Announcements

We recently had the opportunity to interview Prof. Lorann Stallones about her paper “Sustainability and the Thoroughbred Breeding and Racing Industries: An Enhanced One Welfare Perspective” which was published in Animals in 2023 and has received a significant amount of positive feedback from readers.

The following is an interview with Prof. Lorann Stallones:

1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your current research?

I'm a professor in the Department of Psychology at Colorado State University and Director of the High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Safety and Health. In addition, I serve as a Research Coordinator for Human–Animal Bond with the One Health Institute. I am an epidemiologist and specialize in human health, but my research interests are related to One Health, including the impact of euthanasia on the well-being of workers in the dairy and swine industries and understanding the relationships between humans and animals as related to well-being. Historically, my work on the human–animal bond started with companion animals and the development of a scale that has been widely used around the world, called the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale. That work was published in the 1980s, and the scale is still being used today. My expertise is focused mainly on occupational health, and I have spent many years studying agriculture safety and health. That's what my background really is and that's how I came to be interested not only in the well-being of people working in the agriculture industry but also that of the animals that they work with. I met Dr. Paul McGreevy when he was visiting Colorado State University. We sat down and just shared our mutual interests, and what came out of that was the idea of using the One Welfare model to summarize the literature on the impact of Thoroughbred racing among humans and horses and within the environment. Paul brought in his colleague Dr. Phil McManus to work with us on that paper. One of the projects I am working on with colleagues in animal sciences is dairy cow end of life and looking at the dairy supply chain and assessing the welfare of the animals and people in different spaces in the dairy industry. The other area that I’ve been working on, as reflected in this paper, is that there really hasn't been a deep dive into how to measure human–equine attachment. I have a graduate student in psychology who is really interested in it. She developed a questionnaire called the human–equine attachment questionnaire using the psychological theory of attachment and well-developed methods to develop a survey instrument. We're hoping it will trigger a broader interest and be used in other studies. I have another graduate student who is very interested in empathy and did a study on human empathy among dairy workers. We are trying to understand how human–animal connections are really impacting the well-being of animals and people and how receptive workers may be to the issues of animal welfare.

2. What inspired you to conduct this research?

My interest in the area actually started by working with people interested in animal sciences. We did a lot of work trying to understand euthanasia in an agricultural setting; primarily, the work we have done is in the dairy industry and my role is again to focus on impacts on the workers who perform euthanasia or lose the animals they may be connected with. In the dairy industry, workers spend a lot of time with calves and cows and interact closely with them. I started working with animal scientists who are experts in the dairy industry, and I contributed by trying to understand the impact on humans. I have also been working with colleagues in occupational therapy who provide equine-assisted services. That work has been quite focused on the impact of therapy on human clients but with less work on volunteers, workers, and people providing services in that space. It became very clear to me that people who were concerned about horse welfare needed to communicate with those working on the well-being of the people engaged in equine-assisted services. Many equine therapy horses come out of other jobs—they have retired from something, people have decided they don't want to take care of them anymore, and so on. The horses come into equine-assisted services, but they are not raised to do that work. I got very interested partly because I'm sitting in Colorado State University where Temple Grandin is. The Temple Grandin Equine Center is located here at CSU and doing outstanding work. I had the opportunity to sit with people interested in equine welfare and equine behavior to try to get a better understanding of how these things relate to an overall One Welfare framework. Then, Dr. Paul McGreevy came to visit CSU and we were introduced to each other. We shared a lot of different ideas. He is clearly an expert in equine welfare. We were trying to find something to work together on and this is the thing that he was the most passionate about. I had no knowledge about Thoroughbred racing. It gave me the opportunity to explore a whole body of literature on the human side that I was unfamiliar with. Because, for the most part, people who work in agriculture safety and health don't include Thoroughbred racing as a part of their view of agricultural work, but when you think about the horses on the breeding farms, where they're pastured, it is agriculture. Broadening the definitions, how we think about occupations, helps to break down some barriers. There are so many similarities related to health risks between people working with large animals, whether it's bulls, cows, or horses, and some of the conditions that lead to more significant problems with humans are the same conditions that create welfare problems with animals.

