Three-dimensional bioprinting is an evolving technology that is used for biomedical research and healthcare. It involves the creation of three-dimensional structures using living cells and biomaterials with the help of a bio-printer. Three-dimensional bioprinting can be used to create complex living tissue structures, such as organs, bones, and skin, which can be used for transplantation and other clinical applications. This technology has become popular in recent years, as it offers a promising solution to organ shortages and could help improve patients’ outcomes. In this context, we are pleased to feature some recently published papers on 3D bioprinting in Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), which provide valuable insights into this exciting field.

1. “3D Printed Nanocellulose Scaffolds as a Cancer Cell Culture Model System”
by Jennifer Rosendahl, Andreas Svanström, Mattias Berglin, Sarunas Petronis, Yalda Bogestål, Patrik Stenlund, Simon Standoft, Anders Ståhlberg, Göran Landberg, Gary Chinga-Carrasco et al.
Bioengineering 2021, 8(7), 97; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8070097
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/7/97

2. “Bioprinting Scaffolds for Vascular Tissues and Tissue Vascularization”
by Peter Viktor Hauser, Hsiao-Min Chang, Masaki Nishikawa, Hiroshi Kimura, Norimoto Yanagawa, and Morgan Hamon
Bioengineering 2021, 8(11), 178; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8110178
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/11/178

3. “Biofabrication Strategies for Musculoskeletal Disorders: Evolution towards Clinical Applications”
by Saman Naghieh, Gabriella Lindberg, Maryam Tamaddon and Chaozong Liu
Bioengineering 2021, 8(9), 123; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8090123
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/9/123

4. “Recapitulating the Angiogenic Switch in a Hydrogel-Based 3D In Vitro Tumor-Stroma Model”
by Claudia Kuehlbach, Sabine Hensler, and Margareta M. Mueller
Bioengineering 2021, 8(11), 186; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8110186
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/11/186

5. “Natural Biomaterials and Their Use as Bioinks for Printing Tissues”
by Claire Benwood, Josie Chrenek, Rebecca L. Kirsch, Nadia Z. Masri, Hannah Richards, Kyra Teetzen and Stephanie M. Willerth
Bioengineering 2021, 8(2), 27; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8020027
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/2/27

6. “Protein-Based 3D Biofabrication of Biomaterials”
by Mahta Mirzaei, Oseweuba Valentine Okoro, Lei Nie, Denise Freitas Siqueira Petri and Amin Shavandi
Bioengineering 2021, 8(4), 48; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8040048
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/4/48

7. “The Importance of Mimicking Dermal-Epidermal Junction for Skin Tissue Engineering: A Review”
by Mina Aleemardani, Michael Zivojin Trikić, Nicola Helen Green and Frederik Claeyssens
Bioengineering 2021, 8(11), 148; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8110148
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/11/148

8. “Advantages of Additive Manufacturing for Biomedical Applications of Polyhydroxyalkanoates”
by Alberto Giubilini, Federica Bondioli, Massimo Messori, Gustav Nyström and Gilberto Siqueira
Bioengineering 2021, 8(2), 29; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8020029
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/2/29

9. “3D Printing of Thermoresponsive Hydrogel Laden with an Antimicrobial Agent towards Wound Healing Applications”
by Martyna Nizioł, Justyna Paleczny, Adam Junka, Amin Shavandi, Anna Dawiec-Liśniewska and Daria Podstawczyk
Bioengineering 2021, 8(6), 79; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8060079
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/6/79

10. “Translational Application of 3D Bioprinting for Cartilage Tissue Engineering”
by Sophie McGivern, Halima Boutouil, Ghayadah Al-Kharusi, Suzanne Little, Nicholas J. Dunne and Tanya J. Levingstone
Bioengineering 2021, 8(10), 144; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8100144
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/10/144

On 20 April 2023, MDPI hosted a webinar for a Special Issue titled “Bioengineered Systems: Implants and Devices for Orthopaedic Applications”. The webinar featured the Special Issue’s Guest Editors, Dr. David E. Anderson, Dr. Madhu S. Dhar and Dr. Dustin L. Crouch. All speakers were from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, and this multidisciplinary team represented expertise in implant interfaces, regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and biomedical engineering. The Guest Editors/Speakers discussed how technological advances in orthopaedic research are accelerating in multiple areas, including endoprosthetics, tissue regeneration, and biotherapies.

Thank you for attending and we also wish to thank the Bioengineering team and MDPI for organizing and hosting this webinar.

You can watch the recorded webinar at the following link: https://youtu.be/wtoXrPe5fzc.

Please note that this webinar is associated with a Special Issue in the Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354) journal: “Bioengineered Systems: Implants and Devices for Orthopaedic Applications”. The deadline is 31 May 2023.

Webinar Chair and Keynote Speakers:

• Dr. David E. Anderson, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA;
• Dr. Madhu S. Dhar, Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA;
• Dr. Dustin L. Crouch, Department of Mechanical, Aerospace & Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA.

We look forward to providing this exciting webinar related to our Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354) Special Issue, "Bioengineered Systems: Implants and Devices for Orthopaedic Applications". The topic is broad and highly interdisciplinary, so it should be of interest to many, both researchers and practitioners. There has been and much progress and innovation in this area, with the promise to improve healthcare for a wide range of orthopaedic and other clinical problems.

The Guest Editors of this Special Issue invite you to participate in this webinar. Following the presentations, there will be a question-and-answer session. We look forward to a lively and interactive exchange of ideas.
We hope to see you soon!

Date: 20 April 2023 at 2:00 p.m. CEST | 8:00 a.m. EDT | 8:00 p.m. CST Asia
Webinar ID: 852 1064 4327

Register now for free!

Program

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to join the webinar. Registrations with academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.

Unable to attend? Register anyway and we will let you know when the recording is available to watch.

Webinar Chair and Keynote Speakers:

• Dr. David E. Anderson, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
• Dr. Madhu S. Dhar, Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
• Dr. Dustin L. Crouch, Department of Mechanical, Aerospace & Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

Relevant Special Issue:
Bioengineered Systems: Implants and Devices for Orthopaedic Applications
Guest Editors: Dr. David Edgar Anderson, Dr. Madhu S. Dhar and Dr. Dustin Crouch
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2023

Relevant feature papers:
“Role of Implantable Drug Delivery Devices with Dual Platform Capabilities in the Prevention and Treatment of Bacterial Osteomyelitis”
Bioengineering 2022, 9(2), 65; doi:10.3390/bioengineering9020065

“Effects on Tissue Integration of Collagen Scaffolds Used for Local Delivery of Gentamicin in a Rat Mandible Defect Model”
Bioengineering 2022, 9(7), 275; doi:10.3390/bioengineering9070275

“Feasibility of Implanting a Foot–Ankle Endoprosthesis within Skin in a Rabbit Model of Transtibial Amputation”
Bioengineering 2022, 9(8), 348; doi:10.3390/bioengineering9080348

The Special Issues below have been selected as high-quality Special Issues for 2022 by the Editorial Office of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). We hope that they provide insights and references for scholars in related fields.

1. “Convergence of Science and Engineering: A Promising Window toward Improving the Public Health”
Edited by Ali Zarrabi
Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/special_issues/convergence_sci_eng
Viewed by 16,316 | Cited by 16

2. “Feature Papers in Nanotechnology Applications in Bioengineering”
Edited by Gou-Jen Wang
Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/special_issues/Nanotechnology_Application_Bioengineering
Viewed by 13121 | Cited by 8

3. “Artificial Intelligence Based Computer-Aided Diagnosis”
Edited by Jijiang Yang and Jianqiang Li
Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/special_issues/AI_computer_aided_diagnosis
Viewed by 14195 | Cited by 26

4. “Recent Advances of Medical Devices”
Edited by Robert M. DiBlasi and Crescenzio Gallo
Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/special_issues/Medical_Devices_bioengineering
Viewed by 13650 | Cited by 12

5. “Bioprinting of Tissue-Engineered Scaffolds: Design Strategies & Printability of Smart Biomaterials”
Edited by Chaozong Liu, Saman Naghieh and Gabriella Lindberg
Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/special_issues/tissue-engineered_scaffolds
Viewed by 19194 | Cited by 45

If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about participating in editorial work, please do not hesitate to contact the Bioengineering Editorial Office (bioengineering@mdpi.com)

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Tri Indah Winarni, author of two papers published in Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). We discussed the recent research trends in the field, and her personal career development.

Prof. Dr. Tri Indah Winarni's articles published in Bioengineering:

1. “Effect of Short-Term Deep-Pressure Portable Seat on Behavioral and Biological Stress in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Pilot Study”
2. “Physiological Effect of Deep Pressure in Reducing Anxiety of Children with ASD during Traveling: A Public Transportation Setting”

The following is an interview with Prof. Dr. Tri Indah Winarni:

1. Congratulations on your published papers. Can you provide a background about yourself and what your research areas are?
I am a Professor at Universitas Diponegoro from the Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine. My research area is autism spectrum disorders, including fragile X syndrome, and five years ago we established the Undip Biomechanical Engineering Research Center (UBM-RC). Since then, we have explored more research areas to establish deep pressure therapy to help with anxiety.

2. What are the current cutting-edge research topics in your field of interest?
Providing handy and effective deep pressure therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders.

3. What made you decide to publish an article in Bioengineering?
Bioengineering is a reputable journal, more open for researchers worldwide, giving the chance to publish important findings. The publishing experience was nice, helpful, with thorough peer review, and fast (sometimes too fast, but it is good for students). Moreover, the Open Access model helps to increase the citation rate. The Open Access model is great, but also not for students, because it was very expensive to publish a paper.

4. What do you hope that readers will get from your papers?
They will get appropriate information for their research and scientific contributions, and it is also useful for patients/parents, who can get more updated information.

We are thankful for Prof. Dr. Tri Indah Winarni's time and support for the Bioengineering journal.

Prof. Dr. Tri Indah Winarni's contact information:
Email: triwinarni@lecturer.undip.ac.id

We had the pleasure of speaking with Rodolfo Reda, one of the authors of the published paper “An Update on Nickel–Titanium Rotary Instruments in Endodontics: Mechanical Characteristics, Testing and Future Perspective—An Overview” in Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). We discussed the recent research trends in the field and his personal career development.

Name: Rodolfo Reda
Email: rodolfo.reda@uniroma1.it
Article title: “An Update on Nickel–Titanium Rotary Instruments in Endodontics: Mechanical Characteristics, Testing and Future Perspective—An Overview”

1. Congratulations on your published paper. Can you please provide background about yourself and what your research areas are?
Thanks for the opportunity. I am a DDS and currently a Ph.D. student at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, where I graduated. I concentrated my research activity on Ni-Ti alloys and the characteristics of Ni-Ti rotary files used in endodontics. I approached the world of stem cell studies in the laboratory, studying their reactions as a function of the different reagents to which they were subjected. Subsequently, my passion for biochemical and molecular alterations led me to analyze the tissue conditions around dental implants to determine how they affect the implant-supported prostheses features.

2. What are the current cutting-edge research topics in your field of interest?
I believe that the challenge for the future is to reduce the invasiveness of our clinical procedures. To do this, it is necessary to fully understand the biochemical/molecular alterations that lead to the predisposing conditions of the disease or its initial stages in order to be able to prevent it or at least cure it in advance.

3. What made you decide to publish an article in Bioengineering? Why did you choose Bioengineering?
The rapid growth that the journal has had is a symptom of the great attention from the editors. In fact, I can confirm this considering the number of articles they have published and the success they have achieved. I chose this journal because it was the most suitable for the type of article I intended to submit.

4. How was your experience publishing with Bioengineering?
Very simple and quick. The journal’s management is effective, allowing it to reduce the time between the various phases of the peer-review—it is a system that works well.

5. Was it important to you that the journal is Open Access?
I believe that scientific culture should be as freely accessible as possible. The possibility of Open Access publishing favors the dissemination of scientific knowledge.

6. How do you think Open Access impacts authors?
Some are frightened away by the costs of managing such a system. However, it should not be intimidating because it is possible for them to achieve excellent results, often with important help from the journal when they exploit an excellent article or study.

7. What do you hope that readers will get from your paper?
Curiosity. I believe that the most important thing a scientific article can achieve is to stimulate the reader’s curiosity, enticing other clinicians to research in this same area, perhaps with a few more new ideas.

We are thankful for Rodolfo Reda's time and support for Bioengineering

We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Anthony Atala, Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), to discuss the recent trends in the field and his personal career developments.

Anthony Atala, M.D., is the G. Link Professor and Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the W. Boyce Professor and Chair of the Department of Urology at Wake Forest University, USA. His work focuses on growing human cells, tissues, and organs. Sixteen technological applications developed in Dr. Atala's laboratory have been employed clinically in human patients.

Dr. Atala was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences (now the National Academy of Medicine), to the National Academy of Inventors as a Charter Fellow, and to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Dr. Atala is a recipient of the US Congress funded Christopher Columbus Foundation Award, bestowed on a living American who is currently pursuing a discovery that will significantly affect society; the World Technology Award in Health and Medicine, for achieving significant and lasting progress; the Edison Science/Medical Award; the Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award; the R&D Innovator of the Year Award; the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award; and the 2022 Jacobson Innovation Award of the American College of Surgeons for his pioneering work in regenerative medicine.

Dr. Atala’s work was listed twice in Time Magazine’s top ten medical breakthroughs of the year, and as one of five discoveries that will change the future of organ transplantation. In 2019, Dr. Atala’s work was ranked by the Project Management Institute as one of the top ten most impactful biotech projects of the past 50 years. Dr. Atala was named by Scientific American as one of the world’s most influential people in biotechnology, by U.S. News & World Report as one of fourteen pioneers of medical progress in the 21st century, by Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review as one of fifty key influencers in the life sciences intellectual property arena, and by Nature Biotechnology as one of the top ten translational researchers in the world.

Dr. Atala has led or served on several national professional and government committees, including the National Institutes of Health work group on Cells and Developmental Biology, the National Institutes of Health Bioengineering Consortium, and the National Cancer Institute’s Advisory Board. He was a Founder of the Tissue Engineering Society, the Regenerative Medicine Society, the Regenerative Medicine Foundation, the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, the Regenerative Medicine Development Organization, the Regenerative Medicine Manufacturing Society, and the Regenerative Medicine Manufacturing Consortium.

Dr. Atala works with several journals in a variety of capacities, including as Editor-in-Chief of Stem Cells Translational Medicine, Therapeutic Advances in Urology, and BioPrinting. He is the editor of 25 books, has published more than 800 journal articles, and has applied for or received over 250 national and international patents.

We hope you enjoy the interview.

