Announcements

Conference: 11th National Conference on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
Date: 25–27 February 2023
Place: Guangzhou, China

MDPI will be attending the 11th National Conference on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (CCBSB2023) as the exhibitor. The National Academic Conference on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology has been successfully held for ten sessions since its first session in 1998. It is a national event with the highest academic level and the greatest influence in the field of bioinformatics research in China. The theme of the conference is "The Latest Frontier Research of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology and Their Applications", and the topics cover translational informatics and data sharing security, biomedical data mining and computing, genome informatics, artificial intelligence and life sciences, group bioinformatics and integrated biology, non-coding RNA and RNA informatics, network biology, major disease omics informatics, biological macromolecular structure prediction and simulation, bioinformatics algorithm research, biological data resources, bioinformatics and drugs discovery, computational synthetic biology, agricultural and forestry informatics and other bioinformatics, and other frontier directions.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Genes;
• JPM;
• Cardiogenetics;
• Bioengineering;
• Biomolecules;
• Metabolites;
• Cells;
• Symmetry;
• Biomedicines;
• Computers;
• COVID;
• Epigenomes.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start 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 https://ccbsb2022.casconf.cn/.

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.

1. “Analysis of ABC Transporter Gene Expression in Atherosclerosis”
by Stanislav Kotlyarov and Anna Kotlyarova
Cardiogenetics 2021, 11(4), 204-218; https://doi.org/10.3390/cardiogenetics11040021
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2035-8148/11/4/21

2. “The Roles of Platelet-Activating Factor and Magnesium in Pathophysiology of Hypertension, Atherogenesis, Cardiovascular Disease, Stroke and Aging”
by Nilank Shah, Roshni Sethi, Sachin Shah, Komail Jafri, Jonah Duran, Yong Chang, Chirag Soni and Hanna Wollocko
Cardiogenetics 2022, 12(1), 49-62; https://doi.org/10.3390/cardiogenetics12010005
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2035-8148/12/1/5

3. “Mosaic Fabry Disease in a Male Presenting as Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy”
by Maria Xu, Christopher Orsborne, James Eden, Andrew Wallace, Heather J. Church, Karen Tylee, Sasalu Deepak, Christopher Cassidy, Peter Woolfson, Christopher Miller, et al.
Cardiogenetics 2021, 11(1), 1-9; https://doi.org/10.3390/cardiogenetics11010001
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2035-8148/11/1/1

4. “Spectrum of Clinical Features and Genetic Profile of Left Ventricular Noncompaction Cardiomyopathy in Children”
by Agata Paszkowska, Alicja Mirecka-Rola, Dorota Piekutowska-Abramczuk, El ̇zbieta Ciara ,Łukasz Mazurkiewicz, Katarzyna Bieganowska and Lidia Ziółkowska
Cardiogenetics 2021, 11(4), 191-203; https://doi.org/10.3390/cardiogenetics11040020
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2035-8148/11/4/20

5. “A Novel Human Biospecimen Repository for Clinical and Molecular Investigation of Thoracic Aortopathy”
by Courtney E. Vujakovich and Benjamin J. Landis
Cardiogenetics 2021, 11(3), 148-163; https://doi.org/10.3390/cardiogenetics11030017
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2035-8148/11/3/17

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

We are currently recruiting Editorial Board Members (EBMs) for MDPI journals indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) in Web of Science. In particular, we are looking for experts who are interested in aiding in the development of our journals and safeguarding the scientific quality of the published findings.

Journals currently listed in the ESCI will receive an Impact Factor in June 2023, according to the changes announced by Web of Science (Clarivate). Therefore, this is an excellent time to become an Editorial Board Member for one of these fast-developing journals.

If you are interested in sharing your expertise in one of the journals listed below, please send us an application using this link.

The Editorial Office of the journal will contact you once the application has been approved.
Editorial Board Members are responsible for academic decisions on manuscripts in their field of expertise, will edit Special Issues, and may be invited to review manuscripts. The initial term lasts for two years, after which it can be renewed, and entails the following:

• Prescreening and making decisions on new submissions related to your research interests;
• Setting up at least one Special Issue during your term on a topic related to your research interests (or supervising Special Issues related to your research field);
• Providing input or feedback regarding journal policies;
• Helping to promote the journal among your peers or at conferences;
• Attending Board meetings to suggest journal development strategies;
• Reviewing manuscripts.

