ß 2015. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd | Biology Open (2015) 4, 105–108 doi:10.1242/bio.201511643

EDITORIAL Biology Open: The story so far…

Jordan W. Raff (Editor-in-Chief Biology Open)* and Rachel Hackett (Managing Editor Biology Open)

It is hard to believe that, with the arrival of 2015, Biology Open which detects plagiarism, and processes that reveal potential (BiO) begins its fourth year of publication. We’d like to take this figure manipulation. Recently, the increasing number of reports moment to look back on what we have learned since the first issue of ‘fake’ reviews, whereby authors manipulate the review process was published by The Company of Biologists in January 2012. to enable them to review their own work (http://www.nature.com/ BiO was launched with the aim of reducing the ‘pain to news/publishing-the-peer-review-scam-1.16400), has led us to publish’ that many authors experience. By publishing all papers review our own procedures. We will ensure that any author- that address a valid scientific question, are technically sound, and suggested reviewers with a non-institutional e-mail address (such where the conclusions are adequately supported by the data, BiO as Gmail or Yahoo) are indeed valid and associated with a ‘real’ provides a welcoming home for solid, well-executed research scientist. Would publishing peer reviews eradicate weak or non- papers. We have helped authors to avoid additional rounds of existent peer review practices adopted by so-called predatory submission and review for papers described as ‘‘interesting, but publishers (http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/), who seem to no new mechanistic insight’’ or ‘‘interesting, but an insufficient publish anything for a fee? We continue to be actively involved advance’’ and saved them countless hours of additional in this debate with other reputable publishers. experiments thought up by reviewers simply to increase the ever-elusive ‘‘impact’’ of the work. Since its launch, BiO has Recognition and reward published more than 450 freely accessible articles. Many publishers are wrangling with the issue of reviewer support, reward and incentive. Increasing numbers of articles Turn-around time and quality of review are being published and the demand for peer review has never One of the foremost objectives of BiO was to address the speed and been greater. How is the quality of peer review to be maintained quality of review. Review procedures at BiO are fast and simple, in such an environment? Are senior investigators able to dedicate but also rigorous. We ask reviewers to complete their reviews their valuable time to mentoring early career scientists in the art within seven working days, and our average time for completing of peer review? BiO encourages the involvement of postdocs and peer review in 2014 was nine days. Almost no articles are accepted other early career scientists in the peer review process. We simply without some changes being requested, but new experiments are ask that: the name of the co-reviewer is reported to the Editor; the only insisted upon if these are essential to support the key same rules of confidentiality and conflict of interest be applied; conclusions of the paper; we do not ask our reviewers to suggest there is a genuine mentoring process; and the senior invited experiments that would simply increase the impact of the work. reviewer takes responsibility for the report delivered to the Articles are published online on average 25 working days after journal. Taking on the role of reviewer is usually not acceptance. acknowledged by institutes and funders as a research output, but it is a cornerstone of the publication process. We continue to Reviewer fatigue campaign with other publishers for this vital service to be The multiple rounds of review, revision and resubmission often properly recognized as an important academic contribution. required before a paper is finally accepted has led to substantial Should reviewers be paid or is there in effect a payment in kind, reviewer fatigue, with large numbers of reviewers often involved an altruistic understanding that acting as a peer reviewer supports with the peer review process for a single article. BiO accepts the community? This conversation will continue, with journals articles and any accompanying reviews from the other Company undertaking experiments to improve or refine the peer review of Biologists’ journals. In addition, we have an agreement in process, and investigating ways to reward peer reviewers. Today, place with eLife, the journal published by the , as we do every year, we take a small step in this direction by Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Max Planck Society, publishing the names of all those who completed a review for whereby their rejected authors are given the opportunity to BiO during 2014, with our sincere thanks for their expertise and transfer to BiO. We are negotiating similar deals with other time. We hope the community will join us in thanking these journals. We will also consider peer review reports from other people properly for their considerable effort. journals. Such transfer of reviews and articles speeds up editorial decisions and reduces the number of rounds of review. Alejandro Aballay, Duke University, USA Peter Aerts, University of Antwerp, Belgium Ethical publication Kami Ahmad, Harvard Medical School, USA Publishers have an increasing array of tools to help identify Takahiko Akematsu, York University, Toronto, Canada possible unethical practices, such as the iThenticate software, Scott Alper, National Jewish Health, USA Jeffrey Amack, SUNY Upstate Medical University, USA Enrique Amaya, University of Manchester, UK *Author for correspondence ([email protected]) Jack Arbiser, Emory University, USA This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Maria Eugenia Arnone, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Italy License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed. Damien Arnoult, INSERM U542, France Biology Open

