Announcements

MDPI will be attending the 38th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Infection Prevention and Control (JSIPC), which will be held from 20 to 22 July 2023, in Yokohama, Japan.

JSIPC was founded in 1986 as the Japanese Society for Environmental Infection (JSEI). The first annual meeting was attended by about 230 participants. Over the last 30 years, the number of annual meeting participants has notably increased to over 7,000, with the membership total exceeding 9,500. JSIPC was founded to address not only the primary issue of nosocomial infection, but all other infectious diseases caused by environmental changes. The theme of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Infection Prevention and Control is “Professionalism”. The conference will cover various topics related to infection prevention and control, such as occupational safety and health, oral health, environmental health, infectious disease, antibiotic administration, vaccination, antibiotic resistance and misuse, and health education.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Antibiotics;
• Vaccines;
• Infectious Disease Reports;
• Journal of Personalized Medicine (JPM);
• Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease (TropicalMed).

If you plan on attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (#B21) and have a conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the following link: http://jsipc38.umin.jp/.

The 2022 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

We are thrilled to announce that 90% of our ranked MDPI journals, specifically 86 out of 96 (captured in the table below), are performing above average in Q1 or Q2. This year, Clarivate has expanded its Impact Factor (IF) awards to include journals in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), providing greater transparency for the full set of journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. As a result, 111 of MDPI journals have received their first IF in 2023, with 37 journals surpassing an IF of 3.0. In total, 208 MDPI journals have been honored with an IF.

Clarivate explains that by "expanding the coverage but holding to highly selective standards, the [Impact Factor] is now a reliable indicator of trustworthiness, as well as a measure of scholarly impact, at the journal level."

Please visit our blog post where we discuss the release of the latest citation metrics with our Indexing Manager, Dr. Constanze Schelhorn, to find out what's different this time around and how to make use of different metrics available.

Note: The Journal of Personalized Medicine's Impact Factor was omitted in the original release and will be assigned separately. Please find the data on the journal webpage in due course.

Source: 2022 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ^TM (Clarivate, 2023)

The webinar Structural Aspects of Antimicrobial Peptides and Antimicrobials was organized on 11 May 2023, by MDPI and the journal Antibiotics (ISSN: 2079-6382). The webinar focused on presenting and discussing important findings regarding the structure–activity relationship (SAR) of antimicrobial molecules, including AMPs, but also other natural, synthetic or repurposed antimicrobial compounds.

Please note that this webinar is associated with a Special Issue in Antibiotics entitled “Editorial Board Members' Collection Series: Structural Aspects of AMPs and Antimicrobials”, which has a deadline of 31 July 2023, and “Discovery and MultiFunctionality of Anti-Microbial Peptides”, which has a deadline of 31 December 2023.

You can watch the recorded webinar at the following link:

Webinar Chair and Keynote Speakers:

• Dr. Marc Maresca, Marseille Université, Marseille, France;
• Prof. Marc Devocelle, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland;
• Prof. Aurélie Tasiemski, Institut Pasteur de Lille, Lille, France;
• Prof. Gregory N. Tew, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA, United States.

FEMS was established in 1974 and is now an active and diverse federation of 55 European learned societies that includes around 30,000 professionals who are committed to advancing microbiology for the benefit of society. Located in 38 European countries, around half of these professionals are early career researchers, and the remainder include industry scientists, established academics, educators and campaigners. The 10th FEMS Congress of European Microbiologists will take place in Hamburg, Germany, from 9 to 13 July 2023. This event is dedicated to showcasing the latest developments in microbiology and to connecting microbiologists from all over the world.

Main topics:

• Environmental Microbiology & Ecology;
• Biotechnology & Synthetic Microbiology; 
• Food Microbiology; 
• Infection Biology & Pathogens; 
• Infectious Diseases; 
• Taxonomy & Systematics;
• Genetics & Genomics;
• Virology;
• Microbiology Education & Profession;
• Molecular Microbiology & Biochemistry.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Microorganisms;
• Veterinary Sciences;
• Foods;
• MPs;
• CIMB;
• Diversity;
• Biology;
• Fermentation;
• Microbiology Research;
• JoF;
• Pathogens;
• Antibiotics;
• Biomolecules.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you at booth #B18 in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference and our virtual booth, please visit the following link: https://www.fems2023.org/.

