By Emily Carlson
June 16, 2005

Charged with developing an innovative outreach plan for a $20 million biomedical computing center, a team of researchers at Stanford University in California has created a free, quarterly magazine called Biomedical Computation Review (BCR). The first issue arrives in mailboxes this month. 

The new publication is produced by the Physics-Based Simulation of Biological Structures Center, or Simbios, one of four National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NCBC). The centers, funded by the National Institutes of Health Roadmap for Medical Research, strive to develop and implement the computing infrastructure urgently needed to speed progress in biomedical research.

Modeling itself after popular science magazines like Discover and Technology Review, BCR offers easy-to-read news and feature articles aimed at researchers who want to use mathematical and computational methods to answer biological questions.  

“This magazine takes a fresh approach to sharing information about important advances in biomedical computing,” said John Whitmarsh, Ph.D., project leader for the NCBCs and acting director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a component of NIH. “I think it will become an essential resource for the biomedical community. Plus, it’s a great read.”

The 24-32 page publication will feature editorials, research advances, highlights from interesting papers, explanations of computational methods, and in-depth articles.  The inaugural issue includes a list of the top achievements and challenges in computational biology and takes a close look at the goals of each NCBC.

The overall mission of the magazine is to offer an enjoyable and informative source of news for researchers interested in biomedical computation, said Russ Altman, M.D., Ph.D., director of Simbios at Stanford University. He calls BCR a “companion to scientific literature that is meant to be read during ‘study breaks.’”

For a free subscription to BCR, visit the magazine online at www.biomedicalcomputationreview.org or e-mail subscriptions@biomedicalcomputationreview.org.

For more information about the NCBCs, including links to each center, please visit http://www.nigms.nih.gov/news/ncbc.html.