105 EDITORIAL Biology Open (2015) 4, 105–108 doi:10.1242/bio.201511643

Kristin Artinger, University of Colorado, USA Raymond Cohen, CSIRO, Australia Jerome Artus, Pasteur Institut, France Paola Costantini, University of Padova, Italy Sophie Astrof, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Ita Costello, University of Oxford, UK USA Matthew Cottee, University of Oxford, UK Liliana Attisano, University of Toronto, Canada Evelyne Coudrier, Institut Curie, France Peter Baas, Drexel University College of Medicine, USA Fraser Coxon, Bone Research Society, UK Luis-Alberto Baena-Lopez, MRC National Institute for Julie Crockett, University of Aberdeen, UK Medical Research, UK Robyn Crook, University of Texas Health Science Center at Mohan Balasubramanian, University of Warwick, UK Houston, USA Brian Ballios, University of Toronto, Canada Vincent Croset, University of Oxford, UK Allan Balmain, University of California San Francisco, USA Colin Crump, , UK George Banting, University of Bristol, UK Andrew Dacks, West Virginia University, USA Jeffrey Barminko, Rutgers University, USA Richard Dahl, Indiana University, USA Mark Bass, University of Bristol, UK Kaveh Daneshvar, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Andrew Bassett, MRC Functional Genomics Unit, University Medical School, USA of Oxford, UK Peter Daniel, Hofstra University, USA Aaron Baumann, Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Kristiaan D’Aout, University of Liverpool, UK Medical Institute, USA Stefano De Renzis, EMBL Heidelberg, Germany Renaud Beauwens, Universite´ libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Johan De Rooij, Hubrecht Institute, The Netherlands Catherina Becker, University of Edinburgh, UK Pascal de Santa Barbara, INSERM U1046, Montpellier, France Frederic Becq, University of Poitiers, France Jean-Luc Desseyn, Universite´ de Lille, France Christine Bedore, Duke University, USA Julie Donaldson, NIH, Bethesda, USA Tracy Bedrosian, Ohio State University, USA Mary Donohoe, Cornell University, USA Frank Beier, University of Western Ontario, Canada Cynthia Downs, University of Nevada Reno, USA Joseph Bell, Harvard Medical School, USA Dennis Drescher, Wayne State University, USA Igal Berenshtein, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel Jeoffrey Eales, University of Manitoba, Canada Andreas Bergmann, University of Massachusetts Medical John Eggenschwiler, University of Georgia, USA School, USA Peter Falkingham, Royal Veterinary College, UK Anne Bertolotti, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Alan Fanning, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Cambridge, UK USA David Bilder, University of California Berkeley, USA David Fay, University of Wyoming, USA Joyce Bischoff, Boston Children’s Hospital, USA Brock Fenton, University of Western Ontario, Canada Jorge Blanco, Institute