Edited by Dr Anna Melidoni, Senior Editor
AM: Tell us a bit about yourself and your current focus of research.
AB: I currently work as attending physician in the Division of Internal Medicine at the Ospedale di Circolo e Fondazione Macchi in Varese (Italy). The hospital is affiliated with the Insubria University of Varese (Italy). This area has been severely beaten by COVID-19 during the last months of 2020 and the first ones of 2021 and this critically impacted both on clinical and research activities. For the last three years, my focus of research is on better understanding of the pathophysiology of acute and recurrent pericarditis. During my PhD program that has taken place between the University of Genova (Italy) and the Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA, USA), I had the chance to work with Dr. Antonio Abbate on this topic. We finally found that the NLRP3 inflammasome/IL-1 axis plays a pivotal role in driving clinical manifestations of pericarditis, thus opening new therapeutic perspectives for patients.
AM: What do you think is the most fascinating recent development in cardiovascular research/Cardiology?
AB: I feel that the understanding that atherosclerosis is not only a lipid-driven but also an inflammatory disease represents an incredible advancement in the field. Yet, we were surprised that patients with low or very low LDL cholesterol levels still suffered from myocardial infarction, but we missed a precious piece of information. Indeed, inflammation play a central role in atherosclerosis and the CANTOS trial clearly demonstrated that blunting inflammation is useful and reduced cardiovascular events. Starting from here, we have the chance to work on tailored therapeutic strategies to reduce the huge burden of disease represented by the atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
AM: Is there an area of Cardiovascular biology/Cardiology that you think is currently under-explored?
AB: Not sure about this point, but probably yes. I mean, in the medical field every day there is the occasion to increase one’s knowledge. Probably, most times pathophysiological mechanisms are a bit neglected in favor of clinical results, however I feel that translational research should be the guiding light in the medical field as you may have a wider overview of the disease only if you look at that in its entire complexity. So, I would encourage translational research in the cardiovascular field in next years in order to get more precise responses.
AM: Where do you see (or where would you like to see) the cardiovascular/Cardiology research field 10 years from now?
AB: It is apparent that the increased knowledge about genetics represents such an incredible opportunity for all medical specialties, including Cardiology, to better understanding diseases and especially to tailor therapies on the single patient. I’m quite sure this will be a revolution in the field in the next 10 years.
AM: Can you think of any collective initiatives that could support/speed up ‘bench to bedside’ research?
AB: I believe that Universities should drive such processes in order to create large hubs attracting national and European grants. This would definitely help researchers from small Universities to carry on their projects. The contribution from the private industry will still represent an important part of this process, always to be managed in an unbiased manner. National and especially European medical societies with similar interests may take the opportunity to ally to offer young researchers interested in translational research opportunities to fund their projects.
AM: What does it mean to you to be an Editorial Board Member for BMC Cardiovascular Disorders?
AB: It is an honor to be part of the Editorial Board of BMC Cardiovascular Disorders as I actively participate to the growth and the dissemination of the Journal. It is a great opportunity to read a lots of papers and increase my knowledge on different topics in the field of cardiovascular research. Also, being an Editorial Board Member gives you the chance to observe the plethora of bad medical science studies conducted in a non-scientific way. In general, this position represents an excellent incentive to remain updated, improve clinical and research practice, and help other researchers in the same activities as well.
AM: What is one piece of advice you would give to reviewers as an EBM overseeing peer review ?
AB: Reviewers are precious to every Journal because their judgements and comments represent an important part in the review process of a manuscript. Editorial Board Members rely on their comments. For this reason, fulfilling the task of Reviewers requires time and dedication in terms of knowledge and engagement. Exhaustive comments received quickly, irrespective of them being positive or negative, help the authors in progressing with their research as we know that research nowadays travels at the speed of light, with its pros and cons. The general must should be the focus on a rigorous scientific approach. For all of these reasons, I would recommend potential Reviewers to take some courses to learn how to become an experts in the job. Also our Journal offers some training courses available online.
AM: What is one piece of advice you would give to prospective authors ?
AB: I take a step back by suggesting authors to check for the scientific soundness of the paper. If you feel it is not sound, please work on it again and revise what is not sound. When you submit papers, please take the time to carefully check for English language and typos as these might limit the attraction of a manuscript for a reviewer, who usually revises a lot of papers every week. In addition, statistical analysis is often neglected or covered in a superficial way, but this is too important. Wrong analyses lead to wrong results. In general, although time is important in research, please do take the time to double-check that every aspect is perfect, or nearly perfect before submitting.
AM: What would you change in scientific publishing if you could?
AB: Scientific publishing has now a become a crowded arena in which everyone feels they have the right to enter. That is generally good, however general rules for a good publication must be followed. We have lived the experience of COVID-19 in the scientific community. Not only good COVID-19-related science has been published, but also poor science, which has been very unhelpful in these challenging times. When most researchers who were also involved in the clinic were trying to unveil what COVID-19 was, poor quality studies may have hampered the process of understanding this new disease. Closely related, it is important to remember that before COVID-19, the ‘publish-or-perish’ attitude already existed. I feel we should all stop a moment and reflect on whether the excess of publications that come out every day is really helpful to advance Science or Medicine.
Finally, open-access represents a great advancement in the scientific publishing, but should be managed with attention to avoid excess of publications. Indeed, sometimes there is no budget to publish a paper, on the other hand, they who own a large budget may easily publish, and this may represent a sort of discrimination. Probably, open-access publications should remain a choice rather than become the only way to publish scientific research.