1. What are your research areas?
Our work focuses on growing human cells, tissues, and organs for human transplantation. We are working on developing replacement organs and tissues, as well as healing cell therapies, for more than 40 different areas of the body. Projects range from blood vessels and kidneys to cell therapies for lung disease and hemophilia. We are pursuing multiple strategies, including 3D printing, to move our projects forward to meet our ultimate goal—making patients better. We are also working extensively in using regenerative medicine approaches for body-on-a-chip systems for drug development and microphysological modeling.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
To envision the next transformational steps for the field, we can look at current technologies for the 3D printing of cartilage, bone and skin constructs which can serve as benchmarks for progress. As we understand the factors that have contributed to their success, and as we anticipate advances overall in the bioprinting of materials and cells, current limitations can hopefully be overcome in the short term. The continued development of materials for 3D printing, cell sourcing, tissue structure and biomechanical properties, should have a significant impact on moving the field forward.

3. Can you briefly share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
As I initially pursued medicine, I never even considered research. In fact, I had to be talked into doing a research fellowship after I finished my medical training. Yet once I started on that path, I realized I didn’t want to turn back. Research has been an important part of my career and life ever since. The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine research teams are driven by its mission—to improve patients’ lives through regenerative medicine. The goal is to create replacement tissues and organs for patients. It is estimated that every 30 seconds, a patient dies from a disease that could be treated with tissue replacement. There are simply not enough donor tissues and organs to meet the demand. Regenerative medicine offers the hope of engineering replacement organs in the lab to help solve this shortage. Because these organs would be made with a patient’s own cells, there would be no issues with rejection.

4. Do you have any advice you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
I think it’s important not to put limitations on yourself and your thinking. My advice is always to be receptive to new opportunities and change and to seek advice and input from people who can help when you have a decision to make that can change your life’s trajectory.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
I am generally in favor of Open Access. Both the scientific community and the general public benefit when publications are widely available. Another consideration is of course financial. Publication fees are often used as an alternative to reader charges, and that can have downsides; for example, bias against less well-funded researchers.

We are thankful for Dr. Atala's time and for his continued support of Bioengineering.

Dr. Anthony Atala’s contact information:
Email: aatala@wakehealth.edu

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Ali Zarrabi, an Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), to discuss the recent research trends in the field and his personal career developments. We hope you enjoy the interview.

1. What are your research areas?
My research area is translational nano-bioengineering. It is a multi-disciplinary research field with the mission of performing cutting-edge fundamental and applied research, rooted firmly in nano- and bio-engineering, leading to the development of novel diagnostic/treatment methods for a range of diseases and conditions. Translation is the process of turning laboratory studies into results that directly benefit the health of individuals and the public. It will cover the entire range of basic science and pre-clinical discoveries in diagnostics and therapeutics.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
We have developed several bioengineered nano-composites for drug delivery, disease/biomarker diagnosis, tissue engineering (repair or replacement), and wound healing applications. In my research group, the young researchers will be given the opportunity to conduct collaborative research with other groups of highly diverse backgrounds and expertise. Our research spans many areas, including cancer, aging, pharmacology and toxicology, drug delivery, infection, and nutrition.

3. Can you briefly share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
Having seen the influence of interdisciplinary research on the health of society, I decided to become a part of this success story, even with a tiny contribution. I have continuously tried hard in the hopes of conquering the peak and planning for the next.

4. Do you have any valuable suggestions that you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
Young students should not be discouraged if they do not reach their desired results immediately. They must keep going and try hard to find the way to go.
About the early career researchers, do not underestimate the following:
1. Group work;
2. The miracle of working with undergraduates.
The current student generation has numerous unmet capabilities that you could discover.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
In my opinion, it is more than necessary to make the results of research available to the public. Especially now that the science development rate is higher than at any time in history, we should keep our findings open to contribute to universal development. Otherwise, our findings will be out of date soon after we publish them in a non-open manner.

We are thankful for Prof. Dr. Zarrabi's time and support of Bioengineering.

Prof. Dr. Zarrabi's contact information:
Email: alizarrabi@gmail.com

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to newjournal-committee@mdpi.com.

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Fergal J. O'Brien, Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). Prof. Dr. O'Brien is working as Professor of bioengineering and regenerative medicine and is the Head of the Tissue Engineering Research Group which is based in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He is also part of the leadership team of the Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research Centre and is Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at RCSI.

We hope you enjoy the interview!

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Stephanie Willerth, author of the published paper “Natural Biomaterials and Their Use as Bioinks for Printing Tissues” in Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). We discussed the recent research trends in the field and her personal career developments.

1. Congratulations on your published paper. Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and what your research areas are?
I am a Full Professor and the Canada Research Chair at the University of Victoria where I hold dual appointments in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Division of Medical Sciences. I also hold an affiliate appointment with the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia. I run a research group that investigates how to engineer neural tissue from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) using a variety of methods, including 3D bioprinting and cellular reprogramming. My research group has developed many types of biomaterial scaffolds for promoting the differentiation of iPSCs into neural cell types for tissue engineering applications, such as screening the toxicity of drugs, learning about how tissues form during development, and replacing dysfunctional tissues. I also founded the spin-off company Axolotl Biosciences, with the goal of bioprinting neural tissues that are easily accessible to scientists and engineers from a range of backgrounds.

2. What are the current cutting-edge research topics in your field of interest?
The field of 3D bioprinting is evolving at a rapid rate. It has been interesting to see the new bioprinters being developed along with recent advances in bioinks that allow for the generation of tissues similar to those found in the human body. The use of 3D bioprinting for clinical applications is also another hot area of research and discussion.

3. What made you decide to publish an article in Bioengineering? Why did you choose Bioengineering?
We were invited to submit by one of my colleagues—Dr. Houman Savoji. One of the advantages of submitting to journals such as Bioengineering is that you get quick and high-quality reviews, and there is a quick turnaround in your paper being published after it has been accepted.

4. How was your experience publishing with Bioengineering?
It was great—the process, including submission and responding to reviews, was quick and easy.

5. Was it important to you that the journal is Open Access?
Yes, we receive significant support from a variety of funding agencies, including the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Michael Smith Health Research B.C., the Pacific Parkinson’s Research Institute, the Canada Research Chairs program, and the New Frontiers in Research Fund, and these organizations are funded by taxpayers and donors. I think it is important that anyone can read the results of the research being conducted using such funding.

6. How do you think Open Access impacts authors?
Our Open Access papers tend to be more widely read by diverse audiences, which helps ensure that our work is read by relevant audiences.

7. What do you hope that readers will receive from your paper?
The review does an excellent job of discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of naturally derived biomaterials when used as bioinks for generating tissue models. The team who wrote the paper is an outstanding collection of women scientists and engineers. The first author—Claire Benwood—successfully defended her master’s degree last fall and will start working in the biotechnology industry this spring.

We are thankful for Prof. Dr. Willerth's time and support for the Bioengineering journal.

Prof. Dr. Stephanie Willerth’s contact information:
Email: willerth@uvic.ca

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

Conference: 11th National Conference on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
Date: 25–27 February 2023
Place: Guangzhou, China

MDPI will be attending the 11th National Conference on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (CCBSB2023) as the exhibitor. The National Academic Conference on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology has been successfully held for ten sessions since its first session in 1998. It is a national event with the highest academic level and the greatest influence in the field of bioinformatics research in China. The theme of the conference is "The Latest Frontier Research of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology and Their Applications", and the topics cover translational informatics and data sharing security, biomedical data mining and computing, genome informatics, artificial intelligence and life sciences, group bioinformatics and integrated biology, non-coding RNA and RNA informatics, network biology, major disease omics informatics, biological macromolecular structure prediction and simulation, bioinformatics algorithm research, biological data resources, bioinformatics and drugs discovery, computational synthetic biology, agricultural and forestry informatics and other bioinformatics, and other frontier directions.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Genes;
• JPM;
• Cardiogenetics;
• Bioengineering;
• Biomolecules;
• Metabolites;
• Cells;
• Symmetry;
• Biomedicines;
• Computers;
• COVID;
• Epigenomes.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start a conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit https://ccbsb2022.casconf.cn/.

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Andrea Cataldo has been appointed Section Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Biomedical Engineering and Biomaterials” in Bioengineering (IF: 5.046, ISSN: 2306-5354).

Dr. Andrea Cataldo received his materials engineering degree from the University of Salento, Lecce, Italy, in 1998, and a Ph.D. in information engineering in 2003 from the same University. From 2005 to 2013, he was a Researcher in the area of electric and electronic measurements and, currently, he is an Associate Professor. He is a lecturer in the courses “Instrumentation and Measurement Lab”, “Measurements” and “Principles of Bioengineering” and he is the supervisor of a research group at the Department of Engineering for Innovation, the director of the “measurement Lab” and the founder and technical supervisor of the spin-off MoniTech. His main research interests include measurement and sensing techniques, monitoring systems, sensors, dielectric characterization and non-destructive tests of materials. He has been involved in leading various research projects supported by public and private bodies. He has co-authored over 200 publications in international journals, book chapters, and international and national conferences, along with three books, and he holds four patents.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Andrea Cataldo, who shared his vision for the journal with us as well as his views on the research area and Open Access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?
The journal, although relatively new, thanks to an Open Access policy, a rigorous method of selection and revision of the works and, most importantly, a very high speed of the management of the editorial process, has significantly attracted many researchers and scientists working in the field of bioengineering. Another key reason for its strong attractiveness undoubtedly lies in the tremendous scientific and technological impact that the biomedical engineering, bioengineering and biomaterials sectors are currently experiencing.

2. What is your vision for the Section?
“Biomedical Engineering and Biomaterials” is a multidisciplinary Section collecting the current status, recent progress, and future perspectives in the context of bioengineering science, biomaterials and biomedical engineering.

The Section welcomes innovative contributions covering key aspects of bioengineering, medical diagnosis, biosensors, devices and biomedical instrumentation including design, characterization and application-focused research with a focus on innovative applications involving machine learning and AI.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?
Tremendous progress has been made in terms of innovative contributions and practical applications of bioengineering, medical diagnosis, biosensors, devices and biomedical instrumentation, including design-, characterization- and application-focused research. In particular, similarly to the enormous impact that enabling technologies 4.0 have entailed in many application fields, the introduction of such paradigms is also leading to an epochal technological transition in bioengineering.

On such a basis, the future of this research field seems particularly oriented to the practical application of advanced experimental tools based on machine learning and AI for medical diagnostics, smart sensing and bio-monitoring, predictive modeling, individualized surgery and computational modeling of biological systems.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?
As previously mentioned, I believe that the Open Access policy is key to success and an innovative strategy to guarantee a wide diffusion of scientific research without barriers and to anyone. However, without a rigorous and accurate review procedure and adequate scientific coordination, these positive factors can easily become a disadvantage. From my personal experience, I can say that the Bioengineering journal combines these two factors very well, effectively allowing the simultaneous achievement of an excellent qualitative and informative impact in the sectors of interest. It should also be added that the discount and/or free-of-charge mechanism for publication fees, for example for young researchers, to those who act as reviewers or who contribute to Special Issues or feature papers, also give the opportunity for submission to research groups who may not possess many financial resources.

We warmly welcome Dr. Andrea Cataldo as the new Section Editor-in-Chief and we look forward to him leading Bioengineering to reach many more milestones.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Giovanni Improta, Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), to discuss the recent research trends in the field and his personal career developments. We hope you enjoy the interview.

Prof. Dr. Giovanni Improta is a researcher of electronics and informatics bioengineering at the Department of Public Health of the School of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Naples "Federico II" (Naples, Italy), where he teaches the course "Healthcare Organization Models" in the master’s degree program in biomedical engineering at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of the School of Polytechnic and Basic Sciences of the aforementioned university. Additionally, he teaches the course "Toxicology and Industrial Hygiene" in the master's degree program in chemical engineering at the Department of Chemical Materials and Industrial Production Engineering of the same university.

He has an M.Sc. in both management engineering and biomedical engineering. He also has a master’s degree in finance, administration and management control, and three Ph.D. degrees: a Ph.D. in economics and management of health organizations, achieved in 2011 at the University of Naples "Federico II" with a thesis titled "The HTA (Health Technology Assessment) for the management of biomedical equipment of a Hospital Company: reallocation, donation to developing countries, conception and design of a virtual community"; a Ph.D. in bioengineering, achieved in 2014 at the University of Bologna "Alma Mater Studiorum" with a thesis titled "Symbolic Dynamics Analysis: a new methodology for fetal heart rate variability analysis"; and a Ph.D. in products and industrial processes engineering, achieved in 2017 at the University of Naples "Federico II", with a thesis titled "Dynamic Analytic Hierarchy Process: a new approach to technology assessment to support healthcare processes". He was a research fellow at the Department of Public Health of the University of Naples "Federico II" from 2010 to 2017, where he had the opportunity to participate in national and international research projects and to collaborate with companies operating in the public health and biomedical sector.

His research activities are focused on the management and optimization of health processes through the implementation of management strategies and the development of simulation models and multi-criteria decision systems as well as the analysis, processing, and management of biomedical data and signals by means of statistical approaches and machine learning algorithms. He participated in several national and international conferences, he was involved in different national and international research projects, and he is the author of more than 125 Scopus-indexed scientific publications in both peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings. The topics he addresses include clinical decision-making systems, Lean and Six Sigma in healthcare, health technology assessment, and biomedical data analysis. He is also the inventor of two patents on innovative solutions to improve patients’ monitoring and well-being. Moreover, he is the editor, guest editor, and reviewer for different international peer-reviewed journals.

The following is an interview with Prof. Dr. Giovanni Improta:

1. What are your research areas?
My main research activities are focused on the management and optimization of health processes through the implementation of management strategies and the development of simulation models and decision support systems as well as the analysis, processing, and management of biomedical data and signals by means of statistical approaches and machine learning algorithms. Within healthcare management and biomedical data analysis, I mostly contribute to the development of modeling tools, machine learning approaches, and statistical analysis to support clinical decision-making, the application of Lean and Six Sigma approaches to improve and optimize care processes and healthcare quality, and the use of simulation and mathematical models for health technology assessment. In this regard, I had the opportunity to contribute to these topics by authoring more than 120 Scopus-indexed scientific publications in both peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
In my opinion, the main and most interesting developments regard the advancements of digitalization in the public health sector. Indeed, digital technologies have successfully transformed most sectors, with a major impact on healthcare, where massive investments in digital health technologies are bringing radical transformation to healthcare services. In this scenario, one of the main challenges is the integration of such digital technologies into assistance processes/pathways and clinical practice. The advantages that the introduction of novel biomedical engineering solutions in the public health sector can bring range from the improvement of patient‒clinician communication to the efficient design of new diagnostic‒care‒assistance pathways to the optimization of health services. Among the most innovative digital tools in the field of healthcare, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) plays a fundamental role to help clinicians in making better decisions, in more effectively managing patient data, and, not least, in creating personalized care plans. The use of artificial intelligence to support clinical decisions, in particular, is the subject of a recent patent on the development of an intelligent system for the management of polypathological patients, conceived and developed at the Department of Public Health of the “Federico II” University, to which I contributed as the inventor.