of Population Genetics, Vienna, Austria Rafael Fissore, University of Massachusetts, USA Bruce Blumberg, University of California Irvine, USA Ann Foley, Clemson University College of Engineering, USA Rachel Bowden, Illinois State University, USA Eric Folker, Boston College, USA Douglas Bowles, University of Missouri, USA Caroline Formstone, Kings College London, UK Andre Brandli, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, Amelie Fradet-Turcotte, The Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Germany Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada Beate Brand-Saberi, Ruhr Universitat Bochum, Germany Diego Franco, University of Jae´n, Spain Bjo¨rn Brembs, Universita¨t Regensburg, Germany Alison Frand, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, USA Josh Brickman, University of Edinburgh, UK Vanessa Franssens, KU Leuven, Belgium Steven Britt, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Mariella Freitas, University of Vic¸osa, Brazil Sciences Center, USA Thomas Friedman, NIDCD, National Institutes of Health, William Brownell, Baylor College of Medicine, USA Bethesda, USA Nia Bryant, University of York, UK Mark Frye, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Bradley Buckley, Portland State University, USA Christopher Fulton, Australian National University, Australia Marina Campione, CNR Institute of Neurosciences, Italy Antonella Galli, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK Dana Carroll, University of Utah, USA Brigitte Galliot, University of Geneva, Switzerland Tamara Caspary, Emory University, USA Deborah Galson, University of Pittsburgh, USA Kevin Chalut, University of Cambridge, UK Michael Garcia, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA Luke Chamberlain, Strathclyde University, UK Alexis Gautreau, E´ cole Polytechnique, France Yu Chen, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA Elizabeth Gavis, Princeton University, USA Linxi Chen, University of South China, China Charles Gerday, University of Liege, Belgium Xie Jie Chen, SUNY Upstate Medical University, USA Troy Ghashghaei, North Carolina State University, USA Danian Chen, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Marta Giacomello, Dulbecco-Telethon Institute, Italy Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada Allen Gibbs, University of Nevada, USA Lionel Christiaen, New York University, USA Gary Gillis, Mount Holyoke College, USA Christopher Ciarleglio, Brown University, USA Fernando Giraldez, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain Lionel Clement, University of Alabama School of Medicine, USA Mary Goll, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA David Clynes, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Sonia Gonza´lez-Braojos, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Oxford, UK Naturales, Madrid, Spain

