Current Opinion in Structural Biology

Current Opinion in Structural Biology (COSB) aims to stimulate scientifically grounded, interdisciplinary, multi-scale debate and exchange of ideas. It contains polished, concise and timely reviews and opinions, with particular emphasis on those articles published in the past two years. In addition to describing recent trends, the authors are encouraged to give their subjective opinion of the topics discussed.

In COSB, we help the reader by providing in a systematic manner:

1. The views of experts on current advances in their field in a clear and readable form.
2. Evaluations of the most interesting papers, annotated by experts, from the great wealth of original publications.

The journal is part of the Current Opinion and Research (CO+RE) suite of journals and is a companion to the primary research, open access journal, Current Research in Structural Biology . CO+RE journals leverage the Current Opinion legacy of editorial excellence, high-impact, and global reach to ensure they are a widely-read resource that is integral to scientists' workflows.

COSB will serve as an invaluable source of information for researchers, lecturers, teachers, professionals, policy makers and students.

Division of the subject into sections

The subject of Structural Biology is divided into twelve themed sections, each of which is reviewed once a year. Each issue contains two sections, and the amount of space devoted to each section is related to its importance.

Folding and Binding

Nucleic acids and their protein complexes

Macromolecular Machines

Theory and Simulation

Sequences and Topology

New constructs and expression of proteins

Membranes

Engineering and Design

Carbohydrate-protein interactions and glycosylation

Biophysical and molecular biological methods

Multi-protein assemblies in signalling

Catalysis and Regulation

Selection of topics to be reviewed

Section Editors, who are major authorities in the field, are appointed by the Editors of the journal. They divide their section into a number of topics, ensuring that the field is comprehensively covered and that all issues of current importance are emphasised. Section Editors commission reviews from authorities on each topic that they have selected. The Editorial Board provides support to the Editors and the Section Editors with their comments and suggestions on names and topics.

Review articles in COSB are by invitation only. The journal does not accept manuscripts other from those invited by section editors, appointed by Editors-in-Chief.

Review Articles

The Current Opinion journals were developed out of the recognition that it is increasingly difficult for specialists to keep up to date with the expanding volume of information published in their subject. In the Current Opinion journals, we help the reader by providing in a systematic manner:  (1) The views of experts on current advances in the field in a clear and readable form.  (2) Evaluations of the most interesting papers, annotated by experts, from the great wealth of original publications.

The aim of the manuscript is to review recent articles, with particular emphasis on those articles published in the past two years. In addition to describing recent trends, you are encouraged to give your subjective opinion of the topics discussed, although you should not concentrate unduly on your own research. Your review should be approximately 2000 words (not including references or reference notes), with approximately 50 references and, as such, the review is intended to be a concise view of the field as it is at the moment, rather than a comprehensive overview. Our audience ranges from student to professor, so articles must be accessible to a wide readership. Please avoid jargon, but do not oversimplify: be accurate and precise throughout. Occasionally, unpublished data can be referred to, but only when essential and should never be used to substantiate any significant point.

Editorial Overview

Section Editors write a short overview at the beginning of the section to introduce the reviews and to draw the reader's attention to any particularly interesting developments. This successful format has made COSB one of the most highly regarded review journals in the field.

Please see further information under writing and formatting – additional information.