Biofabrication: 2016 Reviewer Awards

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Daniela Duarte Campos, RWTH Aachen University Hospital, Germany

Having formerly published work in Biofabrication as part of her PhD, Dr Daniela Duarte Campos felt motivated to act as a reviewer for the journal. She not only deems it important to provide expertise in the field of the proposed manuscripts, but also to reciprocate a service that benefits all researchers.

Dr Duarte Campos strongly believes that only robust research should be published. The study need not be vastly interesting or contain successful results, but the methodology should be sound and should also add significant value to the field.

When refereeing, Dr Duarte Campos finds it particularly rewarding to see good articles successfully published after rigorous peer review. Always endeavouring to include recommendations for improvement, she is gratified when authors take her suggestions on board and implement changes.

One article that captured her imagination considered recent advances in bioprinting, using smart materials that can be transformed under various stimuli: 4D bioprinting: the next-generation technology for biofabrication enabled by stimuli-responsive materials.

Dr Duarte Campos modestly claims that she was not a particularly proficient reviewer in the beginning; she would approach the task as if it were Where’s Wally?, searching for every single spelling and scientific mistake possible. She therefore urges first-time reviewers to seek advice from colleagues or mentors, who are able to offer a different perspective.

Now a practised reviewer, Dr Duarte Campos looks for scientific relevance and novelty, scrutinizing the authors’ methodologies, among other things, to corroborate whether a paper should be rejected or accepted.