StemHub Website Launched

1 June 2022 | Amsterdam, NL – StemHub is provided by IOS Press to offer open access resources for stem cell researchers from a single platform. It has existed as a concept for a number of years and now has its own website presence at stemhub.iospress.com. It is a single point of access from which can discover all aspects of the hub, and a vital launchpad for discovering outstanding stem cell research, including basic biology, clinical applications, disease modeling, and computational and systems biology, through its various open access component parts, including StemJournal, StemBook, and more.

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StemHub

1 June 2022

Open Access Forum for Stem Cell Research

[Posted by Carmel McNamara, IOS Press]

Amsterdam, NL – StemHub is provided by IOS Press to offer open access resources for stem cell researchers from a single platform. It has existed as a concept for a number of years and now has its own website presence at stemhub.iospress.com. It is a single point of access from which can discover all aspects of the hub, and a vital launchpad for discovering outstanding stem cell research, including basic biology, clinical applications, disease modeling, and computational and systems biology, through its various open access component parts, including StemJournal, StemBook, and more.

StemHub colourful logo and text

The concept for StemHub was formulated in 2017 when IOS Press acquired StemBook, which would become the first component of this burgeoning new forum for the stem cell research community. StemBook covers a range of topics related to stem cell biology written by top researchers in the field and is a wealth of foundational knowledge. The project was originally conceived and launched in 2008 by a distinguished Editorial Board under the guidance of founding editor Douglas A. Melton, PhD, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), Harvard, MA, USA, and other key innovators from the stem cell research community. It was developed in collaboration with several enterprises including the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Harvard’s Initiative in Innovative Computing.

In 2018, IOS Press launched StemJournal as a new vehicle for communicating outstanding research in stem cell biology. Founding co-Editor-in-Chief Chad A. Cowan, PhD, HSCI, was at the helm and has since been joined by Niels Geijsen, PhD, Leiden University Medical Center, NL, and its aim is to keep pace with developments in this fast-moving field by publishing integrative biomedical research on stem cells. The key priority is to publish open access content and top quality research in stem cell biology, including clinical application, disease modeling, computational and systems biology, and data science.

These two publications are strongly aligned, with new content appearing in StemJournal also being co-published in StemBook, from Protocols to Seminal or Topical Reviews (which appear in Stembook as Chapters). They also form the backbone of the StemHub portal, as outlined by Dr. Cowan coinciding with the launch of the journal: "It is important to provide a forum for studies that use stem cells to develop novel therapies and perhaps even cures for people suffering from devastating diseases. Together with the growing StemHub, our vision is to build a community for all stem cell researchers to share ideas and advance the field to developing the cures of tomorrow."

Further components

Soon after, new components of the hub followed:

StemLabs was the next component of the hub to be realized, in 2019, which covers lab-related matters related to stem cell research: methodologies, protocols, procedures and guidelines, and profiles. For this initiative, we work closely with Stem Cell COREdinates, which is a group of global core facilities, a number of which are profiled here.
StemMeets was launched in 2020 as a new facility to support researchers in disseminating their work and latest findings, offering options to communicate abstracts and proceedings, plus poster, meeting, conference, and workshop reports across the full spectrum of stem cell research from one open access platform. Content may also be co-published in StemJournal, e.g. view the first poster report in StemMeets here and in the journal here.
StemRxiv (pronounced “stem archive”) was also launched in 2020. This vital new feature is all about preprints, and an example of how IOS Press is a key proponent of Open Science (read more about the IOS Press Labs blog post here). It provides researchers with the options to search and submit preprints across all areas of stem cell research. To (a) search for stem cell content via a single point of access and/or (b) search preprints by general topics and/or predefined categories, go here.