3. Can you briefly share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
My career has been focused on improving myself both from the personal and professional perspective. I have always tried to pursue my career’s objectives with perseverance and enthusiasm. My interest in the healthcare sector and the field of biomedical engineering is the main motivation that has boosted my career advancements and encouraged me to invest in my education and grow as a researcher in the bioengineering field. Besides my main education goals (two M.Sc. degrees and three Ph.D. degrees achieved from 2005 to 2017), I have carried out research activities at the Department of Public Health of the University of Naples "Federico II" as a research fellow from 2010 to 2017 and as a senior researcher from 2017 on, also achieving the National Academic Qualification as Associate Professor in the sector 09/G2—Bioengineering.

4. Do you have any valuable suggestions you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
I would encourage young students and early career researchers to always invest in their education and professional growth as this is one of the most powerful tools to make their value emerge and to effectively pursue their goals. In addition, as research and innovation change and advance very fast, whatever their background is, I would warmly recommend young students to make efforts in understanding their real and profound motivation as it will always provide them with the strength and necessary determination to deal with new research topics and to face new technological, social, and health challenges.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
I strongly believe in sharing and spreading research advancements with the scientific community. Therefore, I fully support and absolutely agree with Open Access in publishing as a means to foster innovation and as an incentive to learn from the most valuable and outstanding scientific approaches and outcomes in order to bring further improvements by building on solid shared knowledge.

We are thankful for Prof. Dr. Improta's time and support for Bioengineering.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, Editor-in-Chief of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), to discuss the recent research trends in the field and his personal career development.

Persistence and perseverance, vim and verve.

Prof. Dr. Anthony Guiseppi-Elie is a Chief Academic Officer and serves as Vice President of Academic Affairs and Workforce Development at Tri-Country Technical College, USA. He was the Founding Dean of the College of Engineering, Vice President of Industry Relations, and University Distinguished Professor at Anderson University, South Carolina. He is the former Associate Dean of Engineering Innovation in Engineering Medicine (ENMED) at Texas A&M University (TAMU) and Houston Methodist Hospital (HMH), where he was the TEES Professor of Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. At Houston Methodist Hospital, he was a Full Affiliate Member of the Houston Methodist Research Institute and a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences and Engineering. Previously, he was Department Head of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the TEES Division of Biomedical Engineering at TAMU and directed the Bioelectronics, Biosensors and Biochips (C3B^®) Laboratories as a member of the joint EnMed Faculty Regenerative Engineering Working Group. He is the Founder, President, and Scientific Director of ABTECH Scientific, Inc., a near-patient biomedical diagnostics company, and has been associated with three start-up companies.

He holds an Sc.D. in materials science and engineering from MIT, an M.Sc. in chemical engineering (corrosion science and engineering) from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and a B.Sc. (First Class Honors) with majors in analytical chemistry, biochemistry, and applied chemistry from the University of the West Indies (UWI). He spent 15 years in both intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial industrial research and product development at companies such as WR Grace & Co, Molecular Electronics Corporation and ABTECH Scientific, Inc., before becoming a full Professor of Chemical and Life Science Engineering (1998) and Professor of Emergency Medicine (2000) at Virginia Commonwealth University/Medical College of Virginia. In 2006, he joined Clemson University as the Dow Chemical Professor with appointments in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Bioengineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2015, he joined TAMU and in 2020 joined Anderson University.

As a founding professor of the department of Chemical and Life Sciences Engineering, Prof. Dr. Anthony Guiseppi-Elie was instrumental in establishing the School of Engineering at VCU, serving as the first full professor of Chemical and Life Sciences Engineering, center director, and as a member of the Dean’s Cabinet (Dean Dr. Henry McGee). As a full professor at the Department of Emergency Medicine in the Medical College of Virginia (MCV-VCU), Prof. Dr. Guiseppi-Elie played a key role in recruiting the first class and led the development of an innovative curriculum at the interface of chemical engineering and the life sciences. At Clemson University, he held appointments at the departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Bioengineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. At Clemson, Prof. Dr. Guiseppi-Elie developed the Biomolecular Concentration, which included courses in biomolecular engineering, bionanotechnology, and biosensors and bioelectronics that served all three departments. At Texas A&M, he served as a founding member of the Working Group on Engineering-Medicine (ENMED) that worked over four years to develop a partnership with Houston Methodist Hospital and realize a program of study leading to the simultaneous earned MS in Engineering Innovation and the MD, both earned in four years of study.

Prof. Dr. Guiseppi-Elie is a 2015–2010 Fulbright Specialist Award recipient in bioengineering at the University of Tucumán, Tucumán, Argentina, the 2017 Visiting Distinguished Professor of Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering at Wrocław University in Poland, the 2014–2015 Visiting Distinguished Professor of Industrial Bioelectronics at l'Ecole des mines d'Alès, France, the 2013 Avis Professor in Pharmaceutics at the University of Tennessee, a 2012–2013 IEEE-EMBS Distinguished Lecturer, and a 2012 Microsystems Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Maryland. Prof. Dr. Guiseppi-Elie is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE Fellow-2006), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC-2014), A Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (FIEEE-2016), a Lifetime Member of AIChE, and holds memberships in AAAS, ACS, MRS, AAPS, and BMES. He has previously served as Vice Chair, Co-Chair, and Secretary Treasurer of the AIMBE Industry Council and was the 2017–2018 Chair of the AIMBE College of Fellows. He is a graduate of the Academic Leadership Academy at Penn State University and serves on the External Advisory Board of the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Florida, the Board of Directors of STEAM-E, and The Council for Frontiers of Knowledge (The CFK) (Uganda).

Among Prof. Dr. Guiseppi-Elie’s many national and international appointments are as a member of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) sub-committee on “Mathematical and Physical Sciences and the Living World” (2020), an appointed member of the International Panel on “Science for Technological Innovation (sfTI)” of the National Science Challenge, New Zealand (2018–2020), an appointed member of the NSF-Lead US Delegation to a Joint USA-Russia Workshop on “Emerging Trends in Bioelectronics” Electrical, Communications and Cyber System Division and the Office of International Science and Engineering (2011), an appointed member of the National Academies Panel on “Electronics and Electrical Engineering” (2009) of the US National Research Council (2009), and an appointed member of the International Panel for “Review of Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions” of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) of Ireland.

Prof. Dr. Guiseppi-Elie has taught technical innovation, entrepreneurship, biomolecular and cellular engineering, biosensors and bioelectronics, biological transport phenomena, and nanobiotechnology. His research interests are engineered bioanalytical microsystems in the service of human health and medicine. This includes bionanotechnology, microfabrication, and 3D printing of bio- and electro-responsive hydrogels, BioMEMS, physiology-on-a-chip, ABIO-BIO interfaces, and interfacing of biology and engineering at the molecular, cellular and tissue length scales. He has published over 225 archival scientific papers (8731 citations, h-index = 48), 33 book or proceedings chapters, holds 8 USA and foreign patents, and has given in excess of 200 invited lectures/colloquia. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Bioengineering (IF = 5.046). He was named among the top 1000 Black life scientists in the USA (2020) and the top 2% of scientists worldwide (2021).

We wish to congratulate Prof. Dr. Anthony Guiseppi-Elie for being listed among the top 2% of scientists worldwide. We hope you enjoy the interview!

1. What are your research areas?
My research interests are in the fundamentals: engineering development and clinical deployment of engineered bioanalytical microsystems in the service of human health and medicine. These are measurement devices and systems intended to engender greater control in clinical decision-making, and they employ a wide range of enabling technologies, including carbonaceous nanomaterials in bionanotechnology to support direct electron transfer and biosensor development, microlithographic fabrication of implantable biochip substrates to enable multiplexed biosensing of biomarkers in hemorrhagic trauma, 3D printing of bioactive and electro-responsive hydrogels as biorecognition hosting elements in biosensors, BioMEMS, vascular physiology-on-a-chip, ABIO-BIO interfaces to support neurostimulation, and the interfacing of biology and engineering at the molecular, cellular, and tissue-length scales. Among the areas to which I have made major contributions are enzymes, antibodies, and genosensors that employ electrochemical transduction. Another area of interest has been the development of biologically responsive polymers based on the synthesis of co-polymers fashioned from inherently conductive polymers such as Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) and polypyrrole with highly hydratable monomers such 2-Hydroxyethyl Methacrylate (2-HEMA) and 2-Hydroxypropyl Methacrylate (2-HPMA) and functionalized polypeptides to yield bioactive, electroconductive hydrogels. Such materials may be fashioned into responsive hydrogels that host a drug payload for sustained bio-erodible release and/or electro-stimulated burst release. Most recently, we have become interested in electromics, which is the control of gene expression under the influence of exogenously applied electric fields.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
The latest developments in the field of biosensors are found in multiplexed and multimodal biosensors. Multiplexed biosensors use the same principle of transduction but seek a plurality of analytes using a multiplicity of biological recognition elements immobilized on different regions of the complex transducer. Multimodal biosensors may target the same analyte but may use two or more modes of transduction. An equally important development is the use of post-processing to achieve data fusion with other sources of related bioanalytical data or with clinical expert data. The use of data fusion algorithms to achieve classification or stratification is exampled by the use of AI to fuse multi-modal biophysical and biochemical data to achieve stratification of allografts for transplantation.

Another important development is the use of electric fields to influence the expression of genes within cells and tissues. While electrobiology has been around for a very long time and molecular bioelectricity has provided important insight into electrophysiology, the application of controlled electric fields to support neo-vascularization or tissue innervation in regenerative engineering promises to be an important theme for the future.

3. Can you share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
The landmark discovery that some organic polymers may be inherently conductive, possessing electrical conductivities and other properties similar to that of metals, was irresistibly fascinating [H. Shirakawa, E. J. Louis, A. G. MacDiarmid, C. K. Chiang, A. J. Heeger, Synthesis of electrically conducting organic polymers: halogen derivatives of polyacetylene, (CH)_x, Journal of the Chemical Society, Chemical Communications, 578–580]. This, and the subsequent works that became the substance of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, came on the heels of Lehninger’s electron-transport chain of molecular bioenergetics, in which I had become immersed as an undergraduate biochemistry student. I spent my early career exploring the connections between these two streams, which led to: Guiseppi-Elie US Patent 5,312,762 5/1994 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5312762A/en?oq=5312762) and Guiseppi-Elie et al. Nanotechnology, 2002, 13(5), 559 (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0957-4484/13/5/303). A second source of influence has been the textbook by Alan J. Grodzinsky—Fields, Forces, and Flows in Biological Systems, ISBN 9780367864354. I have taught from and been inspired by the holistic treatment across multiple length scales found in this textbook.

4. Do you have any valuable suggestions you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
We are each birthed into an ecosystem of ideas and approaches to the emergence of new ideas in that ecosystem. The faster we can shed the trappings of our own and embrace those of others—for example, through travel, through forays into other disciplines, or immersive associations with other cultures, or collaborations—the faster we can mature in our humanity and in our inquiry. Stick with it, but not indefinitely. Be prepared to tack left or right, taking with you lessons learned. Collaborate extensively, recognizing that with each collaboration, you must sacrifice some of yourself so that the collaboration as a whole is better than the sum of each person taken separately. Be prepared to fail; it is an equally valid condition. Dwell on your failures, but do not become paralyzed by them; they are far more informative than your successes.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
I am an advocate for Open Access publishing. Open Access publishing broadens participation in the knowledge enterprises through access and availability, and so engenders greater citizen engagement with qualified knowledge sources. I joined MDPI with a proposal to establish Bioengineering in early 2013 (ISSN (electronic): 2306-5354; Publisher: MDPI AG), not long after the publishing house was founded as Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute by Dr. Shu-Kun Lin in 2010. Gold OA publishing allows peer-reviewed journal works to be accessed via the journal’s or publisher’s website. Having been in the Open Access publishing space for almost 10 years, I see that Open Access publishing continues to approach maturity, but also continues to receive some scrutiny and criticism for being a double-edged sword in both perception and practice. Open Access publishing may not yet be fully “out of the woods”, even though this model is now adopted by several major traditional scientific publishing houses, for select or new journals. This model may still be vulnerable while on the path to full maturity. Open Access journals that have benefitted from highly disciplined, deeply engaged academic editorial leadership have reaped the benefits of high Impact Factors. For example, MDPI is home to 10 journals with IF ≥ 5.000 (Clarivate, Journal Citation Reports). It is important that we continue to maintain quality and integrity while democratizing knowledge. Financial self-sufficiency and sustainability continue to be a source of concern in the Open Access space. However, subscribing to the tenets of COPE ensures a culture of publication integrity. Sustained and productive consultative relationships among publishers and Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors, and Editorial Board Members who are credible content experts will ensure a secure future for Open Access publishing, one that balances the security of the new financial model with the aspirations of equity and integrity in scientific publishing.

The Founding Editor-in-Chief next to our booth at BMES 2022 in San Antonio, TX, USA

We are thankful for Prof. Dr. Anthony Guiseppi-Elie’s time and his ongoing support of Bioengineering.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. David Caballero, author of the recently published paper “Versatile Vessel-on-a-Chip Platform for Studying Key Features of Blood Vascular Tumors” in Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). We discussed the recent research trends in the field and his personal career developments.

We hope you enjoy the interview.

1. Congratulations on your published paper. Can you provide a background about yourself and what your research areas are?
I am an experienced biophysicist with an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in nanoscience from the University of Barcelona, Spain. Currently, I am an assistant researcher at the 3B´s Research Group at the University of Minho, Portugal, a world-known institute in the field of tissue engineering. Since very early on, particularly during my postdoctoral periods at ISIS/IGBMC—Université de Strasbourg (France) and at IBEC (Spain)—and now at 3B´s, I have been very passionate about applying the concepts and principles of fundamental physics to biological problems. My experiments are typically very multidisciplinary and combine microfabrication, tissue engineering, cell biology, and biophysics. The aim is to engineer realistic in vitro environments from which we can extract useful data that can be used to improve our understanding of the mechanisms involved in the onset and progression of pathologies. For example, one of my current research interests is recreating the dynamic properties of the native habitat of cells using organ-on-a-chip technology to evaluate how mechanical forces contribute to the pathophysiology of cancer. Indeed, this research field has attracted much attention from biomedical researchers and a lot of effort is currently being invested in the mechanobiology of cancer. In my case, I am interested in understanding how cancer cells migrate through confined spaces, such as vascular walls or dense matrices, and how they respond to external forces, particularly fluid flow, boosting their invasion capability. We hope that our discoveries can improve our current knowledge in the pathophysiology of the disease and eventually contribute to developing better therapies. Altogether, the combination of (bio)physics and nanotechnology in the biological field is an exciting field of research in which we will continue to see exciting results in the coming years.