Thomas Coate, Georgetown University, USA Andrew Grierson, University of Sheffield, UK Biology Open

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Atan Gross, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel Torsten Kristensen, Aalborg University, Denmark Francois Guillemot, National Institute for Medical Research, Ronald Kroger, Lund University, Sweden UK Paul Kulesa, Stowers Institute for Medical Research, USA Monika Gullerova, University of Oxford, UK Diana Laird, UCSF, USA Ufuk Gu¨nesdogan, University of Cambridge, UK Pavithra Lakshminarasimhan, University of Cambridge, UK Marina Guvakova, University of Pennsylvania, USA Fredrik Lanner, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden Randal Halfmann, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Michael Lanzer, Heidelberg University Hospital, Germany Center, USA Miguel Leal, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Chrissy Hammond, University of Bristol, UK Jae Lee, University of Miami, USA Steven Hann, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, USA Heon-Jin Lee, Kyungpook National University, Republic of Korea Jeffrey Harrison, University of Florida, USA Emilie Legue, Yale University, USA Volker Hartenstein, UCLA, USA Jinxing Lin, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Simon Harvey, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK China Adrian Harwood, UCL, UK Ji-Long Liu, MRC Functional Genomics Unit, University of Philip Hastings, Baylor College of Medicine, USA Oxford, UK Harry Heijnen, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Na Liu, Nankai University, China Netherlands Ying Liu, University of Texas Health Science Center at Ian Henderson, University of Cambridge, UK Houston, USA Brian Hendrich, University of Cambridge, UK Aimin Liu, Penn State University, USA Clarissa Henry, University of Maine, USA Catherine Lohmann, University of North Carolina, USA Ian Hickson, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Martin Lowe, University of Manchester, UK Helfrid Hochegger, University of Sussex, UK Sally Lowell, University of Edinburgh, UK Peter Hohenstein, MRC Human Genetics Unit, UK Laura Machesky, CRUK Beatson Institute for Cancer Georg Hollander, University of Oxford, UK Research, Glasgow, UK Edmund Hollis, UCSD, USA Yusuke Maeda, Osaka University, Japan Pamela Hoodless, BC Cancer Agency, Canada Eamonn Mallon, University of Leicester, UK Sevan Hopyan, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Marcos Malumbres, Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Canada Oncologicas, Madrid, Spain Dan Hultmark, Umea˚ University, Sweden Ivan Manzini, University of Go¨ttingen, Germany Peter Hurd, University of Alberta, Canada Giancarlo Marra, University of Zurich, Switzerland Richard Hynes, HHMI/MIT, USA Jennifer Mather, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada Hiroshi Imai, Kyoto University, Japan Ivan Matic, U1001 INSERM, France Luisa Iruela-Arispe, UCLA, USA Michiyuki Matsuda, Kyoto University, Japan John Isanhart, US Department of the Interior, USA Takeshi Matsuzawa, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan Shoko Ishibashi, University of Manchester, UK Heidi McBride, McGill University, Canada Yoshifumi Itoh, University of Oxford, UK David McClay, Duke University, USA Aymelt Itzen, Technische Universita¨t Mu¨nchen, Germany Mark McNiven, Mayo Clinic, USA Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, Salk Institute, USA Irene Miguel-Aliaga, Imperial College London, UK Catherine Jackson, Institut Jacques Monod, CNRS, France Thomas Millard, University of Manchester, UK Abhinav Jain, MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA Laura Miller, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, USA Jorgen Jensen, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Lucile Miquerol, Aix-Marseille University, CNRS UMR 7288, Norway France Renjie Jiao, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Toshihiro Mitaka, Sapporo Medical University School of Sciences, China Medicine, Japan Mats Johansson, University of Wisconsin, USA Christian Mitri, Institut Pasteur, France Reid Johnson, University of California, USA Miguel Moreno-Garcia, Colorado State University, USA Marko Kaksonen, EMBL Heidelberg, Germany Ciaran Morrison, National University of Ireland, Galway, David Kang, USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute, USA Ireland Laurent Keller, University of Lausanne, Switzerland Scott Moye-Rowley, University of Iowa, USA Steven Kelly, University of Oxford, UK Hans-Arno Muller, University of Dundee, UK Anna-Marie Kenney, Emory University, USA Daniel Mulvihill, University of Kent, UK Yoshiaki Kikkawa, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Jan Munch, Ulm University Hospital, Germany Science, Japan Silvia Munoz-Descalzo, University of Bath, UK Dennis Kim, MIT, USA Sean Munro, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Chungho Kim, Korea University, Republic of Korea Cambridge, UK James Konopka, Stony Brook University, USA Nagy Nandor, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary Edward Korn, NHLBI, NIH, USA Anthony Nicholas, University of Alabama School of Medicine, Vladimir Korzh, Institute of Molecular and Biology, USA Singapore Jennifer Nichols, University of Cambridge, UK Helmut Kramer, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Ben Nichols, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Center, USA Cambridge, UK

Scott Kreher, Dominican University, USA Roland Nitschke, Life Imaging Center, Freiburg, Germany Biology Open

