To Oncotarget or not to Oncotarget

Starting from January 2018, Oncotarget is no longer listed in SCIE (Science Citation Index Expanded). This is shocking news to a lot of scientists because the journal was deemed a “rising star” in the field of molecular biology & genetics just a short three months ago by Clarivate Analytics (see the blog post here), the very company that delisted Oncotarget from their journal index products. To some people, it may not be completely surprising because earlier Oncotarget was dropped from MEDLINE, the journal index database of the US National Library of Medicine (NLM). Neither MEDLINE nor Clarivate Analytics gave specific reasons of removing Oncotarget from their indexes. Interested readers can find MEDLINE’s guidelines for deselecting journals here, and Clarivate Analytics’ criteria for indexing journals in their lists here.

For a brief period after Oncotarget was removed from MEDLINE, new articles published in the journal could not be searched in PubMed, causing some panic. However, their availability in PubMed has been restored. This is because PubMed Central (PMC), NLM’s free full-text archive, still archives all articles published in Oncotarget. On the day this is written, the latest issue archived in PMC is volume 9 issue 6, and all articles published up to that issue can be found in PubMed searches. This means that except for a 1-month or so delay, once new articles published in Oncotarget are deposited in PMC, they become searchable in PubMed and therefore are able to reach the biomedical research community around the globe. Authors who publish their papers in the journal do not need to worry that their work will become invisible. The last issue of Oncotarget indexed by MEDLINE is volume 8 issue 30 from July 2017. The only difference I can see in PubMed between papers published till then and those published afterwards is in the line summarizing journal information. Here is a line we typically see:
Oncotarget. 2017 Jun 20;8(25):39994-40005. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.18127.
It shows the date the issue was published (Jun 20, 2017), the volume (8) and issue (25) numbers, and the doi. For papers published later, this is what we see in Pubmed:
Oncotarget. 2017 Jun 15;8(37):60778-60788. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.18484. eCollection 2017 Sep 22.
Even though volume 8 issue 37 was published on Sep 22, 2017, the first date we see here is 2017 Jun 15, presumably the date the paper first appeared online. We can imagine that this might cause some confusion and citation errors. However, the correct date is listed on the PMC full-text page, so careful reading will prevent any errors.https://www.letpub.com/index.php?page=author_education_To_Oncotarget_or_not_to_Oncotarget

When public refer to contemporary medicine, accuracy plays one of the most important roles and people’s lives are directly dependent on it. Hereby, any researches related to medicine are required to comply with the top standards. The issue today is that any results of researches can be posted online and used as a reference without being properly checked and approved. Mikhail (Misha) Blagosklonny of Oncotarget clearly understood this challenge and tried to generate an alternative solution. That’s how a weekly oncology-focused research journal called “Oncotarget” has been founded back in 2010. The key principle of this journal is based on Altmetric scores that are used as a quality measure. That allows both readers and authors to verify publications with Altmetric Article Reports that generate “real-time feedback containing data summary related to a particular publication.” Oncotarget website provides a full publications list with respective scores above 100 as well as reports mentioned previously. Mikhail (Misha) Blagosklonny glad to share his new approach and hopes it provides the required help to anyone, who has interest in oncology.
Zoya Demidenko
“A diagnostic autoantibody signature for primary cutaneous melanoma” has the Altmetric score of 594. This study was released back in 2018 by Oncotarget and completed by various experts from Hollywood Private Hospital, Edith Cowan University, Dermatology Specialist Group, St. John of God Hospital and The University of Western Australia. The introduction of the study discusses “recent data shows that Australians are four times more likely to develop a cancer of the skin than any other type of cancer”, and provides an insight on melanoma that “is curable by surgical excision in the majority of cases, if detected at an early stage.”
The publication has got an Altmetric score of 594. Mikhail (Misha) Blagosklonny realizes that most of readers are willing to understand the very meaning of it. Based on the Altmetric website, the score indicates “how many people have been exposed to and engaged with a scholarly output.” Likewise, the paper about melanoma, was used for citations in various news articles 69 times. Moreover, it was mentioned in 2 online blogs, as well as 25 Tweets on Twitter and 1 Facebook post. FOX23 of Tulsa, Oklahoma has headlined their news on July 20, 2018 as “New blood test could detect skin cancer early”, using the main content of Australia study
Another Oncotarget’s research with a top score of 476, is “Biomarkers for early diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma: Do we need another moon-shot,”. This publication has appeared in 60 news stories, 1 online blog post and 6 Twitter posts. The majority of public may have seen a short overview only, however those who visit Mikhail (Misha) Blagosklonny at Oncotarget, do receive useful scientific facts. Oncotarget is happy to have the ability to share with online viewers this highly appreciated and top-quality information, that is trustworthy and reliable.
Blagosklonny