Virology Journal is an open access, peer reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of virology, including research on the viruses of animals, plants and microbes. The journal welcomes basic research as well as pre-clinical and clinical studies of novel diagnostic tools, vaccines and anti-viral therapies.

The Editorial policy of Virology Journal is to publish all research which is assessed by peer reviewers to be a coherent and sound addition to the scientific literature, and puts less emphasis on interest levels or perceived impact.

Virology Journal will feature articles on human, animal, plant, insect, bacterial, and fungal viruses. The journal will also publish articles on molecular aspects of the control and prevention of viral infections with vaccines and antiviral agents and on the use of viruses as gene therapy vectors, as well as research on other agents such as prions. The approaches and techniques used are expected to encompass many disciplines, including molecular genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology, cell biology, immunology, morphology, genetics and pathogenesis.

Policy on viral sequences

Virology Journal welcomes the submission of substantive sequences derived from new viruses, substantive sequences associated with important outbreaks in humans, animals or plants or those that contain important polymorphisms, such as clinically relevant mutations that affect drug resistance or changes in receptor binding or those that inform us about basic aspects of virus replication or disease, as well as next generation sequencing data such as viromes. However, the journal will not normally consider short sequences or sequences which are identical or highly related to those seen previously, nor will it publish sequences that are new only by definition of geographical location (e.g. the first description of a particular strain in a certain region), unless there is a clear public health implication of this finding. Such incremental reports can be submitted to our sister journal, Hereditas.

Article-processing charges

Open access publishing is not without costs. Virology Journal therefore levies an article-processing charge of £1370/$2145/€1745 for each article accepted for publication. If the submitting author''s institution is a Member, the cost of the article-processing charge is covered by the membership, and no further charge is payable. In the case of authors whose institutions are Supporter Members, however, a discounted article-processing charge is payable by the author. We routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries. For other countries, article-processing charge waivers or discounts are granted on a case-by-case basis to authors with insufficient funds. Authors can request a waiver or discount during the submission process. For further details, see our article-processing charge page.

Open access

All articles published by Virology Journal are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in Virology Journal you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the BioMed Central license agreement.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BioMed Central can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.