2. What made you decide to publish an article in Bioengineering?
One of the most important decisions before and after writing an article is where to submit it. Indeed, there are a bunch of excellent multi-disciplinary journals in which my research could be published. A distinctive feature of Bioengineering though is the strong offer in Special Issues. After receiving the invitation from the editor, we realized that our work perfectly fit within the proposed topic and, therefore, the publication of our article would receive higher attention boosting the impact and interest in our work. After evaluation of the pros and cons of different journals, we decided to submit our article to Bioengineering. We cannot forget the big progression of Bioengineering during the last years, making this journal a very good option for publishing work in the field of tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, biophysics, or similar fields.

3. How was your experience publishing with Bioengineering?
I was indeed surprised, not only about the speed of the peer-reviewing process, but also about its quality. Typically, the time between the submission and publication of an article is very long, being in some cases several months. Sometimes this timeframe is too long, which may jeopardize the novelty of the work or a grant application, or both. Despite the speed of the peer-reviewing, I had two tough rounds of revisions. This contributed to improving the quality of the manuscript and, as a result, increased the interest in the article by the scientific community.

4. Was it important to you that the journal is Open Access?
Nowadays, publishing in Open Access is mandatory for most national and European funding schemes. However, most of the journals have very expensive APCs, which many research groups cannot afford. There is the possibility of publishing in “green” Open Access, but, in certain cases, this option dilutes the spirit of granting easy access to the articles. Publishing in “gold” Open Access at a moderate cost allows the scientific community to have full access to the published manuscripts directly on the journal website without the need to navigate inside University repositories. Overall, this has definitely contributed to our paper reaching a larger audience.

5. What do you hope that readers will get from your paper?
After reading the paper, it will be understood better how the structural and hydrodynamic complexity of vascular tumors can be reproduced and analyzed through microfluidics technology and biophysical analysis. This type of tumor displays aberrant – tortuous – vessel architectures and highly perturbed blood flows and, therefore, in vitro organ-on-a-chip platforms capable of recapitulating these distinctive features are highly demanded by the biomedical community. The readers will realize how vascular tumors perturb blood hemodynamics, particularly through the massive formation of thrombus and blood hemorrhage, two of the main events that we reproduce within the chip. Overall, our work establishes the technological basis of a versatile microfluidic platform, that we denote tumor vessel-on-a-chip, capable of reproducing the distinctive structural and dynamic traits occurring in vascular tumors. Note finally that our system may be utilized for investigating other dynamic events characteristic of vascular-related diseases or for the screening of novel pharmacological formulations targeting thrombi formation and blood hemorrhage, among other applications.

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Gary Chinga Carrasco, Dr. Andrea Cataldo, Prof. Dr. Franz Konstantin Fuss, and Dr. Elena A. Jones have been appointed respective Section Editors-in-Chief of the Sections “Nanotechnology Applications in Bioengineering”, “Biomedical Engineering and Biomaterials”, “Biosignal Processing”, and “Regenerative Engineering” in Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). We look forward to their contribution to the continued success of the journal.

For more detailed information, please visit the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/sections.

Bioengineering Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Ngan F. Huang, Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), to discuss the recent research trends in the field and her personal career developments. We hope you enjoy the interview.

Dr. Ngan F. Huang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Courtesy Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. She holds a co-terminous appointment as Principal Investigator at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Dr. Huang completed her BS in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by a Ph.D. in bioengineering at the University of California Berkeley and the University of California San Francisco Joint Program in bioengineering. Prior to joining the faculty, she was a postdoctoral scholar in cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University. Her laboratory investigates the interactions between stem cells and the extracellular matrix microenvironment for engineering tissues to treat cardiovascular and musculoskeletal diseases.

Dr. Huang has authored over 90 publications and patents in journals such as Nat Med, PNAS, and Nano Lett. Her research is funded by the NIH, the NSF, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veteran Affairs, and the American Heart Association.

The following is an interview with Dr. Ngan F. Huang:

1. What are your research areas?
My laboratory aims to understand the biochemical and mechanical interactions between extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins and stem cells that regulate cardiovascular differentiation, survival, and angiogenesis, with the goal of translating these basic insights to the design of biological therapies to treat cardiovascular disease and muscle injuries. Ongoing projects include ECM-mediated effects on the endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition, spatially patterned nanofibrillar collagen scaffolds with induced pluripotent stem-cell-derived endothelial cells for the treatment of peripheral arterial disease, scaffold-mediated delivery of therapeutic smooth muscle cells for treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm, and engineered muscle for the treatment of volumetric muscle loss.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
With recent technological advancements, there is a general push towards the use of multi-omics approaches to better understand the pathological progression of cardiovascular diseases, as well as the use of multi-omics to reveal fundamental insights into the effects of experimental therapies. I anticipate that spatial transcriptomics, spatial proteomics, single-cell RNA sequencing, and epigenomics will become widely adopted tools for researchers.

3. Can you briefly share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
My research career began as a high school student, when I had the experience to perform research as a summer intern. This experience motivated me to pursue a graduate degree in research. Along the way, I was fortunate to have been mentored by many influential mentors who took an interest in advancing my career. For this reason, I am grateful and have sought to do the same for my own trainees.

4. Do you have any valuable suggestions you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
Resilience. Successful researchers do not always have smooth career development. My advice is to not be discouraged by setbacks, but to keep inching forward with resilience.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
Open Access allows for the widest dissemination of findings to the global community. Overall, I think it is a good idea that moves research advances forward.

We are thankful for Dr. Huang's time and support of Bioengineering.

Prof. Dr. Christoph Herwig, a bioprocess engineer from RWTH Aachen, worked in industry in the design and commissioning of large chemical facilities prior to beginning his interdisciplinary Ph.D. studies at EPFL, Switzerland in bioprocess identification. Subsequently, he positioned himself at the interface between bioprocess development and facility design in the biopharmaceutical industry. Since 2008, he has been a full professor in biochemical engineering at the Vienna University of Technology. His research area of focus includes the development of data science methods for the integrated and efficient bioprocess development of PAT and QbD principles for biopharmaceuticals. In 2013, he founded the company Exputec, which is now part of Körber Pharma, pioneering data science software solutions for the biopharma life cycle.

The following is a short interview with Prof. Dr. Christoph Herwig:

1. What are your research areas?
Methods for efficient and scalable bioprocess development.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
Digital twins integrated into real-time solutions for optimized control solutions and continuous biomanufacturing.

3. Can you briefly share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
I have seen the biopharmaceutical industry change during my industrial career. I have also seen many decisions made around empiricism and manufacturing outcomes based on hope rather than on prediction. This is what I wanted to change from the basis: providing robust, transferable and sound scientific methods.

4. Do you have any valuable suggestions you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
Have affinity for data. Believe that you don’t always need more experiments and data, but take time and use advanced data science methods to turn data into knowledge. Base your decisions on knowledge, and establish knowledge management in your organization.

5. What do you think of the development of open access in publishing?
It is crucial and a basis for the transparent sharing of knowledge between organizations across the world.

We are thankful for Prof. Dr. Herwig's time and support of Bioengineering.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Danièle Noël, Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), to discuss the recent research trends in the field and her personal career development. We hope you enjoy the interview.

Dr. Danièle Noël is currently Research Director at Inserm at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapies (IRMB) in Montpellier. She received her Ph.D. in health biology from Bordeaux University in 1992. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Montpellier in the field of recombinant retrovirology and gene therapy (1992–1999). She then moved to IRMB to work in cell therapy and became a professor in 2011. She is currently leading the group, “Organoids, Mesenchymal stromal cells and Extracellular vesicles for osteoarticular diseases therapies”, which includes 11 staff members. Her main interests are the biology of mesenchymal stromal cells and their application in the treatment of osteoarticular diseases and systemic sclerosis.

Her main focuses are:

• The identification of molecular mechanisms regulating the therapeutic effect of mesenchymal stromal cells and the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs);
• The optimization of cells and EV-based therapeutic approaches for regenerative medicine in rheumatic and autoimmune diseases;
• The optimization of cartilage tissue engineering approaches and joint organoid generation using a combination of molecular factors, scaffolds and 3D bioprinting.

She has authored more than 180 publications (h-index: 64; citations: 16310) and is currently a partner in three European programs.

The following is a short interview with Dr. Danièle Noël:

1. What are your research areas?
Mesenchymal stromal cells; extracellular vesicles; osteo-articular diseases; and therapies.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
Extracellular vesicles from mesenchymal stromal cells for the development of new acellular therapies in various therapeutic applications.

3. Can you briefly share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
I have held an academic position at the French National Institute for Health since 2007, where I integrated a laboratory as a senior researcher and, since 2011, I have become a research director leading a research group of more than 12 people.

4. Do you have any valuable suggestions you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
Keep motivated to develop your own research projects and lead a research group.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
I think it is a great opportunity to share your research results to a very large community. I totally agree with Open Access for research.

We are thankful for Dr. Noël's time and support of Bioengineering.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Reeta Rani Singhania, an Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), to discuss the recent research trends in the field and her personal career developments. We hope you enjoy the interview.

1. What are your research areas?
My main research expertise is in the areas of microbial and enzyme technology, with the main focus on the development of bioprocesses and bioproducts. I have worked extensively on the production of cellulase and beta-glucosidase for biofuel applications. I have also worked on a major integrated project, with the final aim of producing biohydrogen by utilizing agro-wastes. My current work at NKUST in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, is on the “Bioprocess development for biomass valorization”. In this direction, we have been working on oligosaccharides for prebiotic application and bioethanol production, using locally available abundant biomass. Hydrothermal pretreatment and controlled enzymatic hydrolysis have been explored for this purpose. We have also explored bacterial bioprocesses for nanocellulose production, which has immense applications in various fields and we have explored its potential for heavy metal removal. Overall, in one word, I can summarize my area of research as biorefinery.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
Biorefinery is moving quickly, and we have succeeded in developing enzymes for biomass saccharification at high-solid loading with higher efficiencies, which has provided us with several patents and the technology is in the matured stage. Now, I am more focused on understanding biomass deconstruction via hydrothermal pretreatment. Research in this field has resulted in our understanding of how biomass can be deconstructed into each component and the multiple ways of producing cascades of products out of it. Various biomass feedstocks, including lignocellulosic biomass, macroalgae, and microalgae, have been employed to produce various products, including platform chemicals, along with oligosaccharides and bioethanol.

3. Can you briefly share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
I started my career in 2002 as a lecturer at a university (GGV in Bilaspur, India) and shortly switched to research at the CSIR Institute in India, National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, Trivandrum, as a project assistant in the group of Professor Ashok Pandey, the leading biotechnologist in India now, where I studied for my doctoral degree with Dr. Rajeev Sukumaran and thereafter, my real research journey started, as I was granted an opportunity to showcase my independent research capabilities at various institutes and in the industry. I moved to France to work at Institute Pascal at Clermont Ferrand and thereafter moved back to India with a prestigious fellowship (“DBT-Energy Bioscience Overseas Fellowship”) to work at the Center for Advanced Bioenergy Research, DBT Center (Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, R & D, Faridabad, India). I think that in the initial stages of my career, I was influenced by biomass conversion using enzymes, which we were producing ourselves in the laboratory. For me, it was amazing to observe how leaves and twigs were converted into ethanol. I realized that in this way, the carbon footprint can be reduced; moreover, lignocellulosic biomass is the most ubiquitous and abundant raw material available that can benefit mankind; hence, technology can be used in the absence or depletion of petro-refinery products. I can see the potential for translational research and laboratory work to be scaled up to an industrial level to see the light of commercialization.

I dedicated my energy to improving my knowledge to a higher standard, so that I could be a well-equipped professional researcher and a teacher.

4. Do you have any valuable suggestions that you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
I think the best advice I received from my mentors that I can share with young students is to keep learning and to never stop learning because there is always something new to learn to improve your skills and understanding of concepts. There are no alternatives to sincerity and dedication and these are essential in order to succeed in your field. One must also have patience.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
The concept of Open Access in publishing has opened a new door for students, researchers, and scientists to have easy access to research in their respective areas of interest and expertise to explore innovative ways to understand and perform their research work. I think it is an interesting way to publish research work that is relevant both now and in the future.

We are thankful for Prof. Dr. Singhania's time and support for Bioengineering.

Dr. Martin Koller was awarded his Ph.D. degree by Graz University of Technology, Austria, for his thesis on polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) production from dairy surplus streams. This work was carried out as part of the EU-FP5 financed project, WHEYPOL (“Dairy industry waste as source for sustainable polymeric material production”), and was supervised by Gerhart Braunegg, one of the most eminent PHA pioneers. As a senior researcher, he worked on biomediated PHA production, encompassing the development of continuous and discontinuous fermentation processes and novel downstream processing techniques for sustainable PHA recovery. His research focused on cost-efficient PHA production from surplus materials using bacteria and haloarchaea and, to a minor extent, on the development of PHA for biomedical use.

Moreover, Dr. Martin Koller coordinated the EU-FP7 project ANIMPOL (“Biotechnological conversion of carbon containing wastes for eco-efficient production of high added value products”), which, in close cooperation between academia and industry, investigated the conversion of the animal processing industry´s waste streams toward structurally diversified PHA and follow-up products. In addition to PHA exploration, he was also active in microalgal research and in the biotechnological production of various marketable compounds from renewables using yeasts, chlorophyte, bacteria, archaea, fungi, and lactobacilli.

He currently holds more than 90 Web of Science listed articles in high-ranked scientific journals (h-index 40), has authored more than 20 chapters in scientific books, edited eight scientific books and seven journal Special Issues on PHA, delivered plenty of invited and plenary lectures at scientific conferences, and continues to support the editorial teams of several distinguished journals.

Now, Dr. Martin Koller is active as a research and project manager for the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Graz as a member of the university´s Research Management and Service unit. He is also a lecturer at the FH Joanneum (University of Applied Sciences, Graz) and an external supervisor for PHA-related projects.

The following is a short interview with Dr. Martin Koller:

1. What are your research areas?
   Microbial biopolyesters.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
   Biopolyester production from ethically clear resources (waste materials); novel fermentation regimes; new, robust production strains (Next Generation Industrial Biotechnology).

3. Do you have any valuable suggestions you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
   Stay curious!

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
   Personally, I am fully committed to Open Access publishing; however, in my opinion, fees are often too high, also for not exceptionally high-ranked journals.

We are thankful for Dr. Martin Koller’s time and his support for Bioengineering.

