Recognizing the Top 25 Peer Reviewers for the Journal of Virology

EDITORIAL

The performance of the Journal of Virology (JVI) in the past year (from July 2010 to June 2011) has been excellent. Our current impact factor is 5.19, which places us fifth among virology journals, and we are the top journal in virology as ranked by Eigenfactor score. JVI also is the most-cited journal in virology, with nearly 94,000 citations. These standings reflect the hard work of our authors, reviewers, and editors. This high-quality product could not appear without the work of the dedicated journals staff at ASM.

These are interesting times for scientific publishing as we move from more classical paper publications to the many electronic venues that are advancing scientific communication. One principle remains: science is sustained and advanced by peer review and the publication of rigorous science. No matter how many journals appear and whatever the publication format will be in the future, it is difficult to imagine a more effective model for rigorous evaluation of research reports than peer review. Interestingly, the review model is being altered in some venues by asking primarily for technical reviews of methods and approaches and not for critical reviews of interpretations or conclusions. There is growing support for such a model, and we all are pondering the significance of such a change.

Of course, thanks to electronic communications, we all are inundated with requests to review papers for many journals, including JVI. Every one of us must make choices about the degree of involvement we bring to our various professional activities. One fact is clear: volunteer peer reviewers are crucial to advancing scholarship and contributing to the quality of JVI. For that simple reason, I take my hat off to the 1,570 reviewers who read and commented on all those JVI manuscripts over the past year. In particular, I want to single out 25 reviewers who simply were exceptional. Their efforts merit special recognition.

Joel Baines, Cornell University

Paul Clapham, University of Massachusetts Medical School

Jeffrey I. Cohen, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH

Karl-Klaus Conzelmann, Max von Pettenkofer-Institut

Esteban Domingo, Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa

Paul J. Farrell, Imperial College Faculty of Medicine

Eric O. Freed, National Cancer Institute-Frederick

Paul Goepfert, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Edward Holmes, The Pennsylvania State University

Mark Krystal, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Brett Lindenbach, Yale University

J.-H. James Ou, University of Southern California

Griffith D. Parks, Wake Forest University School of Medicine

Colin R. Parrish, Cornell University

Andrew Pekosz, Johns Hopkins University

Theodore C. Pierson, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH

Thomas Pietschmann, Twincore

Charles E. Samuel, University of California, Santa Barbara

Rozanne M. Sandri-Goldin, University of California, Irvine

Matthias J. Schnell, Thomas Jefferson University

Pei-Yong Shi, Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases

Aleem Siddiqui, University of California, San Diego

John M. Taylor, Fox Chase Cancer Center

Billy Tsai, University of Michigan Medical School

Michael Whitt, University of Tennessee

These 25 scientists stood out as defined by two important criteria. They each reviewed an average of 15 manuscripts last year (4 reviewed 18 or more), and their average review time was 15 days or less. Ten returned their reviews in an average of 10 days or less! All authors appreciate a fast turnaround time, and these reviewers excelled at that. Not only were they timely, their reviews were insightful and improved the science that we published. At a time when we all are asked to do more and more, such attention to reviewing manuscripts is simply outstanding and vital to our field. These reviewers set a high bar for all of us.