About Parasites & Vectors

This page includes information about the aims and scope of Parasites & Vectors, editorial policies, open access and article-processing charges, the peer-review process and other information. For details of how to prepare and submit a manuscript through the online submission system, please see the instructions for authors.

Aims & scope

Manuscripts on all aspects of the basic and applied biology of parasites, intermediate hosts, vectors and vector-borne pathogens will be considered. In addition to the traditional and well-established areas of science in these fields, we also aim to provide a vehicle for publication of the rapidly developing resources and technology in parasite, intermediate host and vector genomics and their impacts on biological research. We are able to publish movies and also large datasets and extensive results, frequently associated with genomic and post-genomic technologies, which are not readily accommodated in traditional journals. Manuscripts addressing broader issues, for example economics, social sciences and global climate change in relation to parasites, vectors and disease control, are also welcomed.

The average time from submission to a first decision is 20 days.

Parasites & Vectors is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal dealing with the biology of parasites, parasitic diseases, intermediate hosts, vectors and vector-borne pathogens. Manuscripts published in this journal will be available to all worldwide, with no barriers to access, immediately following acceptance. However, authors retain the copyright of their material and may use it, or distribute it, as they wish.

Manuscripts on all aspects of the basic and applied biology of parasites, intermediate hosts, vectors and vector-borne pathogens will be considered. In addition to the traditional and well-established areas of science in these fields, we also aim to provide a vehicle for publication of the rapidly developing resources and technology in parasite, intermediate host and vector genomics and their impacts on biological research. We are able to publish large datasets and extensive results, frequently associated with genomic and post-genomic technologies, which are not readily accommodated in traditional journals. Manuscripts addressing broader issues, for example economics, social sciences and global climate change in relation to parasites, vectors and disease control, are also welcomed.

The electronic format of the journal offers interesting opportunities for authors. For example, in addition to the publication of large datasets, derived from field and laboratory studies, there is no limit to the number of color illustrations that can be included. Animations, slide shows and movie clips are acceptable, as also are links to relevant material on other websites. No additional charge will be made for these.

Parasites & Vectors expands upon the scope of two former BioMed Central publications, Kinetoplastid Biology and Disease and Filaria Journal , both of which ceased publication in December 2007.

Authors working in the areas covered by these journals are encouraged to submit their work to Parasites & Vectors.

The full archives of these two journals remain available from the Kinetoplastid Biology and Disease and Filaria Journal websites and PubMed Central.

Open access

All articles published by Parasites & Vectors are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

Authors of articles published in Parasites & Vectors are the copyright holders of their articles and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate the article, according to the BioMed Central copyright and license agreement.

Article-processing charges

Open access publishing is not without costs. Parasites & Vectors therefore levies an article-processing charge of £1100/$1730/€1315 for each article accepted for publication. We routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries. Generally, if the submitting author's institution is a Member the cost of the article-processing charge is covered by the membership, and no further charge is payable. In the case of authors whose institutions are Supporter Members, however, a discounted article-processing charge is payable by the author. For further details, see our article-processing charge page. A limited number of waivers for article-processing charges are also available at the editors' discretion, and authors wishing to apply for these waivers should contact the editors.

Indexing services

Following publication in Parasites & Vectors, the full-text of each article is deposited immediately and permanently archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also in repositories in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of electronic publications. Parasites & Vectors is included in PubMed and all major bibliographic databases. A complete list of indexing web services that include BioMed Central's journals can be found here.

Parasites & Vectors is tracked by Thomson Reuters (ISI) and has an impact factor of 2.13

Publication and peer-review process

Content overview

Parasites & Vectors considers the following types of articles:

• Research: reports of data from original research. These peer-reviewed articles will form the major content of the journal and may be full papers or short communications
• Reviews: of any topic within the scope of the journal. They may be either invited by the editor or unsolicited. Plenary lectures from Conferences and specialized meetings are welcomed. These may include the slides and videos that were used in the original presentation. Authors and conference organizers are encouraged to discuss proposals with the Editor at an early stage. All reviews will be peer-reviewed.
• Book reviews: presenting short summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of a book. They should evaluate its overall usefulness to the intended audience. Book reviews are commissioned by the Editor-in-Chief.
• Meeting reports: Commissioned by the Editor-in-Chief.
• Letter to the Editor: These can take several forms. For example, a substantial critique or re-analysis of a previously published article, a substantial response to such a re-analysis from the authors of the original publication, or an article that may not cover 'standard research' but that may be relevant to readers. Please consult the Editor prior to submission if in doubt.
• Discussion of papers published in the journal is encouraged, and these contributions will be included in Readers' Comments, accessed from the web page on which the article is displayed. These comments are subject to editing and remain in the Archives associated with the specific article to which they refer.

Plant raw materials, derivatives and extracts

Investigations on biological activity of plant raw materials, derivatives or extracts, including essential oils, must be standardized in order to elucidate their qualitative and quantitative phytochemical composition, at least of major compounds. The methodology used must be described in detail, including procedures, apparatus, columns, stationary and mobile phases, detection, etc.

