In 2022, TRO reviewers continue to make outstanding contributions to the peer review process. They demonstrated professional effort and enthusiasm in their reviews and provided comments that genuinely help the authors to enhance their work.
Hereby, we would like to highlight some of our outstanding reviewers, with a brief interview of their thoughts and insights as a reviewer. Allow us to express our heartfelt gratitude for their tremendous effort and valuable contributions to the scientific process.
April, 2022
Michael J McKay, Northwest Cancer Centre, Australia
June, 2022
Tomohiro Ono, Kyoto University, Japan
April, 2022
Michael J McKay
Dr. Michael McKay, MBBS (Hons), FRANZCR, Ph.D, MD, is a Radiation Oncologist at the Northwest Cancer Centre in Burnie, Tasmania. He has broad clinical interests but a particular interest in breast and CNS tumours and in palliative care. He is a clinician-scientist who was trained in Radiation Oncology in Sydney and, following this, undertook a PhD at the University of Sydney. This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer genetics at the Department of Cell Biology and Genetics in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where he discovered a number of human genes involved in the body’s response to radiation. This formed the core of his translational research platform at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. Additionally, he practiced in breast cancer oncology during this time. He also worked at the Canberra Hospital/ANU and the North Coast Cancer Institute in Lismore NSW, where he was a full time Radiation Oncologist and Professor of Radiation Oncology, the latter at Sydney University. He is currently a Professor of the University of Tasmania. Dr. McKay has supervised numerous clinical and research trainees and students to higher degrees, has over 140 scientific publications and has been awarded over $8M in competitive research funding, including 10 NHMRC Project Grants as Chief Investigator. He is an editorial board member on a number of journals and has given various national and international invited presentations.
Dr. McKay reckons that peer review is an essential mechanism to keep us all honest, and to provide constructive criticism to enhance the quality of our work. He thinks that many things should be borne in mind while reviewing papers. For example, the authors are attempting to present their work in the best light and that the reviewer has an opportunity to enhance the work by providing constructive feedback. Moreover, negative criticisms are counter-productive. Therefore, reviewers must maintain an open mind in the face of novel suggestions and approaches from authors, but maintain fairness throughout. Reviewers must have no bias influencing their recommendations.
Data sharing is prevalent in scientific writing in recent years. As a reviewer, Dr. McKay thinks it is crucial for authors to share their research data. The data underpinning manuscripts must be available to keep authors honest. Access to primary data can also accelerate the work of others, aiding the community as a whole.
“While peer reviewing is often anonymous and non-profitable, it is altruism and I am motivated by duty to do so. We must all share the workload in this important task,” says Dr. McKay.
(By Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
June, 2022
Tomohiro Ono
Dr. Tomohiro Ono, PhD currently serves as an assistant professor at Department of Radiation Oncology and Image-Applied Therapy, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan. He received his doctor of philosophy in medicine at Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University in 2016. His research area is medical physics in radiotherapy. The recent research focuses on prediction of gamma passing rate for patient specific quality assurance and efficiency of quality control of radiotherapy machines. Connect with Dr. Ono on LinkedIn and view his research page here.
Dr. Ono indicates that peer review is an essential process for assessing the quality of scientific articles, determining the appropriateness of methods and analysis, and disseminating them as new knowledge to the world. These are the basic prerequisites, but what he considers especially important is the role in helping to improve the paper. Despite a heavy burden of work, he personally allocates time from work to do peer review. Final comments are conducted with 1-2 hours of time set aside.
Dr. Ono also thinks that it is important for authors to disclose Conflict of Interest (COI), because the presence of a COI could affect the outcome of the paper and tilt it in the wrong direction. It is significant to disclose COI and reveal the transparency and credibility of the research.
(By Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
