Randy Schekman

pontika.nancy@gmail.com's bookmarks 2014-09-23

Summary:

"Cell biologist, in 2013 he won –together with the biology researchers James Rothman and Thomas Südhof– the Nobel Prize for Medicine, for a breakthrough regarding the regulation of vesicular traffic. This is a fundamental mechanism for the correct communication of a cell. In fact, defective vesicular traffic is related with diseases such as diabetes. From his lab at the University of California, Berkeley, he continues his work with this essential mean of cell transport. But Randy Schekman (Saint Paul, Minnesota, 1948) is not only know due to the importance of his discoveries. Several months ago he captured the media attention when he openly criticised the most prominent scientific journals, Nature, Science and Cell. These luxurious journals, the biologist claims, focus more on selling subscriptions than on promoting important research. His critique also targets an assessment method for scientific research which is based on impact factor (the number of citations of the text during the last two years). Accordingly, Schekman was one of the first signatories of the DORA San Francisco (Declaration on Research Assessment) in 2012, an initiative championed by scientists and research institutions from all around the world demanding a change in the research assessment method. Randy Schekman attended a meeting with students and professors of the University of Valencia, in the context of the Excellency Meetings VLC/CAMPUS and his participation as jury of the Rei Jaume I awards. After an hour answering the questions of the public, we talked to him. We explained that in Mètode, we started the Two Cultures Observatory, devoted to the relationship between scientists and the media, so we were very interested in his opinions in this regard. Despite his affable look and permanent smile, Randy Schekman’s discourse comes out convincing and profoundly critical."

Link:

http://metode.cat/en/Issues/Interview/Randy-Schekman

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » pontika.nancy@gmail.com's bookmarks
Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.sustainability oa.quality oa.gold oa.business_models oa.publishers oa.declarations oa.dora oa.pledges oa.advocacy oa.impact oa.prestige oa.u.valencia oa.new ru.sparc oa.interviews oa.journals oa.economics_of oa.people

Date tagged:

09/23/2014, 07:44

Date published:

09/23/2014, 07:05