For all plant species used in investigations, from wild populations or cultivated ones, a voucher specimen must be deposited in a biological collection, where the site (GPS coordinates) and date of collection, with the part(s) used in the study are documented, and the voucher number must be cited in the manuscript.

Peer-review policies

Manuscripts will be reviewed by internationally recognized experts in the field, selected in part from the Editorial Board. Reviews will be rapid and the suitability of a manuscript for publication will be assessed solely on criteria of scientific excellence. Final decisions will be made by the Editor-in-Chief and may include accept, reject, accept following minor revision and resubmit after major revision and further review.

Edited by Chris Arme, Parasites & Vectors is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Authors will be able to check the progress of their manuscript through the submission system at any time by logging into My Parasites & Vectors, a personalized section of the site.

Portability of peer-review

In order to support efficient and thorough peer review, we aim to reduce the number of times a manuscript is re-reviewed after rejection from Parasites & Vectors, thereby speeding up the publication process and reducing the burden on peer reviewers. Therefore, please note that, if a manuscript is not accepted for publication in Parasites & Vectors and the authors choose to submit a revised version to another BioMed Central journal, we will pass the reviews on to the other journal's editors at the authors' request. We will reveal the reviewers' names to the handling editor for editorial purposes unless reviewers let us know when they return their report that they do not wish us to share their report with another BioMed Central journal.

Reprints

High-quality, bound reprints can be purchased for all articles published. Please see our reprints website for further information about ordering reprints, and to enquire about further details, including fees, please contact BioMed Central's reprint service.

Supplements

Parasites & Vectors will consider supplements based on proceedings (full articles or meeting abstracts), reviews or research. All articles submitted for publication in supplements are subject to peer review. Published supplements are fully searchable and freely accessible online and can also be produced in print. All full length articles (proceedings, reviews or research articles) are indexed by PubMed. PubMed displays the title of the supplement only in the case of meeting abstract collections. For further information, please contact us.

Editorial policies

Any manuscript, or substantial parts of it, submitted to the journal must not be under consideration by any other journal. In general, the manuscript should not have already been published in any journal or other citable form, although it may have been deposited on a preprint server. Information on duplicate/overlapping publications can be found here. Authors are required to ensure that no material submitted as part of a manuscript infringes existing copyrights, or the rights of a third party.

Correspondence concerning articles published in Parasites & Vectors is encouraged. A 'post a comment' feature is available on all articles published by Parasites & Vectors. Comments will be moderated by the editorial office (see our Comment policy for further information) and linked to the full-text version of the article, if suitable.

Editorial standards

BioMed Central is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and endorses the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Policy Statement on Geopolitical Intrusion on Editorial Decisions.

Ethical guidelines

Submission of a manuscript to Parasites & Vectors implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content, and that any experimental research that is reported in the manuscript has been performed with the approval of an appropriate ethics committee. Research carried out on humans must be in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration, and any experimental research on animals must follow internationally recognized guidelines. A statement to this effect must appear in the Methods section of the manuscript, including the name of the body which gave approval, with a reference number where appropriate. Informed consent must also be documented. Manuscripts may be rejected if the editorial office considers that the research has not been carried out within an ethical framework, e.g. if the severity of the experimental procedure is not justified by the value of the knowledge gained.

For all articles that include information or clinical photographs relating to individual patients, written and signed consent from each patient to publish must also be made available if requested by the editorial staff.

Parasites & Vectors's publisher, BioMed Central, has a legal responsibility to ensure that its journals do not publish material that infringes copyright, or that includes libellous or defamatory content. If, on review, your manuscript is perceived to contain potentially libellous content the journal Editors, with assistance from the publisher if required, will work with authors to ensure an appropriate outcome is reached.

The involvement of scientific (medical) writers or anyone else who assisted with the preparation of the manuscript content should be acknowledged, along with their source of funding, as described in the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) guidelines on the role of medical writers in developing peer-reviewed publications. If medical writers are not listed among the authors, their role should be acknowledged explicitly.

Standards of reporting

Parasites & Vectors supports initiatives aimed at improving the reporting of biomedical research. We recommend authors refer to the EQUATOR network website for further information on the available reporting guidelines for health research, and the MIBBI Portal for prescriptive checklists for reporting biological and biomedical research where applicable. Authors are requested to make use of these when drafting their manuscript and peer reviewers will also be asked to refer to these checklists when evaluating these studies. Checklists are available for a number of study designs, including randomized controlled trials (CONSORT), systematic reviews (PRISMA), observational studies (STROBE), meta-analyses of observational studies (MOOSE), diagnostic accuracy studies (STARD) and qualitative studies (RATS). For authors of systematic reviews, an additional file, linked from the Methods section, should reproduce all details concerning the search strategy. For an example of how a search strategy should be presented, see the Cochrane Reviewers' Handbook.

