BioMed Central Awards Dinner Celebrated Excellence In Open Access Research

Main Category: Biology / Biochemistry
Also Included In: Stem Cell Research;  Endocrinology
Article Date: 23 Mar 2008 - 11:00 PDT

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The winners of the 2007 BioMed Central Research Awards were announced at an awards ceremony at the Royal Society of Medicine. The event was attended by shortlisted authors, eminent researchers from around the world, open access advocates and science journalists.

The Research Awards, now in their second year, recognize excellence in research which has been made universally accessible by open access publication. The Awards celebrate the best medical and biological research published in any of BioMed Central's open access journals in the last year.

The Medicine and Biology awards, sponsored by Microsoft Research, were won by the following research articles:

Medicine Award - Xioalong Meng and Thomas Ichim
Endometrial regenerative cells: A novel stem cell population
Journal of Translational Medicine

Biology Award - Markus Rasler
Dynamic rerouting of the carbohydrate flux is key to counteracting oxidative stress
Journal of Biology.

Also in attendance was Ken Wood, the Deputy Managing Director of Microsoft Research - Cambridge, who commented, "Microsoft is extremely pleased to sponsor these open access research awards. They support the recognition and acknowledgment of the highest-quality scientific research that is broadly available to the entire scientific community, and in which Microsoft Research has a direct interest. This is an important annual event and Microsoft is very proud to be involved in this endeavor. "

This year, a new Award was introduced - The Journal of Medical Case Reports Award. The winning entry for this inaugural award was:

JMCR Award - Phuong Mai
'A possible new syndrome with growth-hormone secreting pituitary adenoma, colonic polyposis, lipomatosis, lentigines and renal carcinoma in association with familial testicular germ cell malignancy: A case report' Journal of Medical Case Reports

BioMed Central Publisher Matthew Cockerill said "We are delighted with the diversity and quality of this year's award nominees and would like to congratulate the winners, and those shortlisted, on their exceptional research. We would also like to thank our sponsors, Microsoft Research and Pfizer, whose support made the awards possible."

Guests at the event were treated to an entertaining talk on the Galapagos Islands from Henry Nicholls, journalist and writer. As part of their commitment to open access, Pfizer were proud to be the sponsor the Research Awards Dinner.

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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The winning articles

All articles are open access.

Medicine
Endometrial regenerative cells: A novel stem cell population
Meng X, Ichim TE, Zhong J, Rogers A, Yin Z, Jackson J, Wang H, Ge W, Bogin V, Chan KW, Thébaud B, Riordan NH
Journal of Translational Medicine 2007, 5:57 (15 November 2007)
http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/5/1/57

Biology
Dynamic rerouting of the carbohydrate flux is key to counteracting oxidative stress
Ralser M, Wamelink MM, Kowald A, Gerisch B, Heeren G, Struys EA, Klipp E, Jakobs C, Breitenbach M, Lehrach H, Krobitsch S
Journal of Biology 2007, 6:10 (21 December 2007)
http://jbiol.com/content/6/4/10

Case Report
A possible new syndrome with growth-hormone secreting pituitary adenoma, colonic polyposis, lipomatosis, lentigines and renal carcinoma in association with familial testicular germ cell malignancy: A case report
Mai PL, Korde L, Kramer J, Peters J, Mueller CM, Pfeiffer S, Stratakis CA, Pinto PA, Bratslavsky G, Merino M, Choyke P, Linehan WM, Greene MH
Journal of Medical Case Reports 1:9 (28 March 2007)
http://www.jmedicalcasereports.com/content/1/1/9

BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an independent online publishing house committed to providing immediate access without charge to the peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This commitment is based on the view that open access to research is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science.

Microsoft Research, founded in 1991, is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Its goals are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce the cost of writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing technologies. Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition, user-interface research, natural language processing, programming tools and methodologies, operating systems and networking, and the mathematical sciences. Microsoft Research employs more than 700 people in five labs located in Redmond, Wash.; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Cambridge, England; Beijing, China; and Bangalore, India. Microsoft Research collaborates openly with colleges and universities worldwide to enhance the teaching and learning experience, inspire technological innovation, and broadly advance the field of computer science. More information can be found at http://www.research.microsoft.com/.

Source: Charlotte Webber
BioMed Central