Announcements

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Mario Allegra has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Natural and Synthetic Antioxidants” in Antioxidants (ISSN: 2076-3921, IF 6.313).

Prof. Mario Allegra studied Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies at the University of Palermo, Italy, and graduated as Pharm.D. in 1997. He then joined the research group of Prof. Perretti at the Department of Biochemical Pharmacology, Queen Mary’s University of London. Since 2000, he has been working at the University of Palermo, where he received his Ph.D. in molecular medicine and now holds the position of Associate Professor of Biochemistry. His research interests cover the role of phytochemicals in oxidative stress-dependent inflammatory conditions. He has published more than 60 research articles in SCI(E) journals, with 4183 citations and an h-index of 28.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Mario Allegra, who shared his vision for the Section with us as well as his views on the research area.

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?
   I have been supporting Antioxidants since its launch, fruitfully interacting with the Editorial Office. I have always found the interactions with colleagues during the peer review process highly rewarding. Taking into account the high efficiency of the Editorial Office and in light of the increasing quality of the papers submitted to the journal, I accepted the offer to become Section Editor-in-Chief with pleasure. I expect to be further enriched by dealing with article submissions and interacting with my colleagues from the Editorial Board. Finally, my decision was also driven by my willingness to be challenged by creating new strategies to further improve the quality of the journal.

2. What is your vision for the Section and what does the future of this field of research look like in your view?
   Natural and synthetic antioxidants are expected to receive more and more interest from the scientific community over the next few years. This is mainly due to their key role as modulators of the redox-dependent signal transduction processes that underlie the main pathophysiological conditions affecting human health (ranging from cancer to cardiometabolic and neurodegenerative diseases). Along these lines, and as a biochemist, my vision for this Section is to promote the publishing of research articles and reviews focusing on mechanistic aspects that support the effects of antioxidants. Moreover, I think that it is important to establish Special Issues focusing on the study of antioxidants from both an experimental (in vivo/vitro) and a nutritional/epidemiological perspective. This strategy should be used in order to obtain more solid and relevant data useful for clinicians, thus widening the journal’s audience.

3. What do you think of the development of open access in the publishing field?
   It is very important to further promote this within the scientific community and, at the same time, help researchers on the financial side. In this regard, I find the voucher strategy extremely interesting and valuable, as it encourages our colleagues to help the journal in the peer-review process.

4. Who should contribute to this Section?
   Chemists, biochemists, pharmacologists, physicians, pharmaceutics, nutritionists, and clinicians.