Cathy Abbott — bioRxiv Affiliate

Cathy Abbott is a Professor at the University of Edinburgh researching on mutations in eEF1A2 that cause epilepsy, autism and intellectual disability and genome editing for studying neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodegeneration. Cathy recently became a bioRxiv Affiliate to help us screen manuscripts. She loves playing a role in an initiative which has really changed the face of publishing in the life sciences, and knowing that she’s helping put all the work out into the world for everyone’s benefit. In this interview, she shares her love for bioRxiv and why she became an Affiliate.

Why did you decide to join bioRxiv as an Affiliate?

I had noticed calls to affiliates going out from Richard Sever on Bluesky when the queue was getting too big and thought it would be a good thing to help with. It’s great to be able to play even a tiny role in an initiative which has really changed the face of publishing in the life sciences.

How has bioRxiv and/or medRxiv helped you in your career?

They came along a bit late for me in terms of my own career development but there’s no doubt that having a paper out on biorxiv helps enormously while applying for grants, and helps the students and postdocs with job applications. We can all write “X et al (in prep)” but it counts for nothing unless the work is out there!

Why are you excited about being an Affiliate?

I actually really enjoy looking at the queue, seeing an exciting title and thinking I have the privilege of seeing this before most other people, but mostly it’s just good to know you’re helping put all this work out into the world for everyone’s benefit.

What's your favorite thing about bioRxiv and/or medRxiv?

Apart from knowing that our work is freely available to anyone, I also really like all the add-ons that come with the papers, like the easy linkage to new and published versions, and metrics. I actually just looked at one of our papers and it has been viewed/downloaded almost as much from biorxiv as the journal-published version. It’s also (more trivially) rather wonderful to be able to post on social media about new uploads and get congratulations without having been through the pain of editorial review!

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