Q&A with the Editor-in-Chief
Get to know our Editor-in-Chief, Tim Witney, as he answers questions about his research and shares his thoughts about becoming involved with the journal.
What is your research background?
I originally studied biochemistry for my undergraduate degree. Now, I’m fortunate enough to lead a multidisciplinary team of scientists at King’s College London that uses imaging to better-understand the biochemistry of tumours in living systems. My career has taken me from the University of Cambridge for my PhD to Stanford University as a postdoc, with a few other stops along the way. Working at several different Institutes has exposed me to a wide variety of excellent scientists, ideas, and cultures, which has shaped me and the research I do. Now back in the U.K., my group develops novel theranostic (therapy and diagnostic) agents to both detect and treat therapy-resistant cancer.
What is your favourite thing about research?
I love working with the excellent scientists in my group. Together, we share the same mission to try and improve cancer patient outcomes, whilst managing to have some fun along the way.
What is the best advice you can give to early career researchers?
There are so many! But really, it’s about finding the right mentor and project for you. Be prepared to make mistakes and to not take experimental failures personally. And don’t be afraid to write – you’ll need to learn how to effectively communicate your work as a scientist, so the sooner you start, the better!
What has been your biggest challenge and your greatest achievement in your career so far?
We are reliant on the production of radionuclides for our imaging experiments, which require expensive infrastructure to produce and use, such as a cyclotron and medical imaging scanners. You need an army of people (and a lot of money!) to keep these machines working, which is sometimes a challenge. But there is something special about seeing an image from a novel radiotracer for the first time; it makes it all worthwhile.
Regarding achievements, I think our best work is still to come, but it has been very satisfying to see novel tracers that I have helped develop being trialled in humans. I’m also very lucky to be involved in two major imaging societies, and it gives me great pleasure to see the buzz of a conference that I’ve helped organise.
What are you most looking forward to in your role as Editor-in-Chief?
I can’t wait to help build an imaging journal that looks not at where we are as a community but where we’re going. Combining both bio- and medical-imaging will be challenging, but the opportunity to highlight innovative research from cells to patients is something I’m relishing.
How will you steer the development of npj Imaging?
I want to build an imaging journal that has diversity in both topics and editorial board support, that prioritises timely and excellent research. Additionally, I have some ideas in how we can better-support imaging scientists, for example, by including videos into the main body of submitted figures. We hope to build npj Imaging organically over the next few years, and I can’t wait to see where we can take it.
Why should researchers submit their work to npj Imaging?
npj Imaging is unique in that it publishes imaging research across both scales and the translational pipeline. Given the interdisciplinary nature of our field, we accept manuscripts that represent this diversity: from the design and synthesis of new probes, to their use in unravelling biological mechanisms. With expertise across these various domains, our Associate Editors and Editorial Board provide a quick turnaround of manuscripts and seek high-quality reviews. We hope to build our journal into one of the leading platforms for imaging research.
If you have an excellent imaging paper, look no further than npj Imaging!