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

Prof. Dr. Zheng works as a Professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA. We hope you enjoy the interview.

1. What are your research areas?
   Medical imaging informatics, computer-aided diagnosis of medical images, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
   In the last several years, my medical imaging research laboratory in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the University of Oklahoma, has been working on several research projects that aim to identify new quantitative imaging (QI) markers and develop novel machine learning (ML)-based prediction models. These research efforts include using the QI features computed from: (1) digital mammograms to predict short-term breast cancer risk and classify between malignant and benign lesions; (2) dynamic-contrast-enhanced breast magnetic resonance images (DCE-MRI) to predict the response of breast cancer patients to neoadjuvant chemotherapy; (3) lung computed tomography (CT) images to predict the risk of cancer recurrence in early stage non-small-cell lung cancer patients after surgery; (4) abdominal CT images to predict the 6-month progression-free survival (PFS) of ovarian cancer patients undergoing clinical trials for testing new chemotherapy drugs; (5) abdominal CT images to predict the metastasis status of gastric cancer patients; and (6) brain CT and/or MR images to predict the prognosis of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage and acute ischemic stroke patients or detect/assess residual brain tumor tissue after surgery. In our studies, we have also applied and tested many new deep-learning-based artificial intelligence (AI) models combined with interactive graphical user interface (GUI) tools to facilitate our research work effort and support physician scientists in conducting translational clinical studies or research projects.

3. Can you briefly share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
   I was originally educated and trained as an Optical Engineer in my undergraduate and graduate studies to develop and apply optimal or laser-based imaging technology and systems in engineering. After I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Delaware, I accepted a postdoc training position in the Medical Imaging Research Division, Department of Radiology, University of Pittsburgh. I worked on a research task that aimed to modify optical imaging components in a new investigative computed radiology (CR) system for breast cancer imaging. After completing this task, the director of Medical Imaging Research Division, Dr. David Gur, introduced and encouraged me to enter a completely new research field of developing computer-aided detection (CAD) schemes of mammograms. I accepted this challenge and started to develop a new CAD scheme based on my master’s thesis work on applying optical theodolites to perform topographic measurement. I published my first CAD research paper entitled “Computerized detection of masses in digitized mammograms using single image segmentation and a multi-layer topographic feature analysis” (Academic Radiology 1995; 2:959–966). Since then, I have been working in the CAD research field for more than 28 years and gradually expanded my CAD research from breast cancer detection to much broader topics and different types of cancer (i.e., breast, lung, ovarian, gastro, leukemia) and strokes, including the prediction of disease risk, the classification of lesion types, and improvement in treatment efficacy. Thus, based on my unique career development experience, I always believe in and promote interdisciplinary research to use and apply complementary knowledge and skills from different fields, which can help generate more novel research ideas and approaches.

4. Do you have any valuable suggestions you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
   I am lucky to have had an outstanding mentor, Dr. David Gur, in my early academic career development. Dr. Gur provided me important guidance and great support that encouraged me to try new research ideas, identify research topics with higher translational impact, propose novel study hypotheses, learn lessons from failures, and improve my skills in writing research papers and proposals. Thus, to develop a successful research career, I always provide advice or suggestions to my students that one should have passion and dedication to the research work, keep trying from the failures, and gradually broaden their research vision by absorbing and fusing the knowledge and skills learned from multidisciplinary fields.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
   I agree that Open Access publishing provides an excellent platform to effectively promote and exchange new research ideas. It can help disseminate new research methods and results in more broad research communities in multidisciplinary fields.

We are thankful for Dr. Zheng's time and his support for Bioengineering.

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

Scientists at Stanford have recently published an update of the list of the top 2% most widely cited scientists—the World’s Top 2% Scientists.

The time node of the statistical data of this list is from 1960 to 2022, and it is divided into two lists: "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" and "2022 Annual Scientific Influence Ranking". The "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" counts the comprehensive influence performance of scientists during their careers, and the "2022 Annual Influence Ranking" focuses on highlighting the academic influence of scientists in the previous year. This ranking, considered the most prestigious worldwide, is based on the bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database and includes more than 200,000 researchers from the more than 10 million scientists considered to be active worldwide, with 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields taken into account.

We are pleased to share that 59 Editorial Board Members from MDPI’s Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354) were featured in the list of the World’s Top 2% Scientists in 2022.

The latest rankings reflect the significant influence and research excellence of the scientists, who are committed to furthering their knowledge for the benefit of the world.

We would like to congratulate our Editorial Board Members on their excellent achievement and thank them for their immense contribution to the scientific progression and development of Bioengineering.

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the issue cover papers from the Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354) journal published in 2021. The selected papers are listed below:

1. “Electrospun Fiber Scaffolds for Engineering Glial Cell Behavior to Promote Neural Regeneration”
by Devan L. Puhl, Jessica L. Funnell, Derek W. Nelson, Manoj K. Gottipati, and Ryan J. Gilbert
Bioengineering 2021, 8(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8010004
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/1/4

2. “Navigating the Collagen Jungle: The Biomedical Potential of Fiber Organization in Cancer”
by Jonathan N. Ouellette, Cole R. Drifka, Kelli B. Pointer, Yuming Liu, Tyler J Lieberthal, W John Kao, John S. Kuo, Agnes G. Loeffler and Kevin W. Eliceiri
Bioengineering 2021, 8(2), 17; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8020017
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/2/17

3. “Suitable CO₂ Solubility Models for Determination of the CO₂ Removal Performance of Oxygenators”
by Benjamin Lukitsch, Paul Ecker, Martin Elenkov, Christoph Janeczek, Christian Jordan, Claus G. Krenn, Roman Ullrich, Margit Gfoehler and Michael Harasek
Bioengineering 2021, 8(3), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8030033
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/3/33

4. “Octreotide-Targeted Lcn2 siRNA PEGylated Liposomes as a Treatment for Metastatic Breast Cancer”
by Vrinda Gote and Dhananjay Pal
Bioengineering 2021, 8(4), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8040044
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/4/44

5. “The Use of Microfabrication Techniques for the Design and Manufacture of Artificial Stem Cell Microenvironments for Tissue Regeneration”
by David H. Ramos-Rodrigue, Sheila MacNeil, Frederik Claeyssens and Ilida Ortega Asencio
Bioengineering 2021, 8(5), 50; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8050050
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/5/50

6. “Regenerative Strategies in Cleft Palate: An Umbrella Review”
by Inês Francisco, Anabela Baptista Paula, Bárbara Oliveiros, Maria Helena Fernandes, Eunice Carrilho, Carlos Miguel Marto and Francisco Vale
Bioengineering 2021, 8(6), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8060076
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/6/76

7. “Electrospun Microfibers Modulate Intracellular Amino Acids in Liver Cells via Integrin β1”
by Tianjiao Huang, John A. Terrell, Jay H. Chung and Chengpeng Chen
Bioengineering 2021, 8(7), 88; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8070088
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/7/88

8. “Dual Network Composites of Poly(vinyl alcohol)-Calcium Metaphosphate/Alginate with Osteogenic Ions for Bone Tissue Engineering in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery”
by Lilis Iskandar, Lucy DiSilvio, Jonathan Acheson and Sanjukta Deb
Bioengineering 2021, 8(8), 107; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8080107
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/8/107

9. “Improved Repopulation Efficacy of Decellularized Small Diameter Vascular Grafts Utilizing the Cord Blood Platelet Lysate”
by Panagiotis Mallis, Dimitrios P. Sokolis, Michalis Katsimpoulas, Alkiviadis Kostakis, Catherine Stavropoulos-Giokas and Efstathios Michalopoulos
Bioengineering 2021, 8(9), 118; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8090118
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/9/118

10. “Operative Workflow from CT to 3D Printing of the Heart: Opportunities and Challenges”
by Michele Bertolini, Marco Rossoni and Giorgio Colombo
Bioengineering 2021, 8(10), 130; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8100130
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/10/130

11. “Two-Stage Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) Production from Cheese Whey Using Acetobacter pasteurianus C1 and Bacillus sp. CYR1”
by Young-Cheol Chang, Motakatla Venkateswar Reddy, Kazuma Imura, Rui Onodera, Natsumi Kamada and Yuki Sano
Bioengineering 2021, 8(11), 157; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8110157
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/11/157

12. “Mechanisms Driving Microbial Community Composition in Anaerobic Co-Digestion of Waste-Activated Sewage Sludge”
by Jan Torsten Jeske and Claudia Gallert
Bioengineering 2021, 8(12), 197; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8120197
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/12/197

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the highly cited papers from Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), published in 2021. The selected papers are listed below:

1. “Collagen in Wound Healing”
by Shomita S. Mathew-Steiner, Sashwati Roy and Chandan K. Sen
Bioengineering 2021, 8(5), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8050063
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/5/63

2. “High-Throughput Screening Platforms in the Discovery of Novel Drugs for Neurodegenerative Diseases”
by Hasan Aldewachi, Radhwan N. Al-Zidan, Matthew T. Conner and Mootaz M. Salman
Bioengineering 2021, 8(2), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8020030
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/2/30

3. “Natural Biomaterials and Their Use as Bioinks for Printing Tissues”
by Claire Benwood,Josie Chrenek,Rebecca L. Kirsch, Nadia Z. Masri, Hannah Richards, Kyra Teetzen, and Stephanie M. Willerth
Bioengineering 2021, 8(2), 27; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8020027
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/2/27

4. “COVID-19 Biomarkers and Advanced Sensing Technologies for Point-of-Care (POC) Diagnosis”
by Ernst Emmanuel Etienne, Bharath Babu Nunna, Niladri Talukder, Yudong Wang and Eon Soo Lee
Bioengineering 2021, 8(7), 98; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8070098
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/7/98

5. “Characterization of Gelatin Hydrogels Cross-Linked with Microbial Transglutaminase as Engineered Skeletal Muscle Substrates”
by Divya Gupta, Jeffrey W. Santoso and Megan L. McCain
Bioengineering 2021, 8(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8010006
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/1/6

6. “Bioremediation of Agricultural Soils Polluted with Pesticides: A Review”
by Carla Maria Raffa and Fulvia Chiampo
Bioengineering 2021, 8(7), 92; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8070092
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/7/92

7. “An Update on Nickel-Titanium Rotary Instruments in Endodontics: Mechanical Characteristics, Testing and Future Perspective—An Overview”
by Alessio Zanza, Maurilio D’Angelo, Rodolfo Reda, Gianluca Gambarini, Luca Testarelli and Dario Di Nardo
Bioengineering 2021, 8(12), 218; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8120218
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/12/218

8. “The Role of Collagen-Based Biomaterials in Chronic Wound Healing and Sports Medicine Applications”
by David A. Yeung and Natalie H. Kelly
Bioengineering 2021, 8(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8010008
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/1/8

9. “Navigating the Collagen Jungle: The Biomedical Potential of Fiber Organization in Cancer”
by Jonathan N. Ouellette, Cole R. Drifka, Kelli B. Pointer, Yuming Liu, Tyler J Lieberthal, W John Kao, John S. Kuo, Agnes G. Loeffler and Kevin W. Eliceiri
Bioengineering 2021, 8(2), 17; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8020017
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/2/17

10. “3D Printing of Thermoresponsive Hydrogel Laden with an Antimicrobial Agent towards Wound Healing Applications”
by Martyna Nizioł, Justyna Paleczny, Adam Junka, Amin Shavandi, Anna Dawiec-Liśniewska and Daria Podstawczyk
Bioengineering 2021, 8(6), 79; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering8060079
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/8/6/79

Name: Dr. Dong-Wook Han
Email: nanohan@pusan.ac.kr
Article: “Advanced Techniques for Skeletal Muscle Tissue Engineering and Regeneration”

We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Dong-Wook Han, author of the recently published paper "Advanced Techniques for Skeletal Muscle Tissue Engineering and Regeneration", to discuss the recent research trends in scaffold fabrication for skeletal muscle tissue regeneration using advanced techniques, such as electrospinning and 3D bioprinting.

Dr. Dong-Wook Han works as an Professor at the Department of Optics and Mechatronics Engineering, BK21+ Nano-Integrated Cogno-Mechatronics Engineering, College of Nanoscience & Nanotechnology, Pusan National University. We hope you enjoy the interview!

1. Congratulations on your published paper. Can you give a bit of background about yourself and what your research areas are?
   I obtained my Ph.D. degree in the graduate program of biomedical engineering from Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea in 2004. After undertaking a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University, Japan for two and a half years, I joined the faculty of the Department of Optics and Mechatronics Engineering at Pusan National University. Since 2008, I have authored or co-authored over 180 scientific publications, possessed over 20 international and domestic patents, and joined several book chapters. My research interest concerns BT-NT convergence, especially tissue engineering and biomedical imaging with smart nanobiomaterials, development of artificial tissues, organs and medical devices by 3D printing, and assessment of nanomaterials toxicity (nanotoxicity).

2. What made you decide to publish a bioengineering article? Why did you choose Bioengineering?
   As a researcher in the field of biomedical engineering, I have been conducting tissue engineering research for the production of artificial structures that can replace various body parts such as bones, nerves, skin, and skeletal muscle based on diverse biomaterials for the past 20 years. To this end, it is essential to use advanced technologies such as electrospinning or 3D bioprinting to transform multifunctional nanobiomaterials into biocompatible and bioactive specific scaffolds. In recent years, I have been carrying out research with an emphasis on the creation of functional skeletal muscle. While I was thinking of writing a review paper to share and communicate with researchers in related fields about comparisons between other results and future prospects based on some experiences and know-how accumulated so far, I came across the introduction of the Special Issue of Bioengineering by chance, which led me to the decision to submit a paper here because I was convinced that it best suited my thoughts and intentions.

3. What was your experience publishing with Bioengineering?
   In a word, it was one of the best ever. Most journals and publishers operate their own characteristic submission system, but it is felt that the effectiveness of the system, although speed would be of great importance, depends on the accuracy of the review process, transparency, and the quality of review comments. In this respect, my experience publishing with Bioengineering is a so-called strong recommendation.

4. Was it important to you that the journal is open access?
   Whether a journal is open access or not is one of the most important factors when choosing a journal to submit my paper to. As mentioned above, review papers can be a valuable means to share many years of research experience and knowledge in a specific field with interested people as well as all researchers regardless of field, and open access is considered to be a basic prerequisite for this.

5. What do you hope that readers will get from your paper?
   The subject matter of my review paper dealt with advanced techniques such as electrospinning and 3D bioprinting using different types of polymers for skeletal muscle tissue engineering and regeneration. If relevant or interested researchers read my paper, I hope that it will be of some help in understanding the state-of-the-art research trend in various technology for skeletal muscle tissue engineering as well as in setting the direction of research or obtaining necessary ideas for your research.

