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The Public Library of Science initiative, an international grass-roots organization of scientists, is launching its first open access journal. PLoS Biology will compete head-to head with the leading existing publications in biology, publishing the best peer-reviewed original research articles, timely essays, and other features. We will begin accepting papers on May 1st.

By signing the PLoS open letter, you helped create this journal and the other PLoS journals that will follow. Let's work together now to make these journals thrive.

We need your help to ensure that every scientist in the world knows about PLoS Biology. Please join our grass-roots network of PLoS Advocates to spread the word abut PLoS at your institution, and encourage your friends and colleagues at other institutions to do the same. Visit http://www.plos.org/cgi-bin/advocates.pl to sign up.

As a first step, we have produced simple posters promoting PLoS and announcing the launch of PLoS Biology (available at http://www.plos.org/posters.html). We'd like to see these posters in every hallway, elevator, bulletin board and cafeteria of every university and research institution in the world, so please print them out and hang them wherever you can.

Please also take the time to tell your friends, colleagues, and students about PLoS. Include an "I Support PLoS" slide in all of your talks and add a PLoS banner to your website (these can be obtained at http://www.plos.org/support/stuff.html). If you hear about a great piece of research, tell us about it and encourage the authors to submit it to PLoS. And, of course, submit your best work to PLoS Biology!

As always, we welcome your ideas and suggestions.

Sincerely,

Harold E. Varmus
Patrick O. Brown
Michael Eisen
Vivian Siegel

for Public Library of Science (plos@plos.org)