Announcements

We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Kenneth Lundstrom, Editorial Board Member of Biomedicines (ISSN: 2227-9059), to discuss his experience with Biomedicines and the recent research trends in the field.

Dr. Lundstrom received his Ph.D. in molecular genetics at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has spent most of his career in big pharma and biotech start-ups in cancer therapy and vaccine development. Dr. Lundstrom has published more than 300 scientific articles. He is currently involved in vaccine development against SARS-CoV-2 and cancer immunotherapy.

We hope you enjoy the interview.

1. Why did you decide to work for Biomedicines?

I was attracted by the new set-up of MDPI and also by its presence in Switzerland. It seemed like a good opportunity to build something of value for the scientific community. Let me point out that I have engaged with other journals as a reviewer but also as an Editorial Board Member and even Editor-in-Chief.

2. Why should scientists submit their manuscripts in Biomedicines?

Biomedicines has a good impact factor, it is reliable, the reviewing process is fair and straightforward (most of the time!), the reviewing process is professional and rapid, and the turnover time from acceptance to online publication is impressively fast.

3. How would you recommend picking the right journal to submit your research in?

The reputation and impact factor of the journal are important. Reliable and fast procedure from submission, through reviewing, revision, proof corrections, and publication also affects the decision of which journal to choose. Obviously, when you publish frequently, it is great if you can receive waivers to limit the publication costs.

4. What do you look for most to determine if a paper will be published in the journal?

The scientific soundness of the data and the novelty are the most important things. However, the style of presentation, to ensure the manuscript is understandable for not only the experts, and also the language issue should not be forgotten. As quite a few manuscripts today are submitted by non-English speakers (i.e., native English speakers or persons with good knowledge of English), it is important to make sure that the text does not contain typos and grammatical errors and that the text does not sound like a direct use of Google Translate!

5. What is the priority for a good scientific article: great research with high scientific value or a well-thought-out composition and good writing?

As I already said above, high-quality science is most important, but the composition and writing standard are also important. Moreover, novelty and timely presentations should be highly valued.

6. What makes a great research paper?

Novelty, good science, good presentation, and good writing!

7. What excites you the most about the field of alphavirus-based gene therapy and vaccine development?

The field is relatively new, although alphavirus vectors have been around since the early 1990s. It seems that some sort of renaissance is going on, partly because of substantial progress in cancer immunotherapy and, not least, the development of nucleic acid vaccines against COVID-19. Perhaps the most attractive feature of alphaviruses is their flexibility as they can be used as recombinant and oncolytic viral particles, naked or nanoparticle-encapsulated RNA, or replicon DNA molecules. I could go on, but that would be another review!

8. Could you describe the difficulties and breakthrough innovations encountered in this research?

One difficulty has been to convince the scientific community of the safety of using alphavirus vectors and also demonstrating efficacy in clinical trials. Perhaps the most impressive breakthrough has been the demonstration of the efficacy of the current COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, which has had a direct impact on using alphavirus-based RNA delivery.

9. What are some current challenges in this field?

The main current challenges are to transfer the successful proof-of-concept findings from preclinical animal models to humans in clinical trials. Moreover, today, plenty of suspicion of the safe use of viral vectors has been encountered, especially due to so much misinformation/disinformation mainly related to the development of recent COVID-19 vaccines based on nucleic acids but also viral particles.

10. Do you have any advice for young researchers?

Conduct good research and ensure that you will be able to publish the results in good journals.

We are thankful for Dr. Lundstrom's time and his support for Biomedicines.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the Biomedicines Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience and cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars that may be interested in the issue and personally emailing the invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Overseeing editorial control of the Special issue and quality control of the publications in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Making and submitting decisions for the submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:

After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and mentees.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Biomedicines Editorial Office via the link: https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/biomedicines, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, Biomedicines (ISSN: 2227-9059) continues to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

Scientists at Stanford University have recently published an update of the list of the top 2% most widely cited scientists. The time node of the statistical data of this list is from 1960 to 2022, and it is divided into two lists: "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" and "2022 Annual Scientific Influence Ranking". The "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" counts the comprehensive influence performance of scientists during their careers, and the "2022 Annual Influence Ranking" focuses on highlighting the academic influence of scientists in the previous year. This ranking, considered the most prestigious worldwide, is based on the bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database and includes more than 200,000 researchers from the more than 10 million scientists considered to be active worldwide, with 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields taken into account.

We are pleased to share that 81 Editorial Board Members from MDPI’s journal Biomedicines (ISSN: 2227-9059) were featured in the World’s Top 2% Scientists list in 2022.

