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Let’s open up peer review
I owe my career to a letter to the editor.
In 2003 the American epidemiologist Muin Khoury, together with several colleagues, published one of the first articles on how to predict diseases that are not caused by one DNA mutation but influenced by tens or hundreds of DNA variations. Think of common diseases such as type 2 diabetes, asthma, and cardiovascular diseases.
The formulas they proposed were valid, but I thought their assessment of how well these polygenic risk scores could predict was incorrect. I evaluated the risk scores using best practices and found less rosy results. Together with colleagues, I sent the journal a long letter that listed point by point what we thought was wrong with the article.
We didn’t hear from the journal for a long time, and I began to fear that the authors would burn us down mercilessly. I was new in science. I had received my PhD a few months before, had three publications, and had just started my first job as a postdoc. Muin Khoury was a pioneer in the new field of public health genomics and far ahead of everyone else.
Surprising and impressive
But the response of Khoury and his group was as surprising as it was impressive. They simply agreed with us. And they immediately outlined the steps for further research. As befits a pioneer.
