About Cancer Cell International

What is Cancer Cell International?

Cancer Cell International is an Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal that considers research on cancer cells, originating largely from work using cell culture techniques. It serves the world as a publication of the International Federation for Cell Biology.

Much of cancer work relates to biological experiments in which cells are grown in vitro, in two- or three-dimensional systems. Such experiments have provided crucial data in many fields, from the chemoattraction of immune cells or blood vessel endothelial cells (angiogenesis), to measurements of effective doses of drugs, irradiation and other modalities. Cancer Cell International will consider manuscripts that include animal work (in vivo) only if the work is a logical progression from previous work in vitro.

Manuscripts from countries where Open Access would be particularly beneficial (developing countries, the former Soviet States, as well as countries where English is not the native language) will be given full consideration, and help can be made available in such circumstances, through BioMedES

Cancer Cell International has now become established, publishing many interesting articles from all over the world. It serves a particular need where wide communication of data is required, especially from countries that have a lower profile than many Western countries in biomedical publishing. New journals keep appearing, but these are from prestigious publishing houses that can be expensive to access. Also they tend to be highly selective and will only take the top flight of articles. Researchers whose work is often overlooked by other high-flying journals will be helped by the existence of Cancer Cell International.

Content overview

Cancer Cell International considers the following types of articles:

• Preliminary or short communications - articles that present interesting and topical, new data
• Primary research articles - these articles should report substantial advances in the field of cancer cell biology
• Reviews - should present an up-to-date survey of specialised areas in cancer cell biology
• Minireviews - reviews of the literature that are not more than about 6 pages with no more than 12-14 references, articles should instance a new development or some topical matter of general interest in the field
• Methodological manuscripts will be considered where their application to the advance of cancer research is clear

Peer review policies

Cancer Cell International has a strict peer review policy. This maintains an appropriate standard for the journal. It is difficult in the modern frenetic scientific world to get busy scientists to comply with reviewing requirements for manuscripts, and within a reasonable time frame. However, we must all help each other in this regard and we aim to get manuscripts reviewed as quickly as possible. During submission we ask that you suggest 3 or 4 independent (not close colleagues) referees for your manuscript. We will also find an independent one, as well as an editorial colleague to check the manuscript after two reports has been received. The editor has the final decision in acceptance or rejection.

Edited by Denys Wheatley, Cancer Cell International is supported by an international Editorial Board.

Publishing in Cancer Cell International

All articles will be listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and will be covered by PubMed Central, CAS and Embase.

Articles in Cancer Cell International should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Cancer Cell Int 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Cancer Cell International does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Cancer Cell International, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Cancer Cell International using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Cancer Cell International is published by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is Open Access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Cancer Cell International however, has taken this further by making all its content Open Access.

Cancer Cell International's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also in repositories at the University of Potsdam in Germany, at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

BioMed Central is working closely with the Thomson Reuters (ISI) to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in Cancer Cell International will be available.

Cancer Cell International is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.