Established in 2021, the Young Investigators Award (YIA) is supported by the journal Cells Tissues Organs. Once again, the Karger publication is seeking self-nominations for its Young Investigator Award competition which started March 31, 2024. We asked a few previous awardees from Japan, Turkey and China to share their thoughts about why they applied.

2022 winner Harvard-trained Dr. Rio Sugimura is a Principal Investigator at the University of Hong Kong and the Centre for Translational Stem Cell Biology. Originally from Japan, he found out about the award on X. After some consideration, he applied.

What motivated you to apply for the award?

Dr. Rio Sugimura: On X, formerly Twitter, the award was described as for those researchers focused on cell development, with some emphasis potentially on stem cells. I knew people from the editorial board, whose background is very much the fundamental science of stem cells and signaling. So, I thought that my background and my direction of research fit with those editors, and potential reviewers, and decided to apply for this award.

What do you like the most about the journal Cells Tissues Organs?

Dr. Rio Sugimura: The big thing is the broad range of topics. It covers cell biology, stem cells to disease modeling. So, I would feel safe to submit many types of studies. I see that the reviewers and the editorial board are decent. I was quite impressed by the awardee round table and the highly talented awardees, doing important science. Cells Tissues Organs has value from the editorial board and I think that’s quite an important thing to highlight because nowadays the impact factor does not mean so much and there are some fraudulent predatory journals, so that is probably how Cells Tissues Organs stands out among all other new journals.

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Karger Publishers 2022 YIA winner Prof. Tugba Ozdemir, Assistant Professor at the Department of Nanoscience and Biomedical Engineering, South Dakota, USA, hails from Turkey. She describes the award as a confidence and visibility booster.

Has the award affected your career, or your work, in any way?

Prof. Tugba Ozdemir: First of all, publishing this review article was important for showcasing our research and ideas, and I think it’s a good assurance that my ideas are received well in the community. In that aspect, it was a confidence boost for me.  The other aspect is that it increased my visibility. After the article was published, I submitted it to X and ResearchGate and I have seen that it’s getting a lot of visibility. It’s a nice way to showcase our research. We had a roundtable discussion after the awards were released with the editors and the other awardees, and it was really useful for me, because, after that roundtable discussion, I had another call with some of the editors in the journal Cells Tissues Organs who are international experts on my research area and I had a chance to discuss with them some of my grant ideas and they gave me some suggestions. So I’m very happy about this experience personally.

Do you have any expectations on how this might influence your career in the future?

Prof. Tugba Ozdemir: First of all, getting a young investigator award from a journal like Cells Tissues Organs is a big achievement, in my opinion, so it will certainly be useful for my CV when I apply for grants.

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Karger Publishers 2022 YIA winner Dr. Xiaoping Bao is Assistant Professor at Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, Indiana, USA. He applied for the award to gain exposure for his work.

Why did you apply to the award?

Dr. Xiaoping Bao: As a young faculty member, I want to get more exposure and I think this journal fits well with my overall area so that I can promote my profile with many people on the faculty level, new graduate students, or postdocs. It gives me exposure to these potential students or postdocs to be recruited into my lab. This is also a good platform to showcase my research and my articles in the field.

You mentioned a couple of aspects that you like about the journal and the award. What do you like the most, what would be the main benefit, why you would recommend it?

Dr. Xiaoping Bao: Sometimes, in another journal, the review may take a long time. The review time from submission to acceptance is relatively shorter than for many other journals.

Find the timelines and relevant information for submissions to the Cells Tissues Organs Young Investigator Award.