Academic Editors
The following people constitute the Editorial Board of Academic Editors for PeerJ. These active academics are the Editors who seek peer reviewers, evaluate their responses, and make editorial decisions on each submission to the journal. Learn more about becoming an Editor.
Erik R Seiffert
Erik Seiffert's research is focused on the phylogenetic relationships, adaptations, and historical biogeography of mammals, with an emphasis on the endemic placental mammals of Africa and Arabia. He has a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley (1995), an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin (1998), and a Ph.D. from Duke University (2003). He was previously Lecturer in Palaeobiology and Palaeoenvironments at University of Oxford and Curator of Geological Collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (2004-2007), Assistant and Associate Professor of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University (2007-2016), and is now a Professor of Integrative Anatomical Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (2016-Present). He is also a Research Associate at the Duke Lemur Center's Division of Fossil Primates and in the Department of Mammalogy, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Mather A Khan
Dr. Mather A Khan is a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Botanik, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany. Before moving to Germany, Dr. Khan worked as a Postdoctoral fellow and then as a Research Scientist at the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA.
Dr. Khan’s research interest is mainly focused on understanding the mechanisms mediating the uptake and accumulation of essential (Iron, Fe; Zinc, Zn) and toxic metals (Cadmium, Cd) in plants. He is using state-of-the-art techniques including cell-specific transcriptomics, functional genomics, and ionomics to understand how plants take up, distribute and accumulate micronutrients and toxic elements within plant tissues, including seeds. During his stay at the University of Missouri, Dr. Khan discovered that leaves seem to sense the Fe status of the whole plant before roots that in contrast to the traditional view of nutrient sensing by plant roots. His research suggests that leaves integrate signals from different tissues and relay the information on the Fe status to roots to trigger, or not, an Fe deficiency response (i.e. increased Fe uptake).
He joined the Institute of Botanik, Heinrich Heine University in January 2021, where his research continues to explore the seed loading mechanism of Fe and Zn and develop strategies to optimize crops for higher protein and nutritional value which are essential for future agriculture production to ensure food security and reduce malnutrition and poverty.
Michael S Rappé
Mike is a tenured Research Professor at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, and is a member of the graduate faculty with the Departments of Oceanography, Microbiology, and the interdisciplinary Marine Biology Graduate Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The overarching theme of his research is to understand the impact of microbial genetic diversity on ocean ecology, and interpret this diversity through the lens of bacterial taxonomy and evolution. He investigates the ecology and evolution of marine microorganisms by combining surveys of natural microbial communities, nucleic acid sequence data, and studies with model systems in controlled laboratory settings.
Jian Zhang
Dr. Jian Zhang currently works at the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery & Gastric Cancer Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. Jian does research in Genetics/Epigenetics and Cancer Research. He is also the editorial board member of Frontiers in Oncology and Frontiers in Bioinformatics.
David Kennedy
Our lab studies how interrelated organ systems such as heart, kidney and liver regulate cellular damage (particularly inflammation and fibrosis) and repair during the course of chronic ailments such as heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, obesity and chronic kidney disease. We are particularly interested in developing new preventative and therapeutic strategies to help people suffering from these diseases through establishing novel biomarkers and molecular diagnostics to assist risk stratification as well as identifying new drugs and drug targets and enhancing endogenous counter-regulatory mechanisms. Given our community’s ties to and dependence on the Great Lakes as a source of clean water for drinking, recreation, fishing and agriculture, our laboratory also places a special emphasis on discovering new diagnostic, preventative and therapeutic strategies targeting cellular damage caused by environmental stressors that impair our land-water-food nexus.
Nicola Decaro
Professor of Infectious Diseases of Animals and Director of the Post-graduate School of Infectious Diseases at the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari, Italy.
Michael Hallett
I am primarily interested in computational biology and bioinformatic approaches to biomarkers based on multi-variate, multi-modal gene signatures, especially in the context of cancer.
Arif J Siddiqui
Dr. Arif Jamal Siddiqui is an Associate Professor and Principal Investigator at the Department of Biology, College of Science, University of Hail, Saudi Arabia. He received his PhD from CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India in 2015. From 2015 to 2018, he worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America.
He has more than 8 years of experience in research, teaching and administration. In his professional work, he has received research grants as a Principal Investigator from various renowned organizations. He has successfully published more than 100 publications in internationally recognized peer-reviewed prestigious journals, published several book chapters for internationally renowned publishers and presented many articles and posters in various conferences/workshops worldwide. He has published numerous papers in the fields of parasitology, immunology, herbal medicine, vaccine development, drug discovery and natural products with a specialization in anti-parasitic, antiviral, anticancer and antibacterial agents. Furthermore, he is a member of The Indian Science Congress Association, India and the Annals of Parasitology, Poland. He has reviewed more than 250 manuscripts and he also currently holds various editorial positions (Academic, Associate, Guest and Review Editor) in various reputable journals and has edited more than 150 manuscripts.
Huashan Shi
Professor Shi Huashan is an Associate Professor at Sichuan University. His expertise is in the molecular biology of tumours and tumour transcriptomics. He is currently engaged in clinical and basic translational research, including tumour microenvironment and novel immunotherapeutic modalities, and research on the mechanisms and medical applications related to tumour cell vaccines.
Gabriela Constantin
Professor of Pathology and Immunology at the University of Verona, Italy. Dr. Constantin has long-standing expertise in vascular inflammation and leukocyte trafficking with particular focus on the central nervous system. She has a M.D. degree and Residency in Neurology from the University of Milan, and Ph.D. degree from the University of Verona. For her neuroimmunology studies she received several national and international awards. She was elected in the AcademiaNet for excellent woman academics.
Maria Carmen Collado
Maria Carmen Collado (PhD 2005) holds a Research Scientist position at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology (IATA-CSIC) in Valencia (Spain). Her research work is multidisciplinary and includes microbiology, food science, nutrition and human health. Her interests are focused on probiotics, microbiota and health and nutrition during pregnancy and early life period.
Dario T Bonetta
Associate professor in Faculty of Science at Ontario Tech University. Co-founder Metasys Genomics Corp. Interests include: biologically based materials derived from plant and bacterial sources; plant and animal development; inter-kingdom signalling and cell communication.