Our tenth anniversary: Let the celebrations begin!

Yes, it’s our tenth anniversary this October: ten years ago, in October 2003, PLOS Biology published its very first issue.

To celebrate this landmark moment in PLOS Biology’s history, we will be publishing a special, celebratory Tenth Anniversary PLOS Biology Collection, which showcases 10 specially selected PLOS Biology research articles drawn from a decade of publishing excellent science. Our collection will also feature newly commissioned articles, including thought-provoking pieces on the Open Access movement (past and present), on article-level metrics, and on the history of the Public Library of Science.

The publication of  our Tenth Anniversary Collection will coincide with Open Access week,  which kicks off week of October 21st. We felt this timing to be apposite; a key concern at the time PLOS Biology launched in 2003 was that the model of Open Access publishing, in which the author pays to publish, would be tainted with the stigma of “vanity publishing,” and that this model would prove to be incompatible with integrity, editorial rigour, and scientific excellence. We believe that the sheer quality of the science that has been published in PLOS Biology over the past ten years has been vital for dispelling this myth and for building community trust in Open Access publishing.

But you won’t need to wait until then to start reading about the amazing science that will be featured in our Tenth Anniversary Collection. Because throughout the month of October, starting from this week, the editorial team of PLOS Biology will be writing and publishing posts on each research article highlighted in our collection  – to explain what each article is about and why and how it shaped thinking in its field, and beyond.

Do please stay tuned for more…

10th Anniversary Biologue posts published so far:

1. “We have the technology” by Roli Roberts, posted Oct 2nd. Downloads of a spectacular paper about bionic monkeys crashed our server in our second ever month.

2. “Putting CpG Islands on the Map” by Jane Alfred, posted Oct 4th. A new approach to identifying DNA elements that regulate our genes helped to boost the field of epigenetics.

3. “Ecological Underpinnings of Wealth” by Jon Chase, posted Oct 8th. Are human populations poor because they’re ill or ill because they’re poor? Read this to find out.

4. “The Contagion of Age” by Hashi Wijayatilake, posted Oct 11th. Ageing cells secrete a cocktail of proteins that exerts an evil influence on the surrounding tissue.

5. “The Birth of the Ecosystem within Us” by Liza Gross, posted Oct 15th. How PLOS Biology acted as midwife to the neonatal field of “poop-omics” in 2007.

6. “Scanning for Recent Human Evolution” by Emma Ganley, posted Oct 17th. A new computational method revealed how our genomes are making us fit for survival.

7. “The First Individual Genome: One Is the Loneliest Number” by Liza Gross, posted Oct 21st. How human genome pioneer Craig Venter published his own diploid genome sequence in PLOS Biology.

8. “From Jellyfish GFPs to Plant MiniSOGs; a Microscopy Revolution” by Emma Ganley, posted Oct 24th. A Nobel laureate lets us zoom in from fluorescent microscopy to electron microscopy.

9. ”MicroRNAs: targeting seeds of destruction” by Ines Alvarez Garcia, posted Oct 29th. Find out how tiny RNAs – microRNAs – pair with their correct target RNAs to bring about their destruction.

10. “A Faster Reset Button for Stem Cells” by Christine Ferguson, Posted November 1st. How to reprogramme adult stem cells, faster and better, for repairing the human body.