type.
We strongly encourage the use of SI units. If you do not use these exclusively, please provide the SI value in parentheses after each value.
Accession Numbers
All appropriate datasets, images, and information should be deposited in public resources. Please provide the relevant accession numbers (and version numbers, if appropriate). Suggested databases include, but are not limited to:
ArrayExpress
Database of Interacting Proteins
DNA Data Bank of Japan [DDBJ]
EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database
GenBank
Gene Expression Omnibus [GEO]
Protein Data Bank
Swiss-Prot
These numbers will be linked in the published paper to the relevant database entries.
In addition, as much as possible, please provide accession numbers or identifier, such as rs (REF SNP) numbers for nucleotide position, for all entities such as genes, proteins, mutants, diseases, etc., for which there is an entry in a public database, for example:
LocusLink
OMIM
as well as those listed above. The accession number should be provided in parentheses after the entity on first use only. This will allow linking to and from established databases and will integrate your article with a broader collection of scientific information.
Figures
If the article is accepted for publication, the author will be asked to supply high resolution, print-ready versions of the figures. Please ensure that the files conform to our Guidelines for Figure Preparation, when preparing your figures for production. Figures submitted from the beginning in these formats at a print-quality resolution will speed the publication of the paper. After acceptance, authors will also be asked to provide an attractive image to highlight their paper online and in its accompanying synopsis.
Figure Legends
The aim of the figure legend should be to describe the key messages of the figure, but the figure should also be discussed in the text. An enlarged version of the figure and its full legend will often be viewed in a separate window online, and it should be possible for a reader to understand the figure without switching back and forth between this window and the relevant parts of the text. Each legend should have a concise title of no more than 15 words. The legend itself should be succinct, while still explaining all symbols and abbreviations. Avoid lengthy descriptions of methods.
Tables
All tables should have a concise title. Footnotes can be used to explain abbreviations. Citations should be indicated using the same style as outlined above. Tables occupying more than one printed page should be avoided, if possible. Very large tables can be published as online supporting information.
Multimedia Files and Supporting Information
We encourage authors to submit multimedia files that are crucial to the conclusions of the paper. We also encourage authors to submit essential supporting files along with their manuscripts. All supporting material will be subject to peer review.
Video files should be submitted as uncompressed AVI or Quicktime files, and PLoS will compress the files to an appropriate size and quality. Other multimedia files (e.g., Shockwave Flash) should be smaller than 10 MB in size because of the difficulties that some users will experience in loading or downloading files of a greater size.
In the text, figures, tables, multimedia files, and datasets that make up the Supporting Information are referred to with a leading capital S (e.g., Figure S4 for the fourth supporting figure) and should be fall into one of the following categories: Figure, Table, Text, Dataset, Audio, or Video. Titles (and, if desired, legends) for all supporting information files should be listed in the manuscript under the heading "Supporting Information".
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9. Other Types of Article
Editorial
These are written in house by members of the editorial staff.
Correspondence
We encourage correspondence on articles published in the journal. Please submit the letters in the first instance via the article on the Web site by clicking on the link "Send Us an eLetter".
Letters should be submitted as soon as possible after publication in order to encourage debate (but we have no rigid time limit) and should be no longer than 750 words, with 10 references. They may be edited, and may be sent to authors of original papers for comment. The letters posted on our Web site that we think are of most relevance to the topic discussed will also be published in the monthly journal. We will edit these and send authors a copy-edited version and a PDF page proof before publication.
Case Reports
PLoS Medicine will consider case reports for submission which have a useful teaching point, or provide a new angle onto a condition. Case reports should be around 1000 words, with 10 references and should be accompanied by relevant illustrations. You must provide a signed statement of consent for publication from the patient or their next of kin (a Consent Form can be downloaded from here - 116 KB PDF).
Other types of review and commentary articles are commissioned. However, if you have an idea for one of these articles, please contact medicine_editors@plos.org to get an idea of suitability.
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10. Outline of the Production Process
Once an article has been accepted for publication, the manuscript files are transferred into our production system. Manuscripts are then copyedited by professional copyeditors who correspond directly with the authors concerning queries and corrections. Once the article has been typeset, PDF proofs are generated so that authors can approve all editing and layout. The prompt return of proofs by authors will expedite the production process.
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11. Embargoes
Authors are, of course, at liberty to present their findings at scientific meetings ahead of publication. We recommend, however, that authors do not contact the media or respond to such contact unless an article has been accepted for publication and an embargo date set. Respect for press embargoes facilitates accurate dissemination of important medical information because, under open access, readers will be able to go directly to the published article rather than having to rely solely on a journalist's interpretation presented in the popular media.