The world is facing an important challenge regarding the fight against multi-drug resistant microorganisms. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), infection by microorganisms resistant to available antibiotics and antimicrobials may lead to millions of deaths every year by 2050 if advances are not made.

Various molecules have been explored as potential replacements and/or adjuvants to conventional antimicrobials. Among them, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and other antimicrobial polymers seem very promising due to their membranolytic activity, leading to fast and selective killing, limiting the development of resistance. In addition, contrary to conventional antibiotics, AMPs possess additional activities (including antiviral, antifungal, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and/or wound healing activities), making them able to potentially fight many human diseases. Indeed, many AMPs have already been used in medicine or tested in clinical trials.

The urgency to find a new antimicrobial treatment has also led to the characterization of hundreds of natural or synthetic molecules and the repurposing of molecules that were not initially identified as antimicrobial ones.

The objective of the webinar series “Structural Aspects of Antimicrobial Peptides and Antimicrobials” is to present and discuss important findings regarding the structure–activity relationship (SAR) of antimicrobial molecules, including AMPs, but also other natural, synthetic, or repurposed antimicrobial compounds.

Date: 11 May 2023 at 4:00 p.m. CEST | 10:00 a.m. EDT | 10:00 p.m. CST Asia

Webinar ID: 832 0818 6949

Register now for free!

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to join the webinar. Registrations with academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.

Unable to attend? Register anyway and we’ll let you know when the recording is available to watch.

Webinar Chair and Keynote Speakers:

• Dr. Marc Maresca, Aix Marseille Université, Marseille, France;
• Prof. Marc Devocelle, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland;
• Prof. Aurélie Tasiemski, Institut Pasteur de Lille, Lille, France;
• Prof. Gregory N. Tew, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA, United States.

Relevant Special Issue:

“Editorial Board Members' Collection Series: Structural Aspects of AMPs and Antimicrobials”
Guest Editors: Prof. Dr. J. Michael Conlon, Dr. Marc Maresca and Prof. Dr. Bong-Jin Lee
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2023

“Discovery and MultiFunctionality of Anti-Microbial Peptides”
Guest Editors: Dr. Marc Maresca, Prof. Josette Perrier and Dr. Michael Lafond
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2023

The 2023 American Society for Microbiology Annual Meeting (ASM Microbe 2023) will be held in Houston, USA, from 15 to 19 June 2023. This annual meeting is the largest gathering of microbiologists in the world, and it is expected that nearly 8,000 professionals from all over the world will attend the meeting. Founded in 1899, the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) is the oldest and largest single life science society in the world, consisting of more than 50,000 scientists and health professionals, of which more than one-third of the members are from countries and regions outside the United States. The mission of the American Society for Microbiology is to promote and advance the science of microbiology.

Topics include:

• Disaster Microbiology;
• Emerging Infections – What is the next pandemic? (Focus on Nipah and Marburg);
• Natural Product Discovery and Synthesis;
• Combating the Climate Crisis with Critters: Microbial Carbon Capture;
• Powering the Future: Applied Microbiology in the Energy Industry;
• Equity and Access in Laboratory Diagnostics;
• Microbiome Management in a Changing World.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Microorganisms;
• Journal of Fungi;
• Viruses;
• Applied Biosciences;
• MPs;
• IJMS;
• Vaccines;
• Fermentation;
• Diversity;
• Metabolites;
• Biomolecules;
• Antibiotics;
• Pathogens;
• Life.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you at booth number #2504 in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference and our virtual booth, please visit the following link: https://asm.org/Events/ASM-Microbe/Home.

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to newjournal-committee@mdpi.com.

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.