blog

A rare disease is defined as only affecting 1 in 2000 Europeans, or fewer than 200,000 Americans; however, there are so many rare diseases, that in the EU alone they affect up to 30 million individuals.

Research on any of the thousands of rare diseases deserves to be published and shared. F1000Research offers an open science publishing platform ideally suited for the publication of rare disease research:  We publish all sound science, including case reports, short articles about small studies, systematic reviews, null results, protocols and data articles.

To support the publication of rare disease research, we are offering researchers and clinicians working in this area a waiver on article processing charges (APCs) for their next F1000Research publication.

Please visit our special rare disease offer page on Rare Disease Day (February 28, 2014), between 00.01 AM GMT and 23:59 PST (that’s a 32 hour window!) to register for your waiver code. You will be able to use that code for any article on rare disease research or patient care, submitted to us before June 30, 2014.

Each of the many rare disease researchers has their own motivations for working in their particular area. Last year, we published a guest blog post by Ethan Perlstein, who explained why he moved into rare disease research:

“There are several reasons why I decided to focus on rare diseases. First, someone in my family was diagnosed with a rare disease, and it got me thinking about the state of rare disease research. Second, I was captivated by the success of a drug called Kalydeco, which effectively cures a subset of people with the rare disease called cystic fibrosis. Finally, I attended the 2013 Rare Disease Day summit in Bethesda MD, where I met an inspiring group of rare disease parents, in particular moms, who made me realize that each rare disease is not only a basic science puzzle, but also a living and breathing person, often a child.”

Whatever your motivation for working on a rare disease, it can often prove hard to publish the output of this research. With so many rare disease researchers out there, all working on different aspects of different diseases, we feel it is really important that their new discoveries are shared, so spread the joy of an APC waiver by forwarding this blog post onto rare disease researchers that you know.

To find out more, visit our rare disease campaign page and the Rare Disease Day website.

 

Don’t forget to pick up your code for a free paper on Rare Disease Day!