PLoS ONE announces the launch of the Synthetic Biology Collection. The new Collection contains an unprecedented number of articles illustrating the many facets of this dynamically evolving research area.
The field of synthetic biology interconnects many engineering and scientific disciplines including biology, chemical engineering, chemistry, electrical engineering, and computer science. PLoS ONE has published more than 50 articles covering all aspects of synthetic biology. The journal aims to help increase the visibility of this growing transdisciplinary field by assembling the articles into a Collection.
"When working at its best, science should be an active conversation that keeps refining ideas," said Damian Pattinson, PLoS ONE's Executive Editor, "We believe that PLoS ONE provides the ideal venue to achieve this and we hope that the Collection will inspire further progress in synthetic biology."
PLoS ONE's innovative editorial policy has made it possible for synthetic biologists to publish research that may not be the proper fit for a classical journal.
"The collection includes several articles from engineers and computer scientists who traditionally publish their work in conference proceedings rather than the journals available to life-scientists," said Dr. Jean Peccoud, an Associate Professor at Virginia Bioinformatics Institute. "PLoS ONE's breadth of subject matter made it possible to publish an unprecedented body of articles that reflects the multifaceted nature of synthetic biology."
A key feature of PLoS ONE is the inclusion of article-level metrics (ALMs) that are published alongside each paper and can be used to assess the impact of the research.
"Two articles now included in the Collection, were published in 2006, and to date have been cited 70 and 84 times, respectively," said Dr. Mark Isalan, Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation. "Metrics such as social bookmarking or number of views lead us to believe that articles published more recently will also have a lasting impact on the field."
The Collection highlights selected synthetic biology articles published in PLoS ONE since 2006. It will be updated regularly with appropriate new papers, as a growing resource. "Ultimately, we hope that having a dedicated repository in PLoS ONE will further increase the journal's attractiveness to researchers publishing synthetic biology," said Pattinson.
The collection was edited by Jean Peccoud, Associate Professor at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) and by Mark Isalan, Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (Barcelona, Spain).
Collection Citation: PLOS Collections: Synthetic Biology Collection (2012) www.ploscollections.org/synbio
Citation: Peccoud J, Isalan M (2012) The PLoS ONE Synthetic Biology Collection: Six Years and Counting. PLoS ONE 7(8): e43231. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0043231
Financial Disclosure: JP is supported by National Science Foundation Awards 0850100 and 0963988 and by grants R01-GM078989 and R01-GM095955 from the National Institutes of Health. MI is funded by FP7 ERC 201249 ZINC-HUBS, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion grant MICINN BFU2010-17953 and the MEC-EMBL agreement. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interest Statement: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043231
Disclaimer: This press release refers to upcoming articles in PLoS ONE. The releases have been provided by the article authors and/or journal staff. Any opinions expressed in these are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLOS. PLOS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article and your use of such information.
About PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE is the first journal of primary research from all areas of science to employ a combination of peer review and post-publication rating and commenting, to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLoS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS), the open-access publisher whose goal is to make the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.
All works published in PLoS ONE are Open Access. Everything is immediately available—to read, download, redistribute, include in databases and otherwise use—without cost to anyone, anywhere, subject only to the condition that the original authors and source are properly attributed. For more information about PLoS ONE relevant to journalists, bloggers and press officers, including details of our press release process and our embargo policy, see the everyONE blog at http://everyone.plos.org/media.
Journal
PLoS ONE