We are now recruiting Reviewer Board Members for Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354, IF: 5.046). If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about promoting the publication of cutting-edge research, please contact the Bioengineering Editorial Office (bioengineering@mdpi.com) to apply.

Bioengineering is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal on the science and technology of bioengineering, published monthly online by MDPI. Bioengineering has been indexed within Scopus, SCIE (Web of Science), PubMed, PMC, CAPlus / SciFinder, and many other databases. The ambitions and scope of this journal are further described at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/about.

Reviewer Board Members’ benefits include:

• An announcement of your position on the journal’s Reviewer Board;
• A discount code for each review if a comprehensive and timely report is provided. These vouchers can be used for future publications in all MDPI journals;
• A personalized reviewer certificate;
• A flexible workload that can be tailored to your schedule;
• Recognition of your peer review and editorial contributions to our journal.

If you would like to apply for this role, please send a short CV to the Bioengineering Editorial Office (bioengineering@mdpi.com). We look forward to hearing from you.

Bioengineering Editorial Office

We are currently recruiting Topical Advisory Panel Members for Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354, IF: 5.046). Your responsibility would be to regularly provide support to Guest Editors and Editorial Board Members. More information regarding this is available at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/editors#Supporting_Editor_Responsibilities. The aims and scope of the journal can be found on the following website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/about.

The benefits of becoming a Topical Advisory Panel Member include the following:

• The opportunity to publish one paper in Bioengineering per year at a discount, as well as potential discounts for additional papers you invite;
• A certificate of recognition of your position;
• Additional sponsorships for conferences organized by Topical Advisory Panel Members of Bioengineering;
• Travel grants for conferences that you attend or organize.

The main responsibilities of new members of the Topical Advisory Panel are as follows:

• Providing regular reviews of manuscripts;
• Setting up at least one Special Issue (SI) in partnership with a senior researcher within two years of your appointment, with the topic of the proposal being within the scope of Bioengineering;
• Providing a strategy plan for the SI, including assisting in preparing the Special Issue’s/topic’s title, aim and scope, summary, and keywords, as well as soliciting papers for and promoting the SI;
• Promoting our journal at conferences, social media, and other relevant platforms.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in a field related to the journal;
• Have published at least six papers in the last five years as a first author or a corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

Each year, members’ performance is evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief. Please contact the Editorial Office (bioengineering@mdpi.com) or visit the following link to submit your application: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/topical_advisory_panel_application.

Bioengineering Editorial Office

Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354, IF: 5.046) is currently recruiting prestigious scholars from around the world to join our Editorial Board for the following five Sections:

• “Regenerative Engineering”;
• “Biochemical Engineering”;
• “Biosignal Processing”;
• “Biomedical Engineering and Biomaterials”;
• “Nanotechnology Applications in Bioengineering”.

Bioengineering is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal published monthly online by MDPI. It publishes original research papers, comprehensive reviews, communications and case reports. All aspects of bioengineering are welcomed, from theoretical concepts to education and applications.

The main responsibilities of Editorial Board Members are as follows:

• Pre-checking and making decisions for several manuscripts, based on your area of expertise;
• Acting as, or recommending, a Guest Editor for a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests;
• Promoting Bioengineering and increasing its visibility on related academic social media.
  

The benefits of becoming an Editorial Board Member include the following:

• The opportunity to publish one paper per year free of charge in Bioengineering, as well as the opportunity to receive certain discounts for papers invited from your scientific network;
• A certificate recognizing you as an Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering;
• Bioengineering may offer sponsorship for conferences organized by you;
• Bioengineering may offer travel grants of CHF 300–500 per year for conferences that you attend or organize.

To apply for this position (in one of our Sections), recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Bioengineering Editorial Office (bioengineering@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV (the applicants should have a good standing in the research area of bioengineering, and excellent editorial experience);
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Bioengineering Editorial Office

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the issue cover papers from Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), published in 2020. The selected papers are listed below:

1. “MMP24 as a Target of YAP Is a Potential Prognostic Factor in Cancer Patients”
by Wataru Sugimoto, Katsuhiko Itoh, Hiroaki Hirata, Yoshinori Abe, Takeru Torii, Yasumasa Mitsui, Yemima Budirahardja, Nobuyuki Tanaka and Keiko Kawauchi
Bioengineering 2020, 7(1), 18; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7010018
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/1/18

2. “Collagen Fibril Density Modulates Macrophage Activation and Cellular Functions during Tissue Repair”
by Jiranuwat Sapudom, Walaa Kamal E. Mohamed, Anna Garcia-Sabaté, Aseel Alatoom, Shaza Karaman, Nikhil Mahtani and Jeremy C. M. Teo
Bioengineering 2020, 7(2), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7020033
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/2/33

3. “Coupling of Fibrin Reorganization and Fibronectin Patterning by Corneal Fibroblasts in Response to PDGF BB and TGFβ1”
by Miguel Miron-Mendoza, Dalia Vazquez, Nerea García-Rámila, Hikaru R. Ikebe and W. Matthew Petroll
Bioengineering 2020, 7(3), 89; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7030089
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/3/89

4. “Encapsulation of Hydrophobic Drugs in Shell-by-Shell Coated Nanoparticles for Radio—and Chemotherapy—An In Vitro Study”
by Stefanie Klein, Tobias Luchs, Andreas Leng, Luitpold V. R. Distel, Winfried Neuhuber and Andreas Hirsch
Bioengineering 2020, 7(4), 126; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7040126
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/4/126

It is our pleasure to invite you to read the highly cited papers from Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), published in 2020. The selected papers are listed below:

1. “Up-Flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) Technology for Energy Recovery: A Review on State-of-the-Art and Recent Technological Advances”
by Matia Mainardis, Marco Buttazzoni and Daniele Goi
Bioengineering 2020, 7(2), 43; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7020043
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/2/43

2. “Progress in Delivery of siRNA-Based Therapeutics Employing Nano-Vehicles for Treatment of Prostate Cancer”
by Milad Ashrafizadeh, Kiavash Hushmandi, Ebrahim Rahmani Moghadam, Vahideh Zarrin, Sharareh Hosseinzadeh Kashani, Saied Bokaie, Masoud Najafi, Shima Tavakol, Reza Mohammadinejad, Noushin Nabavi, Chia-Ling Hsieh, Atefeh Zarepour, Ehsan Nazarzadeh Zare, Ali Zarrabi, and Pooyan Makvandi
Bioengineering 2020, 7(3), 91; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7030091
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/3/91

3. “Sol-Gel Derived Hydroxyapatite Coatings for Titanium Implants: A Review”
by Alaa Jaafar, Christine Hecker, Pál Árki and Yvonne Joseph
Bioengineering 2020, 7(4), 127; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7040127
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/4/127

4. “Green and Cost-Effective Synthesis of Metallic Nanoparticles by Algae: Safe Methods for Translational Medicine”
by Bushra Uzair, Ayesha Liaqat, Haroon Iqbal, Bouzid Menaa, Anam Razzaq, Gobika Thiripuranathar, Nosheen Fatima Rana and Farid Menaa
Bioengineering 2020, 7(4), 129; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7040129
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/4/129

5. “Nanocellulose-Based Inks for 3D Bioprinting: Key Aspects in Research Development and Challenging Perspectives in Applications—A Mini Review”
by Xiaoju Wang, Qingbo Wang and Chunlin Xu
Bioengineering 2020, 7(2), 40; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7020040
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/2/40

6. “3D Bioprinting Strategies for the Regeneration of Functional Tubular Tissues and Organs”
by Hun-Jin Jeong, Hyoryung Nam, Jinah Jang and Seung-Jae Lee
Bioengineering 2020, 7(2), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7020032
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/2/32

7. “Innovative Human Three-Dimensional Tissue-Engineered Models as an Alternative to Animal Testing”
by Patrick Bédard, Sara Gauvin, Karel Ferland, Christophe Caneparo, Ève Pellerin, Stéphane Chabaud and Stéphane Bolduc
Bioengineering 2020, 7(3), 115; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7030115
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/3/115

8. “Economic Perspectives of Biogas Production via Anaerobic Digestion”
by Arpit H. Bhatt and Ling Tao
Bioengineering 2020, 7(3), 74; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7030074
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/3/74

9. “Collagen Fibril Density Modulates Macrophage Activation and Cellular Functions during Tissue Repair”
by Jiranuwat Sapudom, Walaa Kamal E. Mohamed, Anna Garcia-Sabaté, Aseel Alatoom, Shaza Karaman, Nikhil Mahtani and Jeremy C. M. Teo
Bioengineering 2020, 7(2), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7020033
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/2/33

10. “Translational Roadmap for the Organs-on-a-Chip Industry toward Broad Adoption”
by Vanessa Allwardt, Alexander J. Ainscough, Priyalakshmi Viswanathan, Stacy D. Sherrod, John A. McLean, Malcolm Haddrick and Virginia Pensabene
Bioengineering 2020, 7(3), 112; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7030112
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/7/3/112

Conference: 2022 BMES Annual Meeting
Date: 12–15 October 2022
Place: San Antonio, Texas, USA
Booth: #346

MDPI will be attending the 2022 BMES Annual Meeting as an exhibitor from 12 to 15 October 2022 in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

BMES holds an annual meeting where they have hosted up to 5,500 biomedical engineers who attend more than 2,500 scientific presentations on cancer treatment, heart disease, women’s health, global health disparities, and more. The meeting allows members to advocate for their innovative solutions, demonstrating their commitment to the society’s core value of health equity for all individuals. In addition, BMES shares scientific information to inspire the up-and-coming generation through four scientific journals, three special interest groups, and collaborations with other scientific societies to elevate the visibility and significant impact that the biomedical engineering community has worldwide as the thought leaders behind the future of human health.

From 12 to 15 October 2022, in the vibrant multicultural city of San Antonio, we will celebrate the tremendous contributions made by BMES members in research, teaching, education, and the workforce that directly impact many sectors of our society. We also aim to highlight equity issues in healthcare and education, stemming from racial and socioeconomic diversity, gender and sexual orientation, and disabilities.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences;
• Bioengineering;
• Biomedicines;
• Biomimetics;
• Biomolecules;
• Biosensors;
• Cancers;
• CIMB;
• Diseases.

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you plan on attending this conference. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you might have.

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!

Conference: 49th World Polymers Congress MACRO 2022
Date: 17–21 July 2022
Place: Winnipeg, Canada
Booth: #6

Polymers (ISSN: 2073-4360) and Materials (ISSN: 1996-1944) will be attending the 49th World Polymers Congress MACRO 2022 as exhibitors from 17 to 21 July 2022 in Winnipeg, Canada.

The year 2022 marks the first time that Canada is hosting the World Polymers Congress since it became a biennial event in 1998. The polymer science community of Canada looks forward to connecting at the 49th World Polymers Congress, which is held in the city of Winnipeg from 17 to 21 July 2022. True to its mission, MACRO 2022 will be a forum for international scientists and students who are in various stages of their career development to share knowledge and experiences.

The MACRO 2022 program comprises nine themes that represent the following subjects:

• Polymers for Biomedical Engineering;
• Polymers for Energy and Environmental Applications;
• Polymer Engineering and Rheology;
• Polymers for Nanotechnology;
• Polymer Physics and Characterization;
• Polymers from Renewable Resources and Biodegradable Polymers;
• Polymer Science Education;
• Polymer Synthesis and Kinetics;
• Smart and Functional Polymers.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Polymers;
• Materials;
• Membranes;
• Pharmaceutics;
• Sustainability;
• Bioengineering;
• Gels;
• Electrochem;
• Solar.

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you plan on attending this conference. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you might have.

For more information about the conference, please visit the following website: https://www.macro2022.org/.

The purpose of our Best Paper Awards is to promote and recognize the most impactful contributions published within MDPI journals.

The academic editors of each journal carefully selected reviews and research papers through a rigorous judging process based on criteria such as the scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation of the papers published in the journal.

We are honored to present the winners in the “Engineering” category, who were selected amongst extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications.

Actuators:

• “Position Control of Pneumatic Actuators Using Three-Mode Discrete-Valued Model Predictive Control”
  by Haitao Qi, Gary M. Bone and Yile Zhang
  Actuators 2019, 8(3), 56; doi: 10.3390/act8030056
• “Review of Electrothermal Actuators and Applications”
  by Alissa Potekhina and Changhai Wang
  Actuators 2019, 8(4), 69; doi: 10.3390/act8040069

Batteries:

• “Pre-Lithiation Strategies for Rechargeable Energy Storage Technologies: Concepts, Promises and Challenges”
  by Florian Holtstiege, Peer Bärmann, Roman Nölle, Martin Winter and Tobias Placke
  Batteries 2018, 4(1), 4; doi: 10.3390/batteries4010004
• “A Critical Review of Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Processes from a Circular Economy Perspective”
  by Omar Velázquez-Martínez, Johanna Valio, Annukka Santasalo-Aarnio, Markus Reuter and Rodrigo Serna-Guerrero
  Batteries 2019, 5(4), 68; doi: 10.3390/batteries5040068
• “Critical Review of the Use of Reference Electrodes in Li-Ion Batteries: A Diagnostic Perspective”
  by Rinaldo Raccichini, Marco Amores and Gareth Hinds
  Batteries 2019, 5(1), 12; doi: 10.3390/batteries5010012
• “Life Cycle Analysis of Lithium-Ion Batteries for Automotive Applications”
  by Qiang Dai, Jarod C. Kelly, Linda Gaines and Michael Wang
  Batteries 2019, 5(2), 48; doi 10.3390/batteries5020048
• “Design Strategies for High Power vs. High Energy Lithium Ion Cells”
  by Michael J. Lain, James Brandon and Emma Kendrick
  Batteries 2019, 5(4), 64; doi: 10.3390/batteries5040064

Chemosensors:

• “Influence of Humidity on NO₂-Sensing and Selectivity of Spray-CVD Grown ZnO Thin Film above 400 °C”
  by Roussin Lontio Fomekong and Bilge Saruhan
  Chemosensors 2019, 7(3), 42; doi: 10.3390/chemosensors7030042
• “Low Molecular Weight Fluorescent Probes (LMFPs) to Detect the Group 12 Metal Triad”
  by Ashley D. Johnson, Rose M. Curtis and Karl J. Wallace
  Chemosensors 2019, 7(2), 22; doi: 10.3390/chemosensors7020022

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering:

