Elsevier Announces New Medical Hypotheses Editor-In-Chief
Dr. Mehar Manku assumes leadership of unique journal vowing to embrace the journal’s original ethos while implementing a different approach to the peer review process
Oxford, United Kingdom - 24 June, 2010 – Elsevier announced today that Dr. Mehar Manku has accepted the position of Editor-in-Chief of the journal Medical Hypotheses. In this role Dr. Manku will lead a popular, unique journal that constitutes a bridge between cutting-edge theory and the mainstream of medical and scientific communication. Dr. Manku provided invaluable editorial help to Dr. David Horrobin, the journal’s founder and first Editor-In-Chief, during a period of illness, before becoming a member of the Editorial Board in 2004.
Dr. Manku stated upon his appointment, “Elsevier and I make two commitments to ensure the long term success of this journal. First, we will retain the ethos, heritage and unique characteristics of the journal as they were proposed at inception. 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.”
Medical Hypotheses is a forum for ideas in medicine and related biomedical sciences. It will publish interesting and important theoretical papers that foster the diversity and debate upon which the scientific process thrives. In the words of Dr. David Horrobin in Volume 1, Issue 1, “Medical Hypotheses will publish papers which describe theories, ideas which have a great deal of observational support and some hypotheses where experimental support is yet fragmentary’.¹
Dr. Manku is responsible for implementing a new form of peer review that is unique to Medical Hypotheses submissions. Medical Hypotheses aims to give open-minded consideration to novel, radical new ideas and speculations in medicine which would probably be rejected by most conventional journals. Submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by the Editor and external reviewers to ensure their scientific merit. All reviewers will be fully aware of the Aims and Scope of the journal and will be judging the premise, originality and plausibility of the hypotheses submitted.
Dr. Manku has been in biomedical sciences for 35 years, developing medicines based on fatty acids and lipids. He also spent the last 26 years as Executive Editor and Editor-in Chief (since 2003) of one of the leading peer-reviewed journal in the lipid field: “Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids.” Dr. Manku is a part time Chief Scientist at Amarin Corporation, a member of the American Oil Chemists Society and The International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids (http://www.issfal.org.uk/).
The journal also plans to implement an online comment section encouraging active participation and debate on the journal's contents.
¹(Horrobin DF, 1975 Ideas in Biomedical Science: Reasons for the foundation of Medical Hypotheses. Medical Hypotheses Volume 1, Issue 1, January-February 1975, Pages 1-2.).
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Tom Reller
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