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Ryusuke Niwa, University of Tsukuba, Japan Christine Suetterlin, University of California-Irvine, USA Wataru Nomura, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Japan Melanie Sutton-McDowall, University of Adelaide, Australia Akinao Nose, University of Tokyo, Japan Tohru Suzuki, Tohoku University, Japan Scott Nowak, Kennesaw State University, USA Markus Tamas, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Sonja Nowotschin, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Kayoko Tanaka, University of Leicester, UK USA Andrea Tedeschi, German Center for Neurodegenerative Niels Ortenblad, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark Diseases, Germany James Palis, University of Rochester Medical Center, USA William Theurkauf, University of Massachusetts Medical Yale Passamaneck, University of Hawaii, USA School, USA Andrew Peden, University of Sheffield, UK Ulrich Thomas, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Germany Giuseppa Pennetta, University of Edinburgh, UK Ryan Thummel, Wayne State University, USA Jonathan Pettitt, University of Aberdeen, UK Andrzej Tkacz, University of Oxford, UK Cathie Pfleger, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, USA Sokol Todi, Wayne State University, USA Anna Philpott, University of Cambridge, UK Stan Tomavo, Universite´ Lille Nord de France, France Jonathon Pines, University of Cambridge, UK Mark Tomishima, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Nicolas Pollet, ISSB, CR1 CNRS, France USA Yekaterina Poloz, University of Toronto, Canada Michael Tomlinson, University of Birmingham, UK Herman Pontzer, Hunter College, USA Pranav Ullal, University of Lausanne, Switzerland Jean Potvin, Saint Louis University, USA Teresa Valencak, Veterinary University Vienna, Austria Rytis Prekeris, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, USA Mark van Breugel, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, John Presley, University of Montreal, Canada Cambridge, UK Victoria Prince, University of Chicago, USA Anne Marijn van der Graaf, University of Groningen, The Ruben Quintana-Cabrera, University of Padova, Italy Netherlands R Raijmakers, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands Chris van der Poel, La Trobe University, Australia Amy Ralston, Michigan State University, USA Frans van Roy, Ghent University, Belgium V Krishnan Ramanujan, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, USA Alexander Venn, Centre Scientifique de Monaco, Monaco Mary Ramsey, University of Texas, USA Monica Vetter, University of Utah, USA Roberto Refinetti, University of South Carolina, USA Andrea Vortkamp, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Evan Reid, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, UK Biology, Germany Heinrich Reinchert, University of Basel, Switzerland Stephen Voss, University of Kentucky, USA Victor Rizzo, Temple University School of Medicine, USA James Wakefield, University of Exeter, UK Hugh Robertson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Yibin Wang, UCLA, USA USA Xiaoxi Wang, Vanderbilt University, USA Tristan Rodriguez, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Imperial Hongyan Wang, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, College London, UK Singapore Shai Sabbah, Brown University, USA Steven Wasserman, UCSD, USA Alvaro Sagasti, UCLA, USA Thomas Wassmer, Aston University, UK Aki Salo, University of Bath, UK Thomas Wellems, NIAID, NIH, USA Emilio Salo, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain Michael White, University of South Florida, USA Ramkumar Sambasivan, inStem, India Jill Wildonger, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA Lisa Sandell, University of Louisville, USA Bodo Wilts, University of Fribourg, Switzerland Pauline Schaap, University of Dundee, UK Richard Wingate, King’s College London, UK Michael Schaller, West Virginia University, USA Thomas Woolley, University of Oxford, UK Andreas Schedl, Institute of Biology Valrose, France Christopher Wright, Vanderbilt University, USA Richard Sherwood, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, USA Wei-Feng Xue, University of Kent, UK Yun-Bo Shi, NICHD/NIH, Bethesda, USA Zhe Yang, Wayne State University, USA Thierry Soldati, University of Geneva, Switzerland Seda Yerlikaya, University of Geneva, Switzerland Maria Eugenia Soriano, Dulbecco Telethon Institute, Italy Hebao Yuan, University of Michigan, USA Shankar Srinivas, University of Oxford, UK Troy Zars, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA Michelle Starz-Gaiano, University of Maryland, USA Bing Zhang, University of Missouri, USA Michelle Staudinger, University of Massachusetts, USA Hong-Bo Zhao, University of Kentucky Medical Center, USA Jared Sterneckert, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Hui Zhao, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Biomedicine, Germany Irene Zohn, Children’s National Medical Center, USA Angelika Stollewerk, Queen Mary University of London, UK Olivier Zugasti, Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, Wenjing Su, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, USA France Biology Open

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