10 Years of PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

Publications Manager Charlotte Bhaskar celebrates PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 10 year anniversary and looks forward to upcoming events and initiatives for the journal.

On behalf of all of us at PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (PLOS NTDs), I’m delighted to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of our journal. A great deal of change has occurred in the NTDs community since  co-Editor-in-Chief Peter Hotez and PLOS, with the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, launched PLOS NTDs in October 2007. A much needed resource to the global NTDs community,  we were the only open access journal devoted to research on neglected diseases and other diseases of poverty. Today, we’re one of many journals in the field, though our dual mission to build capacity and encourage the submission/publication of the work of authors living and conducting research in disease-endemic countries remains distinctive.

In addition to timely publication of the latest research, PLOS NTDs also proudly creates focused article collections that include our Zika collection, home to over 60 Zika articles from across PLOS since 2016 and counting, and our Geopolitics of Neglected Tropical Diseases collection, a political and geographical look at the treatment of NTDs. Most recently, co-Editors-in-Chief Serap Aksoy and Peter Hotez assembled our 2017 Yellow Fever collection in response to the current outbreak in Brazil.

Now, as we move into our 10th year, we’re excited to announce the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 10th Anniversary Collection, which will launch Thursday, April 20, 2017. The articles in this special collection, written by PLOS NTDs editors and other notable community members, don’t simply provide a striking look back at the big lessons and achievements of the past decade; they also forecast the future and the remaining challenges facing our community as we work towards disease elimination.

The launch of the 10th Anniversary Collection coincides with the NTD Summit in Geneva from April 19th to the 22nd in recognition of the 5th anniversary of the signing of the London Declaration to eradicate NTD transmission by 2020. We’re very happy to be partnering with Uniting to Combat NTDs, the World Health Organization, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to co-host a Anniversary panel event on Friday, April 21, moderated by Peter Hotez and featuring Associate Editors Nilanthi de Silva and Xiao-Nong Zhou, along with author Mwele Malacela  and PLOS Executive Editor Veronique Kiermer.

Our plans for this landmark year don’t stop here. Also slated for 2017 are reconsiderations and expansion for our scope of content to take into account emerging diseases and new niches for NTDs research. We also  look forward to joining with our community members and editorial board members at the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene meeting in November to continue the anniversary celebrations. Please visit our 10th Anniversary Landing Page to follow along with our plans and stay updated.

Recognition and celebration of this milestone anniversary would not be complete without expressing our true thanks to the global NTDs research community for providing expertise, excitement, and support over the last 10 years. As Peter Hotez stated in his launch editorial ten years ago: “With unprecedented representation from women and developing countries on our Editorial Board…we hope that PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases will promote a collective voice for the world’s poorest people.” I believe the last ten years of work captured in PLOS NTDs demonstrates better than anything else how close we are to achieving that goal of a collective voice, together.

Featured Image: Ten. Andrea Passoni, Flickr