• “Marine Application of Fiber Reinforced Composites: A Review”
  by Felice Rubino, Antonio Nisticò, Fausto Tucci and Pierpaolo Carlone
  Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(1), 26; doi: 10.3390/jmse8010026
• “Numerical Simulation of Large Wave Heights from Super Typhoon Nepartak (2016) in the Eastern Waters of Taiwan”
  by Shih-Chun Hsiao, Hongey Chen, Han-Lun Wu, Wei-Bo Chen, Chih-Hsin Chang, Wen-Dar Guo, Yung-Ming Chen and Lee-Yaw Lin
  Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(3), 217; doi: 10.3390/jmse8030217
• “Development of Deterministic Artificial Intelligence for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV)”
  by Timothy Sands
  Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(8), 578; doi: 10.3390/jmse8080578

Lubricants:

• “Solid Lubrication with MoS₂: A Review”
  by Mohammad R. Vazirisereshk, Ashlie Martini, David A. Strubbe and Mehmet Z. Baykara
  Lubricants 2019, 7(7), 57; doi:10.3390/lubricants7070057
• “Investigations of the Friction Losses of Different Engine Concepts. Part 1: A Combined Approach for Applying Subassembly-Resolved Friction Loss Analysis on a Modern Passenger-Car Diesel Engine”
  by Christoph Knauder, Hannes Allmaier, David E. Sander and Theodor Sams
  Lubricants 2019, 7(5), 39; doi: 10.3390/lubricants7050039
• “A Discussion on Present Theories of Rubber Friction, with Particular Reference to Different Possible Choices of Arbitrary Roughness Cutoff Parameters”
  by Andrea Genovese, Flavio Farroni, Antonio Papangelo and Michele Ciavarella
  Lubricants 2019, 7(10), 85; doi: 10.3390/lubricants7100085

Micromachines:

• “4D Printing of Multi-Hydrogels Using Direct Ink Writing in a Supporting Viscous Liquid”
  by Takuya Uchida and Hiroaki Onoe
  Micromachines 2019, 10(7), 433; doi: 10.3390/mi10070433
• “Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance and Mechanism of Au@CaTiO₃ Composites with Au Nanoparticles Assembled on CaTiO₃ Nanocuboids”
  by Yuxiang Yan, Hua Yang, Zao Yi, Ruishan Li and Xiangxian Wang
  Micromachines 2019, 10(4), 254; doi: 10.3390/mi10040254
• “Three-Dimensionally Structured Flexible Fog Harvesting Surfaces Inspired by Namib Desert Beetles”
  by Jun Kyu Park and Seok Kim
  Micromachines 2019, 10(3), 201; doi: 10.3390/mi10030201

Processes:

• “Accelerating Biologics Manufacturing by Modeling or: Is Approval under the QbD and PAT Approaches Demanded by Authorities Acceptable without a Digital-Twin?”
  by Steffen Zobel-Roos, Axel Schmidt, Fabian Mestmäcker, Mourad Mouellef, Maximilian Huter, Lukas Uhlenbrock, Martin Kornecki, Lara Lohmann, Reinhard Ditz and Jochen Strube
  Processes 2019, 7(2), 94; doi: 10.3390/pr7020094
• “Multiscale Agent-Based and Hybrid Modeling of the Tumor Immune Microenvironment”
  by Kerri-Ann Norton, Chang Gong, Samira Jamalian and Aleksander S. Popel
  Processes 2019, 7(1), 37; doi: 10.3390/pr7010037
• “Dynamic Flowsheet Model Development and Sensitivity Analysis of a Continuous Pharmaceutical Tablet Manufacturing Process Using the Wet Granulation Route”
  by Nirupaplava Metta, Michael Ghijs, Elisabeth Schäfer, Ashish Kumar, Philippe Cappuyns, Ivo Van Assche, Ravendra Singh, Rohit Ramachandran, Thomas De Beer, Marianthi Ierapetritou and Ingmar Nopens
  Processes 2019, 7(4), 234; doi: 10.3390/pr7040234

Sensors:

• “A Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Healthcare Blockchain for IoT”
  by Ashutosh Dhar Dwivedi, Gautam Srivastava, Shalini Dhar and Rajani Singh
  Sensors 2019, 19(2), 326; doi: 10.3390/s19020326
• “The Progress of Glucose Monitoring—A Review of Invasive to Minimally and Non-Invasive Techniques, Devices and Sensors”
  by Wilbert Villena Gonzales, Ahmed Toaha Mobashsher and Amin Abbosh
  Sensors 2019, 19(4), 800; doi: 10.3390/s19040800
• “Contact-Based Methods for Measuring Respiratory Rate”
  by Carlo Massaroni, Andrea Nicolò, Daniela Lo Presti, Massimo Sacchetti, Sergio Silvestri and Emiliano Schena
  Sensors 2019, 19(4), 908; doi: 10.3390/s19040908

World Electric Vehicle Journal:

• “Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer Charging Infrastructure for Future EVs: From Experimental Track to Real Circulated Roads Demonstrations”
  by Stéphane Laporte, Gérard Coquery, Virginie Deniau, Alexandre De Bernardinis and Nicolas Hautière
  World Electr. Veh. J. 2019, 10(4), 84; doi: 10.3390/wevj10040084

MDPI’s Young Investigator Awards recognize promising junior researchers, acknowledge their contributions, and enhance communication among scientists. We are proud to present the winners for the year 2021 in the “Engineering” category. The winners were selected by the journals’ editors.

We warmly congratulate the awarded Young Investigators for their outstanding contributions. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Biosensors:

• Amay J. Bandodkar, North Carolina State University, USA.

ChemEngineering:

• Andrew S. Paluch, Miami University, USA.

Chemosensors:

• Mindy Levine, Ariel University, Israel.

Electronics:

• Amir H. Gandomi, University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering:

• Tiago Fazeres-Ferradosa, University of Porto, Portugal.

Machines:

• Chen Lv, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore;
• Ignacio Gonzalez-Prieto, University of Malaga (UMA), Spain;
• Ning Sun, Nankai University, China.

Processes:

• Anton Rassõlkin, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia.

Sensors:

• Qammer H. Abbasi, Queen Mary University of London, UK;
• Chi Hwan Lee, Purdue University, USA.

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Engineering” category for their outstanding presentations and to present them with the prize.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage talented junior scientists to present their latest research at academic conferences in specific fields, which helps to increase their influence.

The winners mentioned below were carefully selected by the journal editors based on an outline of their research and the work to be presented at an academic conference.

We would like to warmly congratulate the winners of this year’s Travel Awards and wish them the greatest success with their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Actuators:

• Matthew Wei Ming Tan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Applied Sciences:

• Márcia de Sousa Oliveira, University of León, Spain;
• Caroline Sarah Taylor, University of Sheffield, UK;
• Raquel Viveiros, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal;
• Alfonso González Briones, University of Salamanca, Spain;
• Alen Horvat, University Carlos III Madrid, Spain;
• Marie Švecová, University of Chemistry and Technology, Czech Republic;
• Venanzio Giannella, University of Salerno, Italy;
• Michaël Lobet, University of Namur, Belgium;
• Lam Thi Ngoc Tran, National Research Council, Italy;
• Hanfei Mei, University of South Carolina, USA.

Applied System Innovation:

• Mert Nakip, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland.

Biosensors:

• Mengdi Bao, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA;

Yichi Su, Stanford University, USA.

Buildings:

• Karthik Panchabikesan, Concordia University, Canada;
• Xiaolei Yuan, Tongji University, China.

Chemosensors:

• Verónica Montes García, Université de Strasbourg & CNRS, France.

Electronics:

• Peng Hang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore;
• Alfonso González Briones, University of Salamanca, Spain.

Fluids:

• Alberto Zingaro, Politecnico di Milano, Italy;
• Sarah E. Morris, Auburn University, USA.

Infrastructures:

• Angelo Aloisio, University of L’Aquila, Italy;
• André Filipe Castanheira Alves Furtado, University of Porto, Portugal.

Journal of Low Power Electronics and Applications:

• Tommaso Zanotti, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy.

Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing:

• Nagalingam Arun Prasanth, Rolls-Royce@NTU Corporate Lab, Singapore.

Machines:

• Muhammad Jamil, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), China;
• Mariagrazia Tristano, Sheffield Hallam University, UK.

Processes:

• Michele Schlich, University of Cagliari, Italy;
• Álvaro Santana Mayor, University of La Laguna, Spain.

Sensors:

• Eleonora Macchia, Åbo Akademi University, Finland;
• Alfonso Gonzalez Briones, University of Salamanca, Spain;
• Saúl Vallejos Calzada, University of Burgos, Spain;
• Ana Novo, University of Vigo, Spain;
• Yalin Liu, Macau University of Science and Technology, China;
• Marilena Giglio, Politecnico of Bari, Italy;
• Yuzhi Shi, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who so generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers and demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when reviewing manuscripts, MDPI journals regularly offer outstanding reviewer awards to scholars who participate in the peer-review process.

We are proud to recognize the winners for the year 2021 in the “Engineering” category for their outstanding contributions among extensive competition by presenting them with an Outstanding Reviewer Award.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the winners on their achievement. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Actuators:

• Ryszard Dindorf, Kielce University of Technology, Poland.

Applied Sciences:

• Khaled Giasin, University of Portsmouth, UK;
• Jakub Krzysztof Grabski, University of Technology, Poland;
• Marcos Tostado-Véliz, University of Jaén, Spain;
• Luigi Pugliese, University of Calabria, Italy;
• Francesco Bennardo, University of Catanzaro, Italy;
• Heriberto Perez-Acebo, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Spain.

Biosensors:

• Amir Hatamie, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Buildings:

• Francesco Fiorito, Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy;
• Paul G. O’Brien, York University, Canada.

Chemosensors:

• Verónica Montes García, University of Strasbourg, France.

Machines:

• Piotr Gierlak, Rzeszow University of Technology, Poland;
• Sebastian A. Nugroho, University of Michigan, USA;
• Viorel Paleu, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Romania.

Processes:

• Marcin Dębowski, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland;
• Bartłomiej Zieniuk, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland;
• Zbigniew Nadolny, Poznan University of Technology, Poland;
• Attila Egedy, University of Pannonia, Hungary;
• Seok-Ho Rhi, Chungbuk National University, Korea.

Sensors:

• Hojong Choi, Kumoh National Institute of Technology, Korea;
• Li Fu, Hangzhou Dianzi University, China;
• Leonardo De Mello Honorio, Federal University of Juiz De Fora Juiz De Fora, Brazil;
• Mario Versaci, Mediterranea University, Italy;
• Robertas Damasevicius, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.

The 2021 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

For more information on Impact Factors and what it means to index academic journals, please visit our related blog posts.

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2022

Source: 2021 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ^TM (Clarivate, 2022)

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the Bioengineering Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program aims to provide an opportunity for early career scientists to enhance their editing, networking, and organizational skills and to work closely with our journal to gain more editorial experience. Early career scientists who have novel ideas for new Bioengineering Special Issues will act as Guest Editors under the mentorship of an experienced scientist; this mentor could be a member of the Editorial Board of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), from other well-established research institutes or laboratories, etc.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Providing a CV, including a list of publications;
• Proposing a Special Issue title and a short introduction;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue;
• Reviewing and making decisions for submissions under the mentorship of our Editorial Board Members.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Co-editing the Special Issue with younger scholars and performing quality control of the publications in the SI;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue.

Certificates and Awards:

When the Special Issue is closed, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors. The younger scholars will be prioritized as candidates for Bioengineering Young Investigator Awards in future editions.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Bioengineering Editorial Office (bioengineering@mdpi.com), and we will discuss the process (mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, Bioengineering continues to welcome all Special Issue proposals based on hot research topics as usual.

Bioengineering Editorial Office

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

We are pleased to announce that five new scholars have been appointed as Editorial Board Members for the journal Bioengineering (ISSN 2306-5354):

• Prof. Dr. Amol V. Janorkar (University of Mississippi Medical Center, USA);
• Prof. Dr. Wen-Ji Dong (Washington State University, USA);
• Prof. Dr. Ubaldo Armato (University of Verona Medical School, Italy);
• Dr. Christian Demitri (University of Salento, Italy);
• Prof. Dr. Michael Super (Harvard University, USA).

We wish them every success in their new position, and we look forward to their contributions to the journal.

It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Dr. Shang-Tian Yang, Prof. Dr. Mario Petretta, and Prof. Dr. Ning Sun, among others, as new Editorial Board Members for Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354).

We look forward to their contributions to the journal and the continued success of Bioengineering.

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

Academic editors play a crucial role in leading our journals and ensuring that each article undergoes a robust and timely peer-review. With the launch of Topics this year and addition of Topic Editors to our family of academic editors, we decided it would be a good time to restructure our academic boards, thus providing more clarity and support for each role. MDPI is pleased to announce the launch of a new position—Topical Advisory Panel Member, that will replace the previous position of Topics Board Member. The Topical Advisory Panel will be comprised of early career researchers eager to gain experience in editorial work.

The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Each year, the members’ performances are evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
• Have received a Ph.D. in the last 10 years, approximately;
• Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the editorial office by email.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Founded in 1996, MDPI was one of the first fully Open Access publisher. Over 25 years MDPI has grown to become the largest Open Access publisher globally, publishing over 160,000 articles across more than 350 journals in 2020. At the core, MDPI was founded in response to a pressing need of fast publication and inclusion. The scholar was set at the centre of the publication process for the first time. Acting as a service provider, rather than a product provider, MDPI exists to help scientists achive their objective to disseminate research results. At MDPI, we believe scientists deserve a better service from the publishing world.

The International Open Access Week (Open Access Week), founded by the SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Alliance and student partners in 2008, has been successfully running for 13 years. As an advocate and pioneer of open access publishing, MDPI actively responds to the call of International Open Access Week. This year’s theme of “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity” highlights the Recommendation’s call for equitable participation from all authors and readers.

For the last 25 years, MDPI has been committed to disseminating open research. Here is a video showing MDPI’s Commitment to Equity, Inclusion and Diversity for More than 25 Years.

International Open Access Week is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress in the building of more equitable foundations for opening knowledge—discussions and actions that need to be continued, year in and year out. MDPI has always aimed to provide professional and efficient publishing services to scholars around the world.

Our mission is to make scientific research accessible to everyone; this year, we interview and hold discussions with open science ambassadors on how to build an equal and inclusive environment for open science. Academic editors help us collaborate with more institutions to advocate for open access ideas.

Read our anniversary blog post: "Sharing 'Collective Human Knowledge': The Benefits of Open Access Publication"

Besides this, our scientific community is a key driver of our success and MDPI’s remarkable growth. Despite the pandemic, we have prepared online conferences and workshops to gather scholars from different communities.

The Basel Sustainable Publishing online forum provides an equal opportunity for stakeholders and researchers from multi-cultural environments to exchange ideas and eliminate barriers to participation.

Conference date: 25 October 2021, online
Conference website: https://bspf2021.sciforum.net/
Main topics: MDPI discusses the current dilemma of open access science from various perspectives such as governments, libraries, and publishers, and related measures on how to change the status quo of discrimination from a global perspective.