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Editorial Board
Virginia Barbour, Managing Editor
Ginny Barbour's background in publishing comes from The Lancet, which she joined in 1999, becoming molecular medicine editor in 2001. While at The Lancet she was involved in peer review of research articles, commissioning reviews, series, and supplements, and writing news and editorials. She initially studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and then medicine at University College and Middlesex Hospital School of Medicine, London. In 1994, after training in Haematology at the Royal Free Hospital, London, she moved to the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford to study aberrant alpha globin gene regulation in Doug Higgs' lab. After finishing her DPhil, she worked on beta globin gene regulation in the Division of Experimental Hematology at St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. She believes that open-access medical publishing will not only facilitate medical research and patient care, but is also a vital part of improving communication and understanding between physicians, scientists, and the general public. [E-mail Ginny]
Paul Chinnock, Senior Editor
Paul's career has combined biology, education, healthcare and publishing for a range of audiences. Graduating in Applied Biology, he then worked in Kenya as a teacher in a self-help high school, through the charity Voluntary Service Overseas. Back in the UK, he became an editor in schoolbook publishing, mostly specialising in Africa, making many visits there. Paul then took the MSc in Human Nutrition at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which led to two years as head of the Gambian government's Nutrition Unit within its primary healthcare programme. A lack of jobs in nutrition led to a return to publishing, this time with a small company (FSG) producing an educational journal for African doctors, Africa Health, of which Paul was Editor for over 10 years. Other journals for which he was responsible included Medicine Digest, Diabetes International, and Caribbean Health. The company was taken over by the multinational MediMedia group but later closed down. After a few months focussing on freelance work (his clients have included the UK Department for International Development, the Panos Institute, WHO and HealthLink), Paul became Managing Editor of the Cochrane Injuries Group (based at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine), overseeing the production of systematic reviews of the effectiveness of interventions to treat or prevent injury. He moved to PLoS in June 2005. Paul is interested in all aspects of communication in healthcare, particular concerns include research at the public health level and the challenge of getting information to, and learning from, health workers on the 'front line' of care, especially in developing countries. [E-mail Paul]
Barbara Cohen, Senior Editor
Barbara Cohen was born and raised in Munich, Germany. She obtained a PhD in genetics from Munich University under Herbert Jäckle in 1993. Her thesis project, mostly conducted at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, examined limb development in the fruitfly Drosophila. She was an EMBO postdoctoral fellow with Thomas Graf at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory before joining the editorial staff of Nature in London in 1994. At Nature, she was responsible for peer review and publication of manuscripts in developmental biology, genetics, cancer, and plant science. In 1997, Barbara moved to New York and became editor of Nature Genetics. After three years at the helm of that journal, she moved to the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, an international not-for-profit organization that conducts basic and clinical cancer research, to head the office of communication. Missing the world of science publishing, Barbara joined the Journal of Clinical Investigation in 2001. As the executive editor, she oversaw the transition of the journal to Columbia University, where she worked with 18 academic editors to review and select scholarly articles with clinical relevance. Barbara had sympathized with the open-access movement since its inception and joined the Public Library of Science in 2003, initially to launch PLoS Biology. Having developed a strong interest in medical research over the years, Barbara subsequently concentrated her efforts on PLoS Medicine and is now one of four Senior Editors working on that journal. [E-mail Barbara]
Gavin Yamey, Magazine Editor
Gavin Yamey is a product of three continents--he was born in Cape Town, raised in London, and now lives in San Francisco. He studied medicine at the University of Oxford and University College London, graduating in 1994. After five years of working as a physician in a variety of different hospital settings--including an AIDS hospice, a dialysis ward, and a brain injuries unit--he joined the BMJ in 1999 as a trainee in medical journalism and editing. In 2001, he moved to San Francisco to be the deputy editor of the Western Journal of Medicine, published by the BMJ and the University of California. Gavin has written extensively on global health, malaria, and HIV/AIDS, and has helped to train medical editors at workshops in Barcelona and Addis Ababa. He believes that health information should be a global public resource, and that the Public Library of Science can help to realize the dream of open access. [E-mail Gavin]
PLoS Medicine Editorial Board
Jose Acuin
De La Salle University, Dasmariñas
Philippines
Hans-Olov Adami
Karolinska Institute, Stockholm
Sweden
Adriano Aguzzi
University Hospital Zurich
