Agathe Chaigne — bioRxiv Affiliate

Agathe Chaigne has been a bioRxiv affiliate since 2022. In this interview, she shares whys he likes being an Affiliate and why others should consider it. She is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University researching on the fundamental mechanisms of cell division, in particular, the last step of cell division, abscission, which is the final cut between the sister cells. In this interview, she shares why she likes being an Affiliate and why others should consider it.

When did you join as an affiliate and why?

I joined as an affiliate about a year ago. I believe preprints have been a great revolution to science dissemination, and I wanted to be part of it! I have posted my own preprints, and I will continue to do so, that's one way of supporting the idea. By becoming an affiliate, I also support the process itself!

Why do you enjoy being an affiliate?

I enjoy helping make new research available faster and to a wider audience.

Why others might like to join?

People might like to join to support preprints. But also, there is a little thrill of seeing preprints before anyone else!

What do you do?

As an affiliate, I screen preprints, so I mostly check that they comply with the charter. It has to be new primary research, no review, and a complete paper (sometimes people forget to include figures, or methods!). It also should not harm the public in any way. It is a relatively small time investment: some days, I do not screen anything, some days more.

What have you learned by being an Affiliate?

I have learned that there are hundreds of preprints posted everyday! As most people, I suppose I am mostly reading or being made aware of papers close to my field, but people in all fields are posting their papers on biorxiv. It is giving me faith that preprints are going to be the main way to disseminate science from now on.

To promote the rapid dissemination of new research, bioRxiv and medRxiv depend on Affiliates who help screen manuscripts. Affiliates are active scientists who volunteer their time to quickly determine whether submitted articles include biological research and do not have the potential to cause harm to the public. Thanks to affiliates we can continue sharing new research within ~48h of submission. To learn more about our screening procedures please click here https://connect.biorxiv.org/news/2022/06/13/screening_procedures