Editorial Board Members are entitled to a full waiver on one publication per year in the journal that they serve and need to be experts in their fields.

The list of ESCI journals can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals/esci.

Please find the list of ESCI journals, categorized by subject, for which we are recruiting Editorial Board Members below.

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

Stanford University has recently published an update of the list of the top 2% most widely cited scientists, the World’s Top 2% Scientists. The time node of the statistical data of this list is from 1960 to 2022, and it is divided into two lists: "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" and "2022 Annual Scientific Influence Ranking". The "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" counts the comprehensive influence performance of scientists during their careers, and the "2022 Annual Influence Ranking" focuses on highlighting the academic influence of scientists in the previous year. This ranking, considered the most prestigious worldwide, is based on the bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database and includes more than 200,000 researchers from the more than 10 million scientists considered to be active worldwide, with 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields taken into account.

We are pleased to share that 11 Editorial Board Members from MDPI’s journal Cardiogenetics (ISSN: 2035-8148) were featured in Stanford University’s list of the World’s Top 2% Scientists in 2022.

The latest Stanford rankings reflect the significant influence and research excellence of the scientists, who are committed to furthering their knowledge for the benefit of the world.

We would like to congratulate our Editorial Board Members on their excellent achievement and thank them for their immense contribution to the scientific progression and development of Cardiogenetics.

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!

MDPI will be attending ASHG 2022, held in Los Angeles, USA, from 25 to 29 October 2022.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Genes;
• JPM;
• Biomedicines;
• Biomolecules;
• Cardiogenetics;
• Cancers;
• Brain Science;
• Symmetry;
• Diagnostics;
• Metabolites;
• Cells;
• Biology;
• Humans;
• DNA.

If you plan on attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth: #1844. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have.

For more information about the conference, please see the following link:

https://www.ashg.org/meetings/2022-annual-meeting/.

To develop different research areas and continue to attract high-quality papers, Cardiogenetics (ISSN: 2035-8148) announced 11 new Sections in 2021 (more details can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections). At present, the following Sections have not yet found suitable scholars to lead them:

• “Education in Cardiogenetics” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Education_Cardiogenetics);
• “Inherited Heart Disease-Children” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Inherited_Heart_Disease-Children);
• “Inherited Aortic Disease” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Inherited_Aortic_Disease);
• “Rare Disease-Genetic Syndromes” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Rare_Disease-Genetic_Syndromes);
• “Rare Disease-Metabolic Diseases” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Rare_Disease-Metabolic_Diseases);
• “Rare Disease-Neuromuscular Diseases” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Rare_Disease-Neuromuscular_Diseases);
• “Molecular Genetics” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Molecular_Genetics);
• “Animal Models” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Animal_Models);
• “Biomarkers” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Biomarkers);
• “Stem Cells” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Stem_Cells);
• “Cardiovascular Genetics in Clinical Practice” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics/sections/Cardiovascular_Genetics_Clinical_Practice).

We are now recruiting Section Editors-in-Chief (SEiC) for these Sections. If you are an active researcher in one of the aforementioned fields and are passionate about publishing cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to contact us at: cardiogenetics@mdpi.com. You can find more information on our homepage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cardiogenetics.

The Section Editor-in-Chief has the following responsibilities:

• Making decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted based on the reports we collect;
• Reviewing a small number of papers per year and managing the Section together with other journal editors;
• Promoting Cardiogenetics and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences.

Cardiogenetics is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal that provides an advanced forum for studies related to all aspects of cardiogenetics (clinical, molecular, cellular, pharmacological). Cardiogenetics publishes reviews, regular research papers, and short communications.

We believe that by combining our rigorous editorial policies with your expertise, we can build a high-quality journal. We thank you in advance for your interest and look forward to collaborating with you in the future.