Switzerland
Gianni Angelini
University of Bristol
United Kingdom
Fred Appelbaum
Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, Seattle
USA
Dennis Ausiello
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
USA
Kumariah Balasubramaniam
Health Action International Asia Pacific, Colombo
Sri Lanka
Peter Barnes
National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London
United Kingdom
Paolo Beck-Peccoz
Ospedale Maggiore, Milan
Italy
Solomon Benatar
University of Cape Town
South Africa
Ivor Benjamin
University of Utah Health Sciences Center, Salt Lake City
USA
Zvi Bentwich
Hebrew University, Rehovot
Israel
Agnes Binagwaho
Commission Nationale de Lutte contre de SIDA, Kigali
Rwanda
Sally Blower
University of California, Los Angeles
USA
Andrew Carr
St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney
Australia
Timothy Caulfield
University of Alberta, Edmonton
Canada
R. Alta Charo
University of Wisconsin Law and Medicine, Madison
USA
Mushtaque R. Chowdhury
BRAC, Dhaka
Bangladesh
Jonathan Cohen
Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Brighton
United Kingdom
Rory Collins
University of Oxford
United Kingdom
Charlotte Cunningham-Rundles
Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York
USA
Adnan Custovic
Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester
United Kingdom
John Danesh
University of Cambridge
United Kingdom
Sabine Daebritz
Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich
Germany
Beatriz de Camargo
Hospital do cancer, Sao Paulo
Brazil
Dorothy Dunlop
Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago
USA
Alain Fischer
Hopital Necker-Enfants Malades, Paris
France
Nicholas Fisk
Imperial College London
United Kingdom
Ian Ford
University of Glasgow
United Kingdom
Eduardo Franco
McGill University, Montreal
Canada
Joseph L. Goldstein
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
USA
Eduardo Gotuzzo
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima
Peru
Deborah Grady
University of California, San Francisco
USA
Manuel Graeber
Imperial College London
United Kingdom
Hank Greely
Stanford University
USA
Paul Griffiths
Royal Free and University College Medical School, London
United Kingdom
Leif Groop
Lund University Hospital
Sweden
Simon Hales
Australian National University, Canberra
Australia
Chris Haslett
Royal Infirmary Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Phillipa Hay
James Cook University, Townsville
Australia
David D. Ho
Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York
USA
Philip Hopewell
University of California, San Francisco
USA
Richard Hornung
University of Cincinnati
USA
Tom Huizinga
Leiden University Medical Centre
Netherlands
Steven E. Hyman
Harvard University, Cambridge
USA
Patrick Johnston
Queen's University Belfast
United Kingdom
Dan Kaseje
Tropical Institute of Community Health and Development in Africa, Kisumu
Kenya
Martijn Katan
Wageningen University
Netherlands
Anthony Keech
University of Sydney
Australia
Paul Klenerman
University of Oxford
United Kingdom
Keith Klugman
Emory University, Atlanta
USA
Davy Koech
Kenya Medical Research Institute, Nairobi
Kenya
Clifford Lane
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda
USA
Joep Lange
University of Amsterdam
Netherlands
Bruce Lanphear
University of Cincinnati
USA
Kelley Lee
London School of Hygience & Tropical Medicine
United Kingdom
Cathryn Lewis
Guy's King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine, London
United Kingdom
Susan Lightman
Moorfields Eye Hospital, London
United Kingdom
Ed Liu
Genome Institute of Singapore
Singapore
Alan Lopez
The University of Queensland, Brisbane
Australia
James Lowe
University of Nottingham
United Kingdom
David S. Ludwig
Harvard Medical School, Boston
USA
William Lynn
Ealing Hospital, London
United Kingdom
Alberto Malliani
University of Milan
Italy
Malek Massad
The University of Illinois, Chicago
USA
Peter McCluskey
University of New South Wales, Sydney
Australia
Anne Merriman
Hospice Africa, Kampala
Uganda
Lynne Mofenson
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda
USA
R. Srinivasa Murthy
World Health Organization, Cairo
Egypt
Gary Nabel
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda
USA
Thomas Novotny
University of California, San Francisco
USA
Malik Peiris
The University of Hong Kong
China
Tom Quertermous
Stanford University
USA
Jonathan Rees
University of Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Andrew Rice
Imperial College London
United Kingdom
Philippe Sansonetti
Institut Pasteur, Paris
France
Stefan Schreiber
Christian-Albrechts-Universitat Kiel
Germany
Markus Schwaiger
Technical University Munich
Germany
Jaime Sepulveda-Amor
Mexican National Institutes of Health, Mexico City
Mexico
Gerald Shulman
Yale Medical School, New Haven
USA
William Sibbald
Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, Toronto
Canada
Mervyn Singer
University College London
United Kingdom
Peter Singer
University of Toronto
Canada
Gary Small
University of California, Los Angeles
USA
Ludvig Sollid
Rikshospitalet, Oslo
Norway
Awash Teklehaimanot
Columbia University
USA
Shoji Tsuji
University of Tokyo
Japan
Neil Turner
University of Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Patrick Vallance
University College of London
United Kingdom
Ajit Varki
University of California, San Diego
USA
Jean-Louis Vincent
Free University of Brussels
Belgium
Ralph Weissleder
Harvard Medical School, Boston
USA
Nicholas J White
Mahidol University, Bangkok
Thailand
R. Sanders Williams
Duke University, Durham
USA
Clifford J. Woolf
Harvard Medical School, Boston
USA
Kim Yancey
Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
USA
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