Dear Colleagues:
A Concept of a Rapid, Peer-reviewed Scientific Periodical
The Journal of Medicine & Biology is a post-publication, peer-reviewed periodical. It is the most rapid of all scientific peer-reviewed publications.
The field of scientific publication, unlike science itself, has become archaic. A typical paper announcing important discoveries may see a delay of six, twelve or even fifteen months before publication. Scientists submit their papers to a journal. A journal editor takes even weeks before deciding to whom to send the paper for definitive review by the most qualified reviewers. A typical reviewer isn't paid and does the reviewing between his or her “day jobs.” Often, minor changes are desired by editors and the paper goes back to the authors, who can take a week or more to revise. Final revision is approved and is finally sent to press. This is a very slow process indeed.
Delays cause loss of lives when those who could be saved don't learn about what could save them in time. Science loses money because experiments go on to be conducted that had already been conducted. Findings that have ramification in other fields are not discovered by those needing to know because publications in each field remain so isolated from each other.
Dissemination of information is often blocked by petty bias of a few editors who determine what the world will read. Sometimes, the bias is not petty, but economically motivated where an established industry like cancer defends their turf from new discoveries that can literally wipe them out. Suffering patients die who could be saved and their numbers can be in the millions.
It is time for a new journal that can bring new discoveries to the world in a matter of days. The key innovation is called “post-publication peer-review.” I am happy to introduce this concept. In this concept of publishing, potential authors are pre-screened to be competent and qualified. Such pre-screened authors are given a “key” to upload their articles to the new journal. Another set of pre-qualified peer reviewers can append critiques to published articles. Published authors can reply to the published peer-review. I call this concept of publication “MetprexSM.”
What I offer is not like an open access journal, which has no peer-reviewing, and it is not arxiv.org that offers some moderating but not really a full peer-review. So if peer-reviewing is fraught with delays and undesirable bias, what I realized we needed to do was to do the peer-reviewing after publication and open what is published to thousands of peer-reviewers, not just a handful.
Submissions by those who have passed our qualifying process will initially be placed on our secure servers by our system engineers. But eventually qualified authors and peer-reviewers will be given a “key” to upload articles or append reviews instantly.
To prevent the internet from becoming cluttered with complete junk, I decided to limit giving the “key” to publishing in such “MetprexSM” journals only to the very qualified – those who have been through the tedious steps of writing a paper and having had acceptance by peer reviewers. There will be different criteria for pre-qualifying potential authors to a Metprex journal, but one set of criteria would be those who have published already three times in peer-reviewed periodicals. With their skill honed by prior publishing experience, they will set a professionally high standard for all future articles and reviews. A “qualified author” can sponsor another author to publish in a Metprex journal. Indicate such a sponsorship with a cover letter accompanying submission. It will be assumed that the “qualified author” will have carefully reviewed the submission.
The first such Metprex journal is called the Journal of Medicine & Biology (JMBio). I am open to receive requests to be pre-qualified to publish and to peer-review in JMBio. Please fill out the form at the end of these Instructions.
I would like to welcome your participation in publishing, peer-reviewing, and reading at Journal of Medicine & Biology. You can write me at editor@JMBio.org Thank you for your interest!
Kenneth Matsumura, Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Medicine & Biology
Chairman, Alin Foundation Institute, Sponsor of Metprex journals
A Public Benefit California Corporation
( United States Internal Revenue Service qualified 501 (c) 3)
Publication Formatting Instructions:
Articles that do not use the required formatting may be subject to denial of publication.
1.Look at other articles in the Journal of Medicine & Biology to get an idea of how a finished article is formatted. (search term Kenneth Matsumura, for example)
2.Right justify Times New Roman 10 pt. bold at top margin the following heading: (in italics line 1) Journal of Medicine & Biology (line 2) ISSN 0732-7692 (line 3) Month ##, YYYY (line 4 and in non-italics)©Copyright, JMBio, 2018. All Rights Reserved.
3.Title centered in Times New Roman 14 pt. bold font.
4.Your Name sans degrees centered in Times New Roman 12 pt. bold font. In keeping with the highest publishing standards, we do not allow degrees, M.D., Ph.D., etc., to be appended to your name. The idea behind this standard is that the work should be judged on its merit, and not because it was written by someone who has a degree.
5.Your organization is optional, but if included is centered in Times New Roman 12 pt. bold font. Generate a double line space after your name or your organization.