3. What do you think we can learn from your article?

The paper itself is a deep dive into the literature across three spaces—humans, horses, and the environment. And the model used was a logical extension of our interest in welfare and those different spaces. What I would say is that it would never have happened without the team. I'm not an expert in equine behavior or horse welfare, I’m not an environmental science person, I'm an epidemiologist working on human health. One lesson can be learned from the way the paper evolved. Paul went back to Australia and we met on Zoom calls on a regular basis to formulate how we wanted to approach the paper and who would write which pieces. It was team science in the international setting. It was great fun for me, and I learned so much. Creating a team that works well together, with a shared interest in the topic, is a marvelous way of being able to learn and expand and reach out to a wider audience, who might only have thought from their own disciplinary perspective, to really think about and across these different spaces.

4. What do you think made the academic community respond so well to your commentary?

I think partly because the commentary is addressing things people have not thought about together and have not been pulled together in quite the way that we did, with such an encompassing framework. The framework itself gives the opportunity for people to think about whether their work fits and whether there are gaps that need to be filled in order to improve Thoroughbred racing. I think it's such an interesting topic for people who are interested in horses, sports, and animal, human, and environmental welfare, even the impacts of gambling. It's a wide range of things that people may care about; they come in and the package is there for them to think about how it might impact their interests. It also covers what people may not think about, like the transport of the horses, the impact on the environment of moving the horses to take part in racing or breeding around the world, how that impacts climate change, and so on. It has so many different components that it's not a surprise that a wide range of people may be interested in it.

5. What challenges did you encounter while writing this commentary, and how did you overcome them?

What triggered the first idea of submitting it to Animals was the Special Issue on horse welfare. We were inspired to go ahead and get started. The time difference between Australia and the United States, everybody being on different schedules and sabbaticals, made it challenging, so we wanted to ensure that we were communicating well with each other, especially on language and how the different disciplines used words. Actually, the paper was rejected from the Special Issue due to its broader focus, but we decided to try again in a more general issue of the journal, and we were successful. It's important to talk across different disciplines and not just stay so focused that we cannot address broader approaches if we really want to change things in a positive way.

6. What do you think are the future directions for your research?

For me, at this stage of my career, the thing that drives the focus of my work is what my students are interested in. I would love to have a student interested in the human–equine attachment questionnaire and use it in a variety of different settings. It would be useful in a Thoroughbred racing space and equine-assisted service work and to see what human impacts are associated with human attachment to horses. If I find a student interested in that, that's probably one area that I would continue with. My research on end-of-life dairy work is in progress right now; depending on how that pans out we may identify work for the future. One of the manuscripts sitting on my desk and waiting to move forward is related to horse behavior and the use of helmets among riders. I'm planning my retirement, so I don't want to take on huge projects but really want to help support and make connections with people who are interested in similar things.

7. What advice would you give to young scholars seeking to get into academia or publish their work?

Persistence is really important. It is crucial to work on things that you care a lot about, even if other people may discourage you. When I started working in agriculture safety and health, it wasn't considered an important occupation in the United States because there weren't enough farmers working compared to all the other workers. Try finding people who share your passion and interests and work with them. I think it's really important to find people who are generous with their time and skills and aren’t driving you to their interests but instead are open to yours. That's what I had to strive to do in my mentoring. I know sometimes young people have the tendency not to be their authentic selves in the face of authority. If you can't, it's going to be a painful process to get into the academic world. Publishing is hard; there are a lot of journals available but so many of them are expensive. You have to be persistent and find the right home for the papers that you want to publish. I always tell my students to make a list of at least three journals. Don't worry if the first one doesn't take your manuscript. Send it to the second one, send it to the third one, and if you're still getting criticism, sit down and rework the paper, instead of trying for the journal that said no. Don't take rejections personally. Sometimes it's just a bad fit.

8. Why did you choose Animals as the platform for your work?

We had good success with our other work. The reviewers are very helpful and it feels like the right place because of the readership. This paper was a good fit for Animals. You see the work that it's published on humans, on the environment, and about animals across the journal and it's taking this One Health scale to One Welfare in an appropriate way. A lot of papers that we cited in our work were published in Animals, so that's another good way to pre-choose a journal.

MDPI, a pioneer in scholarly open access publishing, and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine), Singapore, proudly announce the successful conclusion of the first edition the MDPI Early Career Researcher Awards. The awards, which recognize outstanding contributions to medical and biomedical research, were presented to six exceptional researchers during an awards ceremony held at LKCMedicine HQ Building on 28 November 2024.

