Discover Oncology – our new open access journal
Springer Nature is proud to welcome the latest addition to the Discover journal series, Discover Oncology, launched at the start of 2021. Like all Discover titles, Discover Oncology is dedicated to publishing fully open access research, with rigorous and efficient submission and peer-review, and high levels of author service and support.
Oncology is a field that is both rooted in history and at the cutting edge of scientific research. The causes of cancer, as a major and deadly human disease, have been explored for centuries, with the ‘black bile’ of Hippocrates’ theory of four humours identified as the cause back in around 400 BC, through ideas about ‘fermenting lymph’, irritation, infectious agents and many other competing theories, up to our present understanding of abnormal cell growth and division, and research into carcinogenesis at the cellular and genetic levels. Percival Pott’s groundbreaking identification of soot as an environmental carcinogen in 1775 would be mirrored by the recognition of cigarette smoking as a cause of lung cancer almost 200 years later.
It is this interface of basic, translational and clinical research, with fields as venerable as chemistry and as new as biomedical engineering, that the journal will support, with a focus on serving the community first, keeping the scope broad and open to emerging research areas and early career researchers. As the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, Eleanora Candi stated, “Discover Oncology, being a broad-scope cancer research and oncology journal, will meet the needs of the scientific community in this growing field. The broad spectrum of cancer-related topics will give researchers and clinicians the opportunity to share their advances in the field and get a whole picture of novelties, hot topics and translational/clinical innovations in the cancer-research and oncology field.”
Like all Discover titles, Discover Oncology will focus on providing rigorous peer-review through a smooth and swift publishing process. Our hope is that this will allow the journal to become a forum for discussion of internationally and scientifically diverse research at all levels, and avoid, in the words of Professor Candi, “referee exhaustion, author frustration, and slow dissemination of research results.”
The journal will also focus on collections of research articles on specific topics of interest. We have already opened the first such collection, on Gastrointestinal Cancer, guest-edited by Editorial Board Member Giuseppe Sica. The journal will be opening many more collections in the coming months and welcomes ideas for topics from the scientific community.
Any comments, ideas and thoughts on the journal as it develops in this huge, fast-moving and vitally important sphere of research are most welcome - you can find journal contact details here, and read the official welcome Editorial here.
Finally, we are very grateful for the support and enthusiasm of Prof. Candi and all the Editorial Board Members, who are driving this journal’s mission, and we look forward to welcoming the research community as readers and authors!