6.All headings in the body of the article are left justified, Times New Roman 12 pt. bold font.
7.All copy is left justified, begins after a double line space under each heading, and is Times New Roman 12 pt. regular. Separate all sentences in copy with an ending punctuation followed by two spaces. Separate paragraphs within a heading and discussion comments with a double line space.
8.Inclusion of a Summary at the beginning of the article is encouraged.
9.Separate the last line of copy from the next heading with a double line space.
10.References should be in the following format: Names of all the authors, using commas between names, with an “and” before the last name. Names of authors should be last name first. A period should end the list of names. The year of the publication, followed by a period. Complete title of the articles follows. Name of the periodical or book, and volume number, if any, followed by a colon, all in italics. Page numbers, preferably the start and end pages.
11.Save your file as a .pdf and email the pdf to editor@JMBio.org.
Conflict of Interest by Authors:
In keeping with the highest publishing standards, appending acknowledgment of conflicts of interest information will not be allowed to be at the end of the article. The reason again is that the work is to be judged on its merit. The journal does not assume that if someone has a financial interest in a claim made in the article, that such an individual would be so unethical as to be deceitful. All who publish in the Journal of Medicine & Biology agree that if there is any serious question about the validity of the data presented, Journal editors reserve the right to inspect the data in person. The Journal will not demand or allow non-Journal editors to inspect the data. The Journal reserves the right to remove any article its editors deem dishonest or inappropriate, and such a decision shall be final and not contestable in court. Submission of an article to the Journal is an agreement by the author to the foregoing supreme right of the Journal editors. The Journal will regard the matter to be dishonest if no commentary is submitted about conflict of interest when it should have been, and such an omission may cause an article to be removed, and may serve to disqualify future publication by the author(s).
When an author is submitting a .pdf of the article, a separate .pdf should be submitted under subheading “Additional Information” to discuss any conflicts that exist. Journal engineers have provided readers with a search function at the Journal home page for the “Additional Information.”
Journal Peer-Reviews:
When a peer-review commentary is received, Journal engineers will post such commentaries into the Journal section entitled, “Peer-review Commentaries.” Journal engineers has provided readers with a separate search function at the Journal home page for the “Peer-review Commentaries.” All peer-reviews must identify at the top the lead author name, first few words of the article title, and date of article publication. Peer-reviews should be submitted to editor@JMBio.org as a .pdf.
In the event of a serious negative peer-review commentary that indicates that information in the article may be flawed and reliance on the article may be life-threatening, or where negative commentaries are pervasive, the Journal editors reserve the right to append to the end of the article in question the words, “The Journal editors recommend that readers view the peer-review commentaries by clicking here.” Because once posting to the Journal becomes extensive, the Journal editors cannot be expected to keep up with potential problems any article may pose; the Journal cannot take responsibility for detecting every troublesome article. Peer-Reviewers are required to disclose any conflict of interest, which must be attached to their commentaries. It will be the policy of the Journal editors to be more skeptical of peer-reviewers than of the authors because often reviewers have not spent equal time to the subject that is invested by the authors. Journal editors reserve the right to not publish peer-review commentaries that do not appear to be “fair.”
Only peer-reviewers who have received prior approval by the Journal may submit peer-reviews for publication in the Journal. Send an email answering the questions below to apply to be a peer-reviewer.
Response to Peer-Review Commentaries:
Authors may submit responses to peer-reviews to the Journal in a form of a pdf to editor@JMBio.org. Such responses must also identify at the top the lead author name, first few words of the article title, and date of article publication.
Cost of Article Submission:
In order to avoid charging readers for access to the Journal of Medicine & Biology, there will be a article publication charge of:
US$50.00 per page or $150.00 minimum.
Mail an institutional check to:
Journal of Medicine & Biology,
2705 Webster Street, #5885
Berkeley, California (USA) 94705.
METPREX Author's & Reviewer's Registration Questions
PLEASE ANSWER ALL THAT APPLY IN AN EMAIL TO editor@JMBio.org
Last Name
Middle Name or Initial
First Name
Institutional Affiliation
Institutional Affiliation Address
Work Phone Work E-Mail
Professional Websites (Please include any which list you as a member or author.)
Publications (books, articles, peer reviewed):
Curriculum Vitae or resume summary with highlights, URL of resume if on-line.
Your Contact Email: (Contact e-mail is required)
Through this e-mail you will receive initial passwords (you can change)
to access our discussion and peer review forums and more.