Open access publisher BioMed Central is proud to reveal the winner of the 7th Annual Research Awards. A presentation was made last night, at the Seaport Hotel in Boston, USA. The awards honour the very best research published in one of BioMed Central’s 250 plus open access journals in 2012.
BioMed Central Research Award
The winners of the prestigious BioMed Central Research Award, supported by antibodies-online.com, were selected from a shortlist consisting of the winners of the ten subject categories. Geoffrey S Diemer and Kenneth M Stedman, from Portland State University, won the award for their article "A novel virus genome discovered in an extreme environment suggests recombination between unrelated groups of RNA and DNA viruses," which was published in Biology Direct.
The article won accolades not only for the method used to uncover the virus, but for its biological insights into the novel viral genome. It makes a significant contribution to our understanding of viruses and has implications well outside the immediate finding.
Ken commented on winning the award and said, “We’re extremely honored at this award considering all of the wonderful research that is being published at BioMed Central, and particularly pleased to be able to accept this award at the 10th anniversary at BMC Biology, which is a celebration of open access and the accessibility of great science to the public.”
Laurence Hurst, Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at the University of Bath UK summarized why the judges felt that the article should be the winner. “We felt this was a truly exciting paper, because they have shown for the first time using a metagenomic approach, that there is evidence for a novel viral genome best explained as a result of recombination between RNA and DNA viruses. The paper clearly opens up new avenues in viral research, not least because the mechanism by which the interviral RNA-DNA recombination occurs has yet to be discovered.”
Andreas Kessell, co-founder of antibodies-online.com, explains, “At antibodies-online we accelerate research. We interact with the research community every day and are happy to sponsor the BioMed Central Overall Research Award winner 2012. The annual BioMed Central Research Awards are an excellent way to recognize and honor outstanding research published throughout the previous year. antibodies-online thanks all participants in advancing research for a better life and compliments this year's winners Geoffrey S Diemer and Kenneth M Stedman on the BioMed Central Overall Research Award.”
The awards were commemorated as part of an evening celebrating BioMed Central and open access, including the tenth anniversary of the initial publication of BMC Biology, the flagship biology journal of BioMed Central, and the launch of the new medical and biology online magazine Biome. The evening also included a panel discussion on the hotly-debated topic of how to avoid the 'tyranny' of current peer review practices, which was fitting since Biology Direct, which published the award-winning article, has pioneered a novel form of peer review.
The winners were selected by a panel of top scientists and clinicians picked from the editorial boards of BioMed Central’s portfolio of over 250 journals, which has published over 150,000 peer-reviewed open access articles to date.
Deborah Kahn, Publishing Director of BioMed Central, said: “I would like to thank our fantastic panel of judges and to congratulate the deserving winners of the 7th Annual BioMed Central Research Award for their outstanding achievements. We would also like to thank our new partners antibodies-online.com for their support."
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Related Link: http://www.antibodies-online.com/news/2/1283/Geoffrey+S.+Diemer+and+Kenneth+M.+Stedmann+win+the+7th+BioMed+Central+Research+Award+supported+by+antibodies-online.com/