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Prof. Melanie Greter, Institute of Experimental Immunology

When did you publish your first article? In which journal?

I wrote my first article – as a first author – during my PhD at the Department of Neurology here in Zurich in 2005. The fist author of an article with several authors is the person who did the main part of the (laboratory) work. The last author is the head of the working group, who finances the study. These two positions are the most important ones in the order of authors.

The article was also important for my group leader Burkhard Becher, because it was his first article as last author. It was published in Nature Medicine. Of course, it was great for both of us that it worked out with such a high-ranked journal.

Which article were you particularly proud of when it was accepted?

I am especially proud of my first article as last author, which was published in Nature Immunology in 2016 (the article can be seen in the showcase of the exhibition at HBZ – Medizin Careum). It was my first independent article. In 2013, I became a professor here at the Institute of Experimental Immunology and took over my own group. The article is very important for my future career, for example to get more grants.

Can you give tips to young researchers for publishing?

I advise students to read a lot. They learn how an article is structured; what it should contain, what has already been shown in their field, how to write in our subject. I have to practice what I preach: I should also read more myself! I often have a stack of papers in front of me and then I do not find the time.

Then I also advise the students to create figures for their experiments at an early stage. When you depict results, you see what is missing. You can already see in your head the story you want to tell.

Patience is also important. I often advise students to wait, perform additional experiments and only publish once the topic has been comprehensively worked on. The reward may be a longer article in a good journal. That is what counts in our field.

When it comes to publishing and selecting the journal, we always try to start as high as possible. The impact factor counts. We are measured by whether we have published in the high-ranking journals.

What role does Open Access play in your research area, and what is your personal opinion?

I welcome Open Access, it is positive development. Everyone has access, especially researchers from poorer countries. In medicine, I think it is important that patients can find out about new therapies.

I myself do not choose the journal in which I would like to submit a manuscript based on whether it is Open Access or not. Many of the renowned journals are not Open Access. It is a fact that we are measured by whether we have published in high-ranked journals with a large readership and how often we are quoted.

Thank you for talking to me.

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Prof. Melanie Greter works at the Institute of Experimental Immunology. According to a ranking of Clarivate Analytics, she is one of the most cited researchers in immunology.