Dear Colleagues,


Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A are planning to publish a two-volume special issue, focussed on computational biology tools & applications that are relevant for physiome-style integrative research, which aims to illustrate the current state of play in 'real-data' -based bio-mathematical modelling.


The issue will be edited by Dr's Peter Kohl (Oxford), Peter Coveney (London), and Marco Viceconti (Bologna). Building on the momentum of the STEP initiative, it aims to highlight state-of-play, challenges, and prospects of working towards a Virtual Physiological Human.
Herewith, we would like to invite expressions of interest from authors who would like to contribute to this issue.


Please note that the overall volume of the focussed issue is limited to 300 journal pages, and it is very probable that not all expressions of interest can be taken through towards an invitation to submit a manuscript for peer-review. Nonetheless, we would like to encourage all interested teams to register their proposals, to ensure that the focussed issue will offer a valid reflection of the range and depth of STEP-related efforts.


Regarding content - all papers are encouraged to combine:
- a review element with
- presentation of new data and/or concepts, and to
- conclude by forward-looking suggestions (please feel free to be provocative in this section).


The maximum length of manuscripts is eight thousand words strictly (in total, i.e. including figure legends and references), plus up to 6 Figures or Tables (colour figures are free in the on-line version of manuscripts, but they incur a charge of £100 per figure in the printed version of the Journal).


All invited manuscripts will be subject to peer-review.


Timelines:


1) Expressions of interest, consisting of
- working title
- authors
- short description of content
- any special publication needs (i.e. larger allowance for text / figures / colour) with short description of why this is required.
These must reach the Oxford office by e-mail to Katherine.Fletcher@dpag.ox.ac.uk  NO LATER than 18 June 2007.


2) Confirmations (invitations to submit)
will reach corresponding authors by 10 July 2007 (this initial editorial review is to confirm suitability of topics for the focused issue, to identify / address potential overlap, and to highlight any areas for which additional contributions may need to be encouraged).


3) Submission of manuscripts
is required by 31 October 2007.


4) Peer-review comments
will be returned to authors during November / December 2007.


5) Final revised manuscripts
will be due within 4 weeks of receipt of reviewers comments, and in any case no later than 1 February 2008. Note that submitting authors are responsible for obtaining reprint permissions for any copyrighted material; copies of these permissions need to be submitted with the final version of the manuscript.


Please note that these are absolute deadlines, as there is NO 'slack' built in to the timing.
The journal volumes are scheduled to appear in print in October / November 2008 (all papers will be available on-line by about April 2008).



Handling of manuscripts will be coordinated by Mrs Katherine Fletcher at Oxford. Please feel free to contact her at Katherine.Fletcher@dpag.ox.ac.uk  with any questions.


Authors' instructions for Phil Trans can be found on the journal webpage.


On behalf of Dr's Kohl, Coveney and Viceconti,



Katherine Fletcher
Research Administrator
Cardiac MEF Lab
Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK