New editor for Medical Hypotheses

Biomedical scientist Mehar Manku will take over as editor-in-chief at Elsevier's embattled, previously non-peer-reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses, the publisher announced today (June 24). Image: flicker/linkurl:meviola;http://www.flickr.com/photos/69659670@N00/ In his new role, Manku, a member of the editorial board since 2004, vows to maintain the journal's unusual aim of distributing novel, radical ideas in medicine and related biomedical sciences while employing a more traditional peer re

Written byJef Akst

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Biomedical scientist Mehar Manku will take over as editor-in-chief at Elsevier's embattled, previously non-peer-reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses, the publisher announced today (June 24).

Image: flicker/linkurl:meviola;http://www.flickr.com/photos/69659670@N00/

In his new role, Manku, a member of the editorial board since 2004, vows to maintain the journal's unusual aim of distributing novel, radical ideas in medicine and related biomedical sciences while employing a more traditional peer review process than the journal saw under its previous editor, linkurl:Bruce Charlton,;http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/publicity/dofe/charlton.html whose contract was terminated after he refused to implement such a system. "First, we will retain the ethos, heritage and unique characteristics of the journal as they were proposed at inception," Manku said in a statement. "Second, we will engage a medically qualified editorial board to get members more involved in the review system to help ensure radical new ideas and speculations in medicine are given open-minded consideration while ensuring scientific merit." He may have a long road ahead of him -- last month, editorial board member linkurl:William Bains;http://www.williambains.co.uk/ linkurl:spoke with The Scientist;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57440/ and said most of the board planned to resign in response to Elsevier's changes to the journal, which found itself in hot water after Charlton chose to publish an article by notorious AIDS denialist Peter Duesburg of the University of California, Berkeley. Duesburg was subsequently the subject of a university investigation launched last November to determine whether he had violated the university's code of conduct by submitting the article to Medical Hypotheses, but was cleared of the charges earlier this week. Manku is executive editor and editor-in-chief of a leading journal in the lipid field, Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, and part-time chief scientist at Amarin Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company focused on cardiovascular disease.
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Q&A: Medical Hypotheses 2.0;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57440/
[19th May 2010]*linkurl:Journal editor facing axe;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57204/
[8th March 2010]*linkurl:Radical journal gathers support;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57190/
[ 26th February 2010]*linkurl:Radical journal's fate at risk;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57121/
[27th January 2010]

Meet the Author

Jef Akst

Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.

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