We aim to support equality, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications. We collaborate with universities and key laboratories and have scholarly communications with researchers, teachers, and students on open access workshops.

• 25 October 2021
  Energies journal and Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

• 28 October 2021
  Machines journal and State Key Laboratory of Traction Power, Southwest Jiaotong University

• 29 October 2021
  Processes journal and Beijing Institute of Technology

• 29 October 2021
  Coatings journal and Wuhan University of Technology

MDPI is committed to providing open access and high-quality publishing services for scholars and promoting rapid dissemination of academic achievements. We hope to promote the practices and policies of open access publishing and diversify the dissemination of academic achievements.

Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high-quality academic publishing. Over 369,916 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2020. We are extremely appreciative of all those who made a contribution to the editorial process in this capacity. At the beginning of every year, journal editorial offices publish a list of all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year, the MDPI Top Reviewer Award was announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise and dedication, and their high-quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2020 MDPI Top Reviewer Award:

• Adriana Burlea-Schiopoiu;
• Alban Kuriqi;
• Álvaro González-Vila;
• Alessandro Alaimo;
• Alexey Beskopylny;
• Alexander Yu Churyumov;
• Alberto Fernández-Isabel;
• Andrea Mastinu;
• Antonios N. Papadopoulos;
• Anton Rassõlkin;
• Antonio Humberto Hamad Minervino;
• Arkadiusz Matwijczuk;
• Artur Słomka;
• Baojie He;
• Bartłomiej Potaniec;
• Bojan Đurin;
• Camilo Arturo Rodriguez Diaz;
• Carmelo Maria Musarella;
• Chiachung Chen;
• Chiman Kwan;
• Cristian Busu;
• Danil Pimenov;
• Dan-Cristian Dabija;
• Delfín Ortega-Sánchez;
• Demetrio Antonio Zema;
• Denis Butusov;
• Elena Lucchi;
• Gaurab Dutta;
• Livia Anastasiu;
• M. R. Safaei.

For more information about how to become a reviewer of MDPI journals, please see: www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

We are honored to welcome our two new Editorial Board members, Prof. Dr. Luca Mesin from Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy, and Prof. Dr. Hala Zreiqat from The University of Sydney, Australia. We look forward to their contributions to the journal and the continued success of Bioengineering (ISSN 2306-5354).

The Annual Conference for the Society of Chinese Mechanical Engineering Biomanufacturing Division and the International Symposium on Bio-Manufacturing (ACBD-ISBM2023) will be held from 17 to 19 March 2023, in Beijing, China. The conference is organized by the Society of Chinese Mechanical Engineering Biomanufacturing Division, Beihang University, and co-organized by Tsinghua University, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, and Southeast University.

Symposia：

• Biomanufacturing and Regenerative Medicine;
• Bio-Bionic Manufacturing and Planting/Interventional Devices;
• Biosensor and Flexible Electronics Manufacturing;
• Multi-Scale Biomimetic Manufacturing;
• Micromanipulation and Minimally Invasive Instruments.
• Biological Modeling and Bio-3D Printing;
• Tissue and Organ Chip;
• Innovative Medical Devices and Biomaterials.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Bioengineering;
• Life
• Actuators;
• Applied Sciences;
• Biomimetics;
• Inventions;
• ASI;
• Machines.

UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. In 2020 the SDG Publishers Compact was launched, aimed to inspire publishers and accelerate progress to achieve the 17 goals by 2030. Members of the programme are committed to support the publication of materials that will promote and inspire actions towards SDGs.

MDPI is an eager advocate of SDGs and has already been supporting the programme by creating Special Issues and publishing a series of books on SDGs prior to joining the Compact in 2021. MDPI's Sustainability Foundation initiated the World Sustainability Awards in 2016. We fully support UN's goals to promote sustainable actions that make the world a better place for all and, as part of its commitment, we will focus our actions on SDG10: Reduced Inequalities whilst promoting all 17 SDGs. For more details, please visit the programme’s website: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-publishers-compact/.

Joining this initiative was a unanimous decision. MDPI has in its core values the dissemination of science for all, breaking the wall between research access and under-represented members of the scientific community and the general population. To support this initiative further and continue to support under-represented scientists, MDPI will take a series of actions that will be announced once ready.

The first action MDPI takes is to nominate Dr. Liliane Auwerter as the coordinator of the programme. Dr. Auwerter studied Environmental Process Technology (UTFPR, Brazil), obtained her MSc degree in Water and Environmental Engineering (University of Surrey, UK) and in 2020 completed her PhD in self-healing low-friction materials for water transport (Imperial College London, UK), always focusing on diverse scientific projects that would potentially bring sustainability to industrial processes. As a student in Brazil, she engaged in volunteering activities focused on environmental education and took part in the Millennial Development Goals meetings held at the university.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Liliane Auwerter
Scientific Officer
liliane.auwerter@mdpi.com

It is our great pleasure to announce that Bioengineering (ISSN 2306-5354) has been accepted for inclusion in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) in the Web of Science Core Collection. Articles published from Volume 1 (2014) will be indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, and the journal is expected to receive its first Journal Impact Factor in the June 2022 release of the Journal Citation Reports, published by Clarivate.

Bioengineering (ISSN 2306-5354) is an international, scientific, peer-reviewed, open access journal on the science and technology of bioengineering, published monthly online by MDPI.

We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to the editors, authors, and reviewers who contributed to the journal and enabled these achievements!

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

MDPI Books recently released Book Builder, a new online tool to conveniently arrange, design and produce an eBook from any content published in MDPI journals. Book Builder offers two functions: on the one hand (1) Selections, available to every registered user of MDPI; on the other hand (2) Special Issue Reprints, which can be used exclusively by Guest Editors of Special Issues.

Selections

In just a matter of a few clicks, all users are now able to assemble books from MDPI articles and receive instantaneous feedback in the form of a fully produced and compiled book (PDF), which can be downloaded or ordered as print copy. Selections can include any paper published with MDPI, picking and combining content from different journals and special issues.

This way, the user may for example choose to compile an ebook focusing around a particular topic, or assemble articles from a group of others.

We invite you to make yourself familiar with the new tool! The Book Builder can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/books/book_builder.

Special Issue Reprints

The Book Builder allows Guest Editors of MDPI journals to create a reprint from a successfully completed Special Issue or Topical Collection in book format. If you are a Guest Editor for an MDPI journal, you can use the new tool  to create an PDF document which includes all articles published in the Special Issue as well as a book cover and table of contents.

For Special Issues containing a minimum of 5 articles, the Guest Editor can request its publication on the MDPI Book platform. Published reprints are assigned an ISBN and DOI.

In addition to the PDF copy of the Reprint Book, as a token of our gratitude, MDPI offers every Guest Editor one (1) complimentary print copy (via print-on-demand). All contributors benefit from a discount on orders of any additional print copies, to share with colleagues or libraries or others.

Why choose MDPI Books?

In line with our organization's values, MDPI Books publishes all content in open access, promoting the exchange of ideas and knowledge in a globalized world. MDPI Books encompasses all the benefits of open access—high availability and visibility, as well as wide and rapid dissemination. MDPI Books are distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License, meaning as an author you retain the copyright for your work. In addition, with MDPI Books you can complement the digital version of your work with a high-quality printed counterpart.

If you are interested in editing a book volume or series, or have a monograph manuscript to be considered for publication, please submit your proposal online and look at our Information for Authors.

Contact: Laura Wagner, MDPI Books Manager (email)

In June of this year, MDPI will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its foundation. To mark this significant milestone, we have created a 25th Anniversary page on our website that evokes the development of our company over the past quarter-century.

MDPI has been a pioneer of Open Access publishing ever since the concept was first created.

In a wide-ranging interview, our CEO Delia Mihaila reflects on the company’s 25th anniversary and its contribution to the world of scientific publishing.

Delia considers how MDPI has evolved since starting life in 1996 as a visionary ‘project’ run out of an apartment in Basel, Switzerland, by Dr. Shu-Kun Lin. A chemist who was passionate about the long-term preservation of rare chemical sample, Dr. Lin was determined to help scholars publish their findings as quickly as possible and make their research results available to as wide a readership as possible worldwide. That determination remains unchanged 25 years later.

Today, MDPI is an international organization with over 4,000 employees based on three continents and in ten countries, and ranks among the world's top four academic publishers.

MDPI's mission is to accelerate access to new scientific research, delivering insight faster for researchers worldwide. Read more here about the company's remarkable success story and what the Open Access publishing model can offer the global scientific community.

At MDPI, we strive to make your online publication process seamless and efficient. To achieve this, our team is continuously developing tools and features to make the user experience useful and convenient.

As the number of academic papers continues to grow, so does the need to analyze and work with them on a large scale. This prompted us to design a new feature aimed at helping researchers find journals that are relevant to their publication by matching their abstract topic. In this regard, we designed a similarity model that automatically identifies the most suitable academic journals for your paper.

We are pleased to introduce Journal Selector, a new feature that measures similarity in academic contexts. By simply entering the title and/or abstract into our Journal Selector, the author will see a list of the most related scientific journals published by MDPI. This method helps authors select the correct journals for their papers, highlighting the time of publication and citability.

The methodology is known as representation learning, where words are represented as vectors in hyperspace. Representation helps us differentiate between different concepts within articles, and in turn, helps us identify similarities between them.

We used an advanced machine learning model to better capture the semantic meanings of words. This helps the algorithm make better predictions by leveraging scientific text representation. In turn, this ensures high precision, helping authors decide which journal they should submit their paper to.

The goal is to support authors to publish their work in the most suitable journal for their research, as fast as possible, accelerating their career progress.

Contact: Andrea Perlato, Head of Data Analytics, MDPI (email)

MDPI is proud to adopt the principles of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) to support building equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications.

The C4DISC represents organizations and individuals working in scholarly communications and is focused on addressing issues of diversity and inclusion within the publishing industry.

MDPI’s Managing Editors encourage the Editors-in-Chief and Associate Editors to appoint diverse expert Editorial Boards. This is also reflective in our multi-national and inclusive workplace. We are proud to create equal opportunities without regard to gender, ethnicity, geographic location, sexual orientation, age, disability, political beliefs, religion, or socio-economic status. There is no place for discrimination in our workplace and editors of MDPI journals are to uphold these principles in high regard.

Representatives from C4DISC meet monthly, and have started to implement initiatives to shed light and improve on the lack of diversity in scholarly communications. Some of the initiatives include developing a joint statement of principles; conducting market research; providing training resources, best practices, toolkits, and documentation for our collective memberships; and establishing outreach programs, curricula, events, and publications.

The Coalition is committed to:

• eliminating barriers to participation, extending equitable opportunities across all stakeholders, and ensuring that our practices and policies promote equitable treatment and do not allow, condone, or result in discrimination;
• creating and maintaining an environment that respects diverse traditions, heritages, and experiences;
• promoting diversity in all staff, volunteers, and audiences, including full participation in programs, policy formulation, and decision-making;
• raising awareness about career opportunities in our industries to groups who are currently underrepresented in the workforce;
• supporting our members in achieving diversity and inclusion within their organizations.

At MDPI we have slightly revised the layout for articles to be published in the 2021 Volume, starting at the end of December 2020. As of today, the article templates available for download on ‘Instructions for Authors’ pages have been updated.

The most noticeable change can be found on the first page of the article, where a left-hand column has been created to include the following front matter elements: (i) the recommended citation style for the article, (ii) the publishing history, (iii) as well as the Creative Commons Attribution license used (iv) a standard note regarding affiliations. At the same time, the extra spacing on the left means the authors’ affiliations are now more clearly set apart than before. Other front matter key elements such as journal logo, article type, article title, authors, abstract and keywords remain unchanged.

The blank column on the left runs through all pages in an article; as a result, the main text is slightly more condensed, which improve reader friendliness for smaller screens. Small figures/tables are aligned on the left with standard indenture, while large figures/tables are centered and covering the full width of the page. The revised layout was applied in the article pictured below, to serve as an example:

1) Information is displayed in the left information bar.

2) In the main text, there is a blank column on the left.

3) Small tables/figures are aligned on the left, large tables/figures are centered.

We are pleased to acknowledge that many academic editors who have made an impact on MDPI journals as editorial board members, editors-in-chief, or section editors, are recognized as 2020 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate.

Highly Cited Researchers highlights the top 1% of researchers, by citations, in one or more of the 22 fields used in Clarivate Analytics Essential Science Indicators. We offer our congratulations to 279 academic editors of MDPI journals who were recognized as the most influential scholars in their fields in 2020.

The full list of 2020 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed on https://recognition.webofsciencegroup.com/awards/highly-cited/2020/

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

We are delighted to announce the establishment of our Open Access agreement with Jisc Collections, which will allow UK institutions to benefit from access to article processing charge (APC) discounts and streamlined payment workflows.

All institutions participating in the agreement will also gain access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information for easy identification and additional transparency.

Eligible authors affiliated with the participating institutions are prompted to choose the corresponding Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) when they submit an article via our online submission system.

About Jisc

Jisc's vision is for the UK to be the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world. At its heart is the super-fast national research and education network, Janet, with built-in cyber security protection.  Jisc also provides technology solutions for its members (colleges, universities and research centres) and customers (public sector bodies), helps members save time and money by negotiating sector-wide deals and provides advice and practical assistance on digital technology. Jisc is funded by the UK higher and further education and research funding bodies and member institutions.

For more information, contact helen.dobson@jisc.ac.uk.

About MDPI

MDPI is a publisher of fully peer-reviewed, Open Access journals with a focus on thorough and rapid editorial processing. Its aim is to ensure that high-quality research is verified and made available to the research community as quickly as possible. MDPI stands at the forefront of the Open Access movement, having launched its first online journal Molecules in 1996. Today, MDPI is a leader in Open Access publishing with over 250 journals across all research disciplines, and all content published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).

For any questions about this agreement, please contact the MDPI IOAP team at ioap@mdpi.com.

Since 1996, MDPI has been committed to supporting the research community by providing the latest research freely available and making relevant and useful research available as quickly as possible. The world is current experiencing a pandemic of COVID-19, and researchers are working extremely hard to understand it and find a cure.

The values MDPI holds strongly are particularly important at the moment, and we will continue to publish relevant, peer-reviewed research as quickly as possible in open access format. This means that it will immediately be available for researchers, health professionals, and the general public to read, distribute, and reuse. We believe that scientific advancements will be crucial to overcoming this pandemic, and will do everything we can to support researchers working looking for solutions.

COVID-19 Academic Resources Center contains a variety of information related to COVID-19 available from MDPI, including journal articles, special issues, and preprints, among others.

For more information, please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/covid-19