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.
Carlo Ennio Pucillo
Carlo Pucillo is a Full Professor in Immunology at the School of Medicine of the University of Udine.
In his scientific career Prof. Carlo Pucillo has studied the "non canonical function" of MHC class II and the molecular mechanism that regulate the B cell activation and differentiation. From 2-1991 to 6-1994 Dr Pucillo has been Visiting Scientist at NCI in Bethesda, MD-USA.
He has acquired a considerable expertise in advanced molecular biology analysis as well as a good understanding of the immunobiology of the immune response, of the non canonical function of MHC class II molecules, in particular, as documented by his publications on this subjects.
He has also investigated the signal transduction pathways elicited by T-B cell interaction via CD40-CD154. CD40 is a B cell surface receptor that belongs to the pleiotropic tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) superfamily. The interaction between CD40 and its ligand promotes proliferation, cytokine production, upregulation of various surface molecules involved in antigen presentation, germinal center and memory B cell formation antibody isotype switching and affinity maturation and the B cell life span.
Most recently, his interest is in the study of regulatory role of Mast Cells in the microenvironment and subsequently in the tissutal tolerance and adaptive immune response. This body of work may provide a conceptual framework to therapeutically manipulate these responses in the settings of autoimmune disease and cancer.
Venkata Yellapantula
Bioinformatician currently at Memorial Loan Kettering Cancer Center with 10 years of experience in analyzing high-throughput genomic and proteomic data. I have a diverse background in handling raw exome & whole genome sequencing, RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq data to identify genetic aberrations. Proficient in development and implementing pipelines and algorithms and post analysis of aberrations identified through individual assays to glean novel biological patterns. Led large-scalegenomic efforts such as MMRF CoMMpass trial, ICGC & TCGA.
Yogendra Mishra
Dr. Yogendra Mishra is a Professor in Nanomaterials at the Mads Clausen Institute, University of Southern Denmark, Sonderborg, Denmark.
His research areas include; New Materials (3D Soft), Hybrid Materials, Sensors (UV, Force, Heat, Gas, Environmental, Biological), Smart Composites, Biomaterials, Energy Materials, Plasmonics, Photonics, Metamaterials (Ion Beam Irradiation), and Catalysis, Heavy Metal Adsorption, Water purification, Filter
Astrid M. Kamperman
Dr. Astrid Kamperman is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Erasmus University Medical Center. She is a psychiatric epidemiologist, statistician and methodologist with a strong affinity towards social psychiatric topics and issues related to women's mental health.
G. William Wong
Dept. of Physiology and Center for Metabolism and Obesity Research, Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. G. William Wong is Professor of Physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research focuses on mechanisms governing metabolic homeostasis, function of adipose-and skeletal muscle-derived hormones, and mechanisms of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
He received in B.S. from Washington State University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2000. Dr. Wong completed post-doctoral work in biochemistry, cell biology, and physiology at M.I.T’s Whitehead Institute from 2001 - 2007. He joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2008.
Dr. Wong’s lab seeks to understand mechanisms employed by cells and tissues to maintain metabolic homeostasis and is currently addressing how adipose- and skeletal muscle-derived hormones (adipokines and myokines), discovered in his lab, regulate tissue crosstalk and signaling pathways to control energy metabolism.
Melissa J Davis
Associate Professor Melissa Davis is a computational biologist and Laboratory Head in the Bioinformatics Division of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. Her background is in genetics and computational cell biology with expertise in the analysis of genome-scale molecular networks, systems biology, and knowledge-based modelling of regulatory networks.
In 2014, Melissa was awarded a four year National Breast Cancer Foundation Career Development Fellowship, and took up a position as Senior Research Fellow in Computational Systems Biology at the University of Melbourne, before moving to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research as a Laboratory Head in 2016. Melissa specialises in the integration of genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data with knowledge-based network models to understand the regulatory logic of mammalian systems.
Louise Willemen
Department of Natural Resources, Faculty of Geo-Information and Earth Observation, of University of Twente, the Netherlands.PhD in spatial modelling from Wageningen University, the Netherlands.Worked before @ Bioversity International in Colombia, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Italy, Cornell University in the USA.Current roles: Coordinating Lead Author of the Land Degradation and Restoration assessment of IPBES, Chair of the Steering Committee of Ecosystem Services Partnership, and editorial work for several journals. Ecosystem services and rural development researcher. Current research includes RS-based ecosystem service mapping and monitoring, impact assessments of integrated restoration, and prioritization of investments in land degradation neutrality actions.
Edward R Smith
Professor Edward Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne and Senior Scientist at the Kincaid-Smith Renal Laboratories, Department of Nephrology, The Royal Melbourne Hospital. He is interested in mineral metabolism and kidney disease.
Takashi Funatsu
Takashi Funatsu received his BS, MS and PhD degrees from Waseda University in 1982, 1984 and 1988, respectively. He was an associate professor at Waseda University in 1997. Since 2004, he has been a professor of Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo. His research interests are (1) Elucidating the molecular mechanism of bio-molecular machine, such as a molecular chaperonin, (2) Single molecule imaging of processing and transport of mRNA in a living cell, and (3) Development of micro/nano devices to analyze bio-molecular interactions.
Piril Hepsomali
Dr. Piril Hepsomali is a Lecturer within the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences at the University of Reading, UK.
Her research interests include understanding affective and cognitive impairments (as well as their neural and biological manifestations) associated with poor mental health and lifestyle factors, and improving these impairments by using non-pharmacological (mainly dietary) approaches across different age groups.
Francesco Russo
I am a molecular and cellular biologist with a long experience in non-coding RNAs (in particular microRNAs). My main interest is about computational biology. Currently, I am a member of the Brunak lab at the NNF Center for Protein Research, University of Copenhagen and I'm also an affiliated member of the Computational Biology Lab at the Danish Cancer Society in Papaleo lab. I am working on data integration of omics data, electronic patients records, analysis of laboratory tests and drug effects in cancer patients.
I am also interested in non-invasive biomarkes. In 2012 I designed and developed the miRandola database (https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/46/D1/D354/4191335), the first extracellular circulating microRNA database.
Barbara P Chan
Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering at The University of Hong Kong.