Announcement editorial

We are excited and delighted to introduce Practical Laboratory Medicine, a new high-quality, peer-reviewed, international open-access journal from Elsevier publishing original research, new methods and critical evaluations, case reports and short papers in the fields of clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine. Our research has identified a real need for a journal focused on publishing practical information of immediate relevance to workers in clinical laboratories. The primary scope of the journal covers clinical chemistry, hematology, molecular biology and genetics relevant to laboratory medicine, microbiology, immunology, therapeutic drug monitoring and toxicology, laboratory management and informatics. We welcome papers which describe critical evaluations of biomarkers and their role in the diagnosis and treatment of clinically significant disease, validation of commercial and in-house IVD methods, method comparisons, interference reports, the development of new reagents and reference materials, reference range studies and regulatory compliance reports. Manuscripts describing the development of new methods applicable to laboratory medicine (including point-of-care testing) are particularly encouraged, even if preliminary or small scale. Practical Laboratory Medicine is committed to the principles of open-access publishing. All articles will be freely available for viewing, downloading, printing and disseminating immediately after acceptance for publication. Acceptance requires payment of an author publication fee, and funds to cover this should be available from research grants or authors' institutions or funding bodies. Fees are waived for commissioned or invited papers, and may be reduced in other circumstances. We are proud to have assembled an international editorial board of experts in a wide range of subject areas, and look forward to working closely with them as we develop the journal. We very much hope that Practical Laboratory Medicine will meet the needs of the laboratory medicine community by providing timely, practical information on the challenges which face all of us daily in delivering optimum patient care through efficient and effective laboratory testing.