SAN FRANCISCO -- Chemistry Central Journal, a revolutionary open access peer-reviewed, online chemistry journal, was announced today at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco. Chemistry Central Journal (http://journal.chemistrycentral.com/) is the first international open access journal that covers all of chemistry.
Chemistry Central Journal will encompass all aspects of research in chemistry, broken down into discipline-specific sections. Expected to publish its first articles in early 2007, Chemistry Central Journal is part of Chemistry Central, a new initiative from the team that created BioMed Central, the leading biomedical open access publisher.
Drawn from academia and industry, Chemistry Central Journal's distinguished Editorial Advisory Board is made up of senior chemistry researchers from all over the world, including four Nobel Laureates. Speaking from the ACS meeting, Bryan Vickery, Deputy Publisher at BioMed Central and a chemist by training, says, "I am delighted by the number of noted chemists and scientists who have agreed to join the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal from the outset." Recruitment of the board continues.
"I think open access journals are a great idea and am delighted to join you in this venture as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board," said Professor Robert Curl (Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1996).
Vickery continues, "Open communication of research results in physics and biomedicine has evolved rapidly over the last few years. Many believe Chemistry has lagged behind, with access to chemistry-related journals and databases still predominantly limited to subscribers only."
On joining the Editorial Advisory Board, W. Jeffery Hurst (The Hershey Company) said, "Until this initiative I felt that open access was limited in subject matter and if you didn't work on some -Omic you may not experience the opportunities open access brings." Hurst continued "Open access provides opportunities to our colleagues in other parts of the globe, by allowing anyone to view the content free of charge."
Chemistry Central Journal will offer a home for research in areas where there has previously been no open access journal available. In his new blog Peter Murray-Rust, commenting on the recent launch of Chemistry Central, noted "Before Chemistry Central there were no open journals that supported chemoinformatics." Vickery adds, "Chemistry Central Journal aims to change all that, by offering an open access publishing option to scientists worldwide. The journal will cover all areas of chemistry, and will be broken down into sections."
Chemistry Central Journal is now accepting submissions. Figures can be submitted as ChemDraw (.CDX) or ISIS/Draw (.SKC and .TGF) files, in addition to standard image formats. Chemistry Central Journal is working with PubChem in order that structures are deposited directly into the database. All articles will be deposited in PubMed Central, and will therefore be automatically linked into PubChem.
Chemistry Central is sponsoring the ACS Division of Chemical Information's Herman Skolnik Award Reception this evening in the Moscone Center, San Francisco.