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About

Aims and scope

Infectious Agents and Cancer is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that encompasses all aspects of basic, clinical, epidemiological and translational research providing an insight into the association between chronic infections and cancer.

The journal welcomes submissions in the pathogen-related cancer areas and other related topics, in particular:

• HPV and anogenital cancers, as well as head and neck cancers;
• EBV and Burkitt lymphoma;
• HCV/HBV and hepatocellular carcinoma as well as lymphoproliferative diseases;
• HHV8 and Kaposi sarcoma;
• HTLV and leukemia;
• Cancers in Low- and Middle-income countries.

The link between infection and cancer has become well established over the past 50 years, and infection-associated cancer contribute up to 16% of cancers in developed countries and 33% in less developed countries.

Preventive vaccines have been developed for only two cancer-causing viruses, highlighting both the opportunity to prevent infection-associated cancers by vaccination and the gaps that remain before vaccines can be developed for other cancer-causing agents. These gaps are due to incomplete understanding of the basic biology, natural history, epidemiology of many of the pathogens that cause cancer, the mechanisms they exploit to cause cancer, and how to interrupt progression to cancer in human populations. Early diagnosis or identification of lesions at high risk of progression represent the current most critical research area of the field supported by recent advances in genomics and proteomics technologies.

Moreover “omics” is contributing to and accelerating the discovery not only of novel pathogens, but of genetic predisposition as the genetic make-up of organisms and individuals is unraveled. The hunt for molecular signatures of cancer causation, early cancer, or cancer Achilles heels promises new ways to practice precision medicine and public health. The explosion of knowledge in tumor genomics, tumor biology, targeted therapies, gene-environment interactions, immunology and immunotherapy needs a space for robust and vigorous debate.

Infectious Agents and Cancer covers all these areas of biomedical research and any other topics pertinent to the development of preventive strategies, innovative diagnostic and biomolecular methodologies, promising therapeutic strategies for chronic infections and cancer. Immunotherapeutic strategies will include: profiling and activation of dendritic cells; reactivation of the immune system; breaking immune tolerance; modulation of the immune system by cytokines and drug delivery systems.

Open access

All articles published by Infectious Agents and Cancer are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in Infectious Agents and Cancer you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the BMC license agreement.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BMC can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article processing charges (APC)

Authors who publish open access in Infectious Agents and Cancer are required to pay an article processing charge (APC). The APC price will be determined from the date on which the article is accepted for publication.

The current APC, subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable, is: £2290.00/$3090.00/€2590.00

Visit our open access support portal and our Journal Pricing FAQs for further information.

Open access funding

Visit Springer Nature’s open access funding & support services for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs.

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover open access publishing costs. Learn more about our open access agreements to check your eligibility and discover whether this journal is included.

Springer Nature offers APC waivers and discounts for articles published in our fully open access journals whose corresponding authors are based in the world’s lowest income countries (see our APC waivers and discounts policy for further information). Requests for APC waivers and discounts from other authors will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and may be granted in cases of financial need (see our open access policies for journals for more information). All applications for discretionary APC waivers and discounts should be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review process or after acceptance are unable to be considered.

Indexing services

All articles published in Infectious Agents and Cancer are included in:

  • DOAJ
  • PubMed
  • PubMed Central
  • Science Citation Index Expanded
  • Scopus

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by BioMed Central on SpringerLink.

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

Infectious Agents and Cancer operates a single-blind peer-review system where the reviewers are aware of the names and affiliations of the authors, but the reviewer reports provided to authors are anonymous.

The benefit of single-blind peer review is that it is the traditional model of peer review that many reviewers are comfortable with, and it facilitates a dispassionate critique of a manuscript.

After an initial screening for general suitability by the Managing Editor, submissions are sent to at least two experts in the field who are asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent and whether the manuscript should be accepted, rejected or revised. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, consult with members of the Editorial Board. 

The journal aims to provide authors with a first decision (accepted/rejected/revisions needed) within six weeks.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Infectious Agents and Cancer should adhere to BioMed Central's editorial policies.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Citing articles in Infectious Agents and Cancer

Articles in Infectious Agents and Cancer  should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. Infect Agents Cancer [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Infect Agents Cancer 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies.

Benefits of publishing with BMC

High visibility

Infectious Agents and Cancer's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience. 

Speed of publication

Infectious Agents and Cancer offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF.

Flexibility

Online publication in Infectious Agents and Cancer gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Infectious Agents and Cancer are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on Infectious Agents and Cancer’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in Infectious Agents and Cancer may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Infectious Agents and Cancer. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in Infectious Agents and Cancer you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work (for further details, see the BMC license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BMC, please click here.

Annual Journal Metrics

  • 2022 Citation Impact
    3.7 - 2-year Impact Factor
    3.8 - 5-year Impact Factor
    1.040 - SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
    0.583 - SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)

    2023 Speed
    14 days submission to first editorial decision for all manuscripts (Median)
    112 days submission to accept (Median)

    2023 Usage 
    687,750 downloads
    813 Altmetric mentions

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