The latest rankings reflect the significant influence and research excellence of the scientists, who are committed to furthering their knowledge for the benefit of the world.

We would like to congratulate our Editorial Board Members on their excellent achievement and thank them for their immense contribution to the scientific progression and development of Biomedicines.

A range of MDPI journals will be attending the 15th Annual Meeting of Chinese Society for Immunology. This meeting will be held in Chongqing, China, from 27 to 30 December 2022.

The conference focuses on the following areas:

• Recognition and regulation of innate immune responses;
• Adaptive immune response;
• Immune metabolism and immune regulation;
• Immunity to COVID-19 infection;
• Tumor immunity and tumor immunotherapy;
• Autoimmune diseases and other topics.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• IJMS (leading journal);
• Vaccines;
• Metabolites;
• Cells;
• Cancers;
• Biomedicines;
• CIMB;
• Pathogens;
• Immuno.

If you plan on attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth #B13. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have.

For more information about the conference, please see the following link: https://csimeeting2022.sciconf.cn/cn/web/index/13562.  

We are pleased to announce that the winners of the Biomedicines 2022 Young Investigator Award are Dr. Yuyan Jiang and Prof. Billy Wai-Lung Ng.

Dr. Yuyan Jiang is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Radiation Oncology at Stanford University, USA. Dr. Jiang is a highly productive young researcher with special interests in developing next-generation radio-sensitizer, bio-responsive cancer nanomedicine and photoactive ultrasensitive molecular probes for deep-tissue diagnosis. Since the beginning of her scientific career in 2016, she has published 39 peer-review articles in high-ranking journals including Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, Chemical Reviews, Accounts of Chemical Research, etc. According to Google Scholar, her research has received > 5,500 citations and her h-index is 36. Dr. Jiang is an Editorial Board Member of Materials and Collagen and Leather. She is also the Guest Editor of two Materials Special Issues, including “Advanced Biomaterials Design and Sensing Application” and “Advanced Biomaterials for Cancer Sonodynamic Therapy”.

Prof. Billy Wai-Lung Ng leads the Ng Lab of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery at the School of Pharmacy, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). His research interests are chemical biology, drug discovery, and medicinal chemistry. Prof. Ng completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Prior to Harvard, he was a research fellow at the University of Oxford, with funding support from the Croucher Foundation and Marie Curie Fellowship. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during his graduate study. He obtained his Ph.D. and B.Sc. (1st Class Hons.) in chemistry from CUHK. He has co-authored more than 20 papers in prestigious journals such as Science, Nature Chemical Biology, Molecular Cell, J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., and ACS Central Science and he also serves as a reviewer for more than 20 journals including Science Translational Medicine, Nature Chemical Biology, and Nature Biotechnology. Prof. Ng was honored as a Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum in 2022. For further details, please visit his lab webpage: https://www.ngwailung.com.

As the awardees, Dr. Yuyan Jiang and Prof. Billy Wai-Lung Ng will each receive an honorarium of CHF 1000 and an electronic certificate.

We would like to thank all the nominators from various fields of study for their participation and all the Award Committee Members for their evaluation of the many excellent nominations.

On behalf of Biomedicines 2022 Young Investigator Evaluation Committee,

Prof. Dr. Shaker A. Mousa
Editor-in-Chief

Conference: 2022 BMES Annual Meeting
Date: 12–15 October 2022
Place: San Antonio, Texas, USA
Booth: #346

MDPI will be attending the 2022 BMES Annual Meeting as an exhibitor from 12 to 15 October 2022 in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

BMES holds an annual meeting where they have hosted up to 5,500 biomedical engineers who attend more than 2,500 scientific presentations on cancer treatment, heart disease, women’s health, global health disparities, and more. The meeting allows members to advocate for their innovative solutions, demonstrating their commitment to the society’s core value of health equity for all individuals. In addition, BMES shares scientific information to inspire the up-and-coming generation through four scientific journals, three special interest groups, and collaborations with other scientific societies to elevate the visibility and significant impact that the biomedical engineering community has worldwide as the thought leaders behind the future of human health.

From 12 to 15 October 2022, in the vibrant multicultural city of San Antonio, we will celebrate the tremendous contributions made by BMES members in research, teaching, education, and the workforce that directly impact many sectors of our society. We also aim to highlight equity issues in healthcare and education, stemming from racial and socioeconomic diversity, gender and sexual orientation, and disabilities.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences;
• Bioengineering;
• Biomedicines;
• Biomimetics;
• Biomolecules;
• Biosensors;
• Cancers;
• CIMB;
• Diseases.

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you plan on attending this conference. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you might have.

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!