Honoring Excellence in Research

The awards recognize exceptional postdoctoral researchers and Ph.D. students who have demonstrated outstanding originality, innovation, and impact in their respective fields. We are honored to announce the winners of the 2024 edition:

Early Career Researcher (Postdoc) Award:

• Dr. Theresia Handayani Mina, “Adiposity and Metabolic Health in Asian Populations: An Epidemiological Study Using Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry in Singapore”;
• Dr. Erfan Rezvani Ghomi, “Wound Healing Improvement by Novel Aligned Antimicrobial Nanofibrous 3D Scaffolds”;
• Dr. Yadollah Ranjbar Slamloo, “Functional Alterations of The Prefrontal Circuit Underlying Cognitive Aging in Mice”.

Early Career Researcher (Ph.D.) Award:

• Pritisha Rozario, “Mechanistic Basis for Potassium Efflux-Driven Activation of the Human NLRP1 Inflammasome”;

• Michelle Law Cheok Yien, “Chikungunya Virus Nonstructural Protein 1 is a Versatile RNA Capping and Decapping Enzyme”;
• Yin Ruoyu, “The Use of Digital Mental Health and Wellbeing Tools in Older Adults: A Mixed Method Study”.

Our collaboration highlights a shared commitment to recognizing exceptional talent and research within the academic community, addressing today’s healthcare challenges, and inspiring continued innovation.

Looking Ahead to 2025

Building on the success of the first edition, MDPI and LKCMedicine are excited to announce that the 2025 MDPI Early Researcher Awards will continue to celebrate excellence and innovation in medical research. The next edition promises to expand its scope, introducing new categories and providing even greater recognition for impactful research.

Further details on the 2025 awards, including nomination criteria and timelines, will be shared in the coming months. We remain committed to fostering a culture of research excellence and collaboration within the global scientific community.

We recently had the opportunity to interview Prof. Dr. Péter Pongrácz and Ms. Petra Dobos about their paper, “Would You Detour with Me? Association between Functional Breed Selection and Social Learning in Dogs Sheds Light on Elements of Dog–Human Cooperation”, which was published in Animals (ISSN: 2076-2615) in 2023 and has received a significant amount of positive feedback from readers.

The following is a brief interview with Prof. Dr. Péter Pongrácz and Ms. Petra Dobos:

1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your current research?
PD: I’m Petra Dobos. I’m a master's student at the Department of Ethology of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. I’m currently studying dogs' self-representation in a body awareness scenario that also includes the opportunity for social learning. In this experiment, we provide an obstacle for dogs of different sizes to test their body awareness with variously sized openings. Additionally, we also provide a human demonstration of an alternative solution: to detour around the obstacle. We want to see the effect of social learning and body-size representation on dogs’ decision-making. We also examine the breed effect in this context.

PP: I’m Peter Pongracz. I joined the research group at the Department of Ethology of Eötvös Loránd University back in 2000, which is a world-leading authority on dog cognition. Since then, I have conducted research on multiple topics, mostly on dogs, but lately more and more on cats as cat ethology is an underrepresented field and there are a lot of challenges and opportunities in it. Social learning has always been one of my favorite topics, and lately, in the last 5-6 years, self-representation has also become a very interesting subject for me. What is most important to me and what I try to influence my students toward is to ask biologically relevant questions in ethology. We must always ask the question, what is the advantage for that animal to behave in a particular way? Because this behavior was at least partially shaped by evolution, and the animals could also learn something that is useful to them, so asking these kinds of questions is very important in ecologically valid research.

2. What inspired you to conduct this research?
PP: I published the first paper on dog social learning using the detour paradigm in 2001. Since then, we have had several additional research results on social learning in dogs. What really inspired me to think about it was, what would be the effect of dog breeds on social learning in dogs, and it was basically a two-fold inspiration.
Firstly, dog breeds and their behavior are very interesting for scientists and enthusiasts alike. In addition, a more important reason is that there are many results on dog social learning, but we still know relatively little about factors that would influence dogs’ performance in a social learning task. Specifically, regarding this detour paradigm, very few factors have been investigated so far. We know a few things such as how the hierarchy of dogs influences performance, but beyond that, we do not know too much. This was a moment for me that made me think, I would like to learn more about this important topic—how breed effects influence dogs’ performance in social learning.