For mutation nomenclature please use the guidelines suggested by the Human Genome Variation Society, and the recommended gene name by consulting the appropriate genetic nomenclature database, e.g., HUGO for human genes, and the International Committee on Standardized Genetic Nomenclature for Mice. We encourage the use of standardized terms for human phenotypes, such as those proposed by the Elements of Morphology working group (see: http://research.nhgri.nih.gov/morphology/index.cgi).

Data and materials release

Submission of a manuscript to Parasites & Vectors implies that readily reproducible materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any scientist wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes. Nucleic acid sequences, protein sequences, and atomic coordinates should be deposited in an appropriate database in time for the accession number to be included in the published article. In computational studies where the sequence information is unacceptable for inclusion in databases because of lack of experimental validation, the sequences must be published as an additional file with the article.

Any 'in press' articles cited within the references and necessary for the reviewers' assessment of the manuscript should be made available if requested by the editorial office.

Nucleotide sequences

Nucleotide sequences can be deposited with the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL/EBI) Nucleotide Sequence Database, or GenBank (National Center for Biotechnology Information).

Protein sequences

Protein sequences can be deposited with SwissProt or the Protein Information Resource (PIR).

The accession numbers of any nucleic acid sequences, protein sequences or atomic coordinates cited in the manuscript should be provided, in square brackets with the corresponding database name; for example, [EMBL:AB026295, EMBL:AC137000, DDBJ:AE000812, GenBank:U49845, PDB:1BFM, Swiss-Prot:Q96KQ7, PIR:S66116].

The databases for which we can provide direct links are: EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (EMBL), DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ), GenBank at the NCBI (GenBank), Protein Data Bank (PDB), Protein Information Resource (PIR) and the Swiss-Prot Protein Database (Swiss-Prot).

Mass spectrometry

Mass spectrometry data should be supplied in the mzML format recommended by the HUPO Protein Standards Initiative Mass Spectrometry Standards Working Group guidelines (http://www.psidev.info/index.php?q=node/80). We also recommend that the data is deposited in the ProteomeExchange (http://proteomexchange.org/) through the PRIDE website (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/pride/), and protein interaction data can be submitted to members of the IMEx consortium (http://disber.net/imexdrupal/).

Structures

Protein structures can be deposited with one of the members of the Worldwide Protein Data Bank. Nucleic Acids structures can be deposited with the Nucleic Acid Database at Rutgers. Crystal structures of organic compounds can be deposited with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre.

Chemical structures and assays

Structures of chemical substances can be deposited with PubChem Substance. Bioactivity screens of chemical substances can be deposited with PubChem BioAssay.

Functional genomics data (such as microarray, RNA-seq or ChIP-seq data)

Where appropriate, authors should adhere to the standards proposed by the Functional Genomics Data Society and must deposit microarray data in MIAME-compliant format in one of the public repositories, such as ArrayExpress or Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Deposition of high-throughput functional genomics sequencing data (such as RNA-Seq or ChIP-Seq data) with ArrayExpress or GEO in compliance with MINSEQE is also required.

Computational modeling

We encourage authors to prepare models of biochemical reaction networks using the Systems Biology Markup Language and to deposit the model with the BioModels database, as well as submitting it as an additional file with the manuscript.

Plasmids

We encourage authors to deposit copies of their plasmids as DNA or bacterial stocks with Addgene, a non-profit repository, or PlasmID, the Plasmid Information Database at Harvard.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should, in the first instance, contact the Editor-in-Chief who will provide details of the journal's complaints procedure.

Competing interests

Parasites & Vectors requires authors to declare any competing financial or other interest in relation to their work. All competing interests that are declared will be listed at the end of published articles. Where an author gives no competing interests, the listing will read 'The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests'.

Plagiarism detection

Parasites & Vectors's publisher, BioMed Central, is a member of the CrossCheck plagiarism detection initiative. In cases of suspected plagiarism CrossCheck is available to the editors of Parasites & Vectors to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. CrossCheck is a multi-publisher initiative allowing screening of published and submitted content for originality.

Citing articles in Parasites & Vectors

Articles in Parasites & Vectors should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. Parasit Vectors [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Parasit Vectors 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Why publish your article in Parasites & Vectors?

High visibility

Parasites & Vectors's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience. Articles that have been especially highly accessed are highlighted with a 'Highly accessed' graphic, which appears on the journal's contents pages and search results.

Speed of publication

Parasites & Vectors offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles are published with their final citation immediately upon acceptance in a provisional PDF form. The article will subsequently be published in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF; the article will then be available through Parasites & Vectors, BioMed Central and PubMed Central and will also be included in PubMed.

Flexibility

Online publication in Parasites & Vectors gives authors the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other papers).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Parasites & Vectors are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be included in abstract books mailed to academics and are highlighted on Parasites & Vectors's pages and on the BioMed Central homepage.

In addition, articles published in Parasites & Vectors may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Parasites & Vectors. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BioMed Central is available here.

Copyright

Authors of articles published in Parasites & Vectors retain the copyright of their articles and are free to reproduce and disseminate their work (for further details, see the BioMed Central copyright and license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BioMed Central, please click here.