SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 14 (UPI) -- A new open access journal, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, is to begin accepting articles next year.
San Francisco's Public Library of Science says its new journal will focus on the overlooked diseases -- including elephantiasis, river blindness, leprosy, hookworm, schistosomiasis, and African sleeping sickness -- that strike millions of people every year in poor countries.
The journal is supported by a $1.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
"PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases will promote science, policy and advocacy for diseases of the poor, and give a voice to the community of physicians and scientists working to control these diseases," said Peter Hotez, of George Washington University, the journal's editor and an expert on tropical diseases.
Hotez is to discuss the journal during a Sept. 21 panel discussion on neglected diseases at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in New York.
The Public Library of Science is a coalition of researchers and physicians founded in 2000 by Nobel laureate and former U.S. National Institutes of Health Director Harold Varmus, Stanford University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute biochemist Patrick Brown, and University of California-Berkeley evolutionary biologist Michael Eisen.