PD: I think when a researcher finds a knowledge gap in an interesting topic, we just want to fill it. For example, in terms of our more recent paper, we had a gap, and we found a method for how to conduct the research in a precise and relevant way. In our research, we wanted to compare the effect of neutral intonation speech and ostensive speech demonstration on the different dog breed groups. From our research that we published in Animals in 2023, we couldn’t tell if dogs from the so-called cooperative breeds were sensitive to the human demonstrator because of her ostensive communication or were just sensitive to the sight of humans in general. We are still conducting further research to find this out, which is one of our ongoing inspirations.

3. What do you think made the academic community respond so well to your research?
PD: It is a very important topic for dog owners, dog trainers, and for researchers. This is why it probably got such good feedback from readers. Dogs’ social learning and interactions with humans is a very significant topic, also in terms of the breed of dog. A lot of people want to have purebred dogs, they want to decide which breed to choose, and thanks to that research, they can make a better choice.
It is relevant that the functionally different breeds (such as the independent and cooperative working dogs) behave differently when interacting with humans. I think it is applicable knowledge for owners as well when they want to choose a breed that is more dependent or a breed that is rather independent.

PP: Both social learning and researching dog breeds’ effect on behavior are two very popular topics. However, nobody so far had connected these two subjects together—this type of research was missing. This is not simply a study where we investigated the breed effect, but most importantly, dog breeds were grouped into two main clusters, both in which there were a large number of dog breeds. One is cooperative breeds, and the other is independent. These two clusters allow us to put forward ecologically valid questions because the various dog breeds that belong together in these clusters have a common way of behaving towards humans due to the functional selection done many, many years ago. Now, we are investigating the effect of this past functional selection on dogs’ behavior while they are interacting with humans.
We put a very big emphasis on this research to create a wide and unbiased representation of dog breeds. We put a lot of effort into this, and this is probably one more reason why many people are referring to that article.

4. What do you think are the future directions for your research?
PD: We conducted more research on the mechanisms and influencing factors of social learning among dog breeds and we found that cooperative dog breeds indeed paid more attention to the human demonstrator and are more sensitive not only to ostensive speech but also to neutral intonation. This means that we grab their attention with specific words and tone as well. For my current research, I am investigating social learning in body awareness scenarios. In the future, I would like to delve deeper into the investigation of self-representation, but I think social learning is a very important aspect of dog–human interactions for me.

PP: If I could plan in the future, I would concentrate on particular components and how they separately influence both social learning and self-representation. We would like to combine these two into a more complex picture, which is in fact a very hard challenge, to test two or more factors at once. Dogs' lifetime experience and training background, for example, how well would dogs perform in problem-solving tasks who were trained to do specific jobs, how would aging affect their performance, etc.

5. Why did you choose Animals as the best platform for your work?
PP: I have to say that I’m very impressed with Animals as a scientific journal. It’s a pleasant thing to see that the journal is ranked Q1. In my experience, and I’m publishing in many journals, I have never met with a journal with such a fast publication procedure as Animals and at the same time with the scientific quality of the reviewing process as well.
In my experience, the review reports we get from reviewers are professional and helpful. It’s a journal of high reputation. I know many high-profile colleagues from the field of dog behavioral research who regularly publish in Animals. For us, the Animals journal was there at the right time, when we had just finished the experiments, run the statistics, and finalized the article, so for us, it was Animals or nothing at that moment.

6. What advice would you give to young scholars who are looking to get into research?
PD: It’s important to seek out mentors who will help you in your career and have the same interests as you and the same attitude. Of course, it’s important in every level of research to share your thoughts together and find the people who can support you. For young scholars, it is important to persist in what you do. If you find an interesting topic, you shouldn’t give up on it, even if you don’t have the funds for it. And if you find just one person who can support you, even if it rains, even if it snows, the hard work will pay off. Never giving up and persisting with research are the most important things.

PP: Everybody gets to the point when they start to ask, “Why am I doing it? Does it have any meaning? It seems silly”, etc., and this can be true for any researcher. What I said to Petra is, to think about what we are doing now, for this research and experiment, what we are doing, no one has done it before. So, it is the first time that these particular research questions will be answered. And this is basically the life of a scholar.
We answered these questions, and we published the answers. This is the best thing for the researcher. This little research has our names on it. This is our touch on the vast knowledge that