Keith Siew, Scientific Editor, Physiology News

Julia Turan, Managing Editor, Physiology News

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.118.5

Amidst the coronavirus crisis, physiology has been thrust to the fore with many awakening to the importance of physiology in understanding this disease, its treatment and prevention. Perhaps nothing exemplifies this more than the re-emergence of plasma therapy as a means to bestow passive immunity, a discovery awarded the first ever Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901 for its use as treatment of diphtheria.

In fact one of our authors, Michael Joyner, is leading such efforts with convalescent plasma clinical trials in the United States of America. His co-authored article with Paolo Dominelli (p. 41) about the oxygen dissociation curve in rare haemoglobin conditions is especially relevant, given the intense focus on COVID-19 patients’ diminished blood oxygenation saturations, and the staggering demand for supplemental oxygen therapy and respirators. Here they argue that the study of such physiological curiosities could yield novel therapies for patients with reduced oxygen uptake in the lungs or storage capacity (i.e. anaemia).

Another topic normally bereft of attention is the importance of sex in physiological research. However, the need to understand sex differences has become all too clear with men much more likely to suffer more severe symptoms and higher mortality with COVID-19. As discussed by Natasha Karp et al. (p. 32), females (both human and animal) have historically been underrepresented in pre-clinical and clinical research, and while it is encouraging to see that two women were the first individuals to receive vaccines in US and UK phase I clinical trials, it remains imperative that all future studies properly incorporate sex to ensure the efficacy and safety of treatments for both men and women.

In the eyes of many, COVID-19 has strengthened the case for open access (p. 12), and there has been a flurry of pre-prints hoping to expedite dissemination of the latest breakthroughs. Indeed, The Society journals have made all research related to COVID-19 freely accessible in the furtherance of the public good, in line with many other scientific publications. Although the sense of urgency is warranted, the breakneck pace of research and immense pressure to produce positive results is not without concern. We must temper our desire to cut corners and avoid the trappings of poorly designed experiments, particularly in the pre-clinical setting. A welcome refresher from Michael Festing (p.14), reminds us that designing rigorous statistically valid experiments is paramount, if we are to avoid producing irreproducible studies that give false hope and could ultimately cost lives. Sadly this is not the only threat, as tragedy often begets opportunity, and those less honest driven by non-altruistic tendencies may seize upon this moment to make a name for themselves. Elisabeth Bik, who we interviewed in this issue, will be on their case (p. 10). She keeps an eye out for fraudulent data, and seeks to expose authors and publications, to encourage ethical publishing. Philip Lewis further explores “science as a human endeavour” expanding on the discussion about sources of bias and flaws in scientific publishing in a review of a book by Member Gareth Leng and his son Rhodri Leng, The Matter of Facts (p. 48).

This pandemic has left little of our lives unchanged. We are in a marathon. The constant mental battles and worry are tiresome (see “Mental health in academia”, p. 22) and the struggle to maintain routine presents a real challenge to the health of our biological rhythms (see “The bustling world of hormone dynamics”, p. 44). Those particularly in our thoughts are clinical colleagues who are having to endure grueling hours and ever-changing shift patterns, all while being expected to maintain peak performance (see “Time to win gold” p.36). Also we, like I’m sure many of you reading this, have had a steady stream of family and friends ask for our takes on the scientific and medical advice. But for those without such ties, continuous education of the public about the latest science has never been more important and this issue showcases two excellent examples that will hopefully inspire you to involve yourself in public engagement: Simon Watt writes about his Society-funded podcast Level Up Human (p.47), and Lizzie Burns about her “Amazing Body” drawings that aim to help hospital patients relax and also educate them about the beauty of their microscopic inner workings (p. 46).

Perhaps one silver lining of this situation is the positive environmental impact. Liv Monica Trondrud and Alina Evans’ article (p. 26) about ecophysiology, the study of animal form and function, reminds us of the importance of this field in understanding how human actions impact animals. Additionally, our exciting upcoming virtual early career conference Future Physiology will focus on climate change, consisting of a week of oral communications, e-poster sessions, and professional development workshops. Please visit physoc.org/futurephysiology2020 to register.

Finally, in non-coronavirus related news, we are incredibly excited to announce that from this issue onwards Physiology News will be published under a Creative Common licence, specifically CC BY-SA 4.0. For more information, visit physoc.org/magazine. Under this licence, anyone can use the text and images in the magazine provided they give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence, indicate any changes they have made, and distribute it under this same licence. We thought this change to be important on principle – the more Members who reuse our materials, in the classroom or otherwise, the better.

Looking back to previous issues, Society staff member Mary Arbuthnot has worked tirelessly for months converting the PDF version into an online archive with articles on individual web pages, that is indexed and searchable. Each of these articles now has a DOI (digital object identifier), making it citable.

This project has been completed all the way back until issue 43 and will be picked up and finished off later this year. The print edition will also include DOIs beginning with this issue. The magazine’s permanent DOI prefix is: 10.36866 and we are using the following format for generating DOI suffixes: https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.issue#.page# (with a,b,c) being used as necessary after page number for instances of multiple articles on the same page.

We welcome your submissions and suggestions for our upcoming Education Special Issue. Our audience is primarily undergrad and postgrad educators. We aim to cover pedagogical research, resources, and personal stories. We are particularly interested in how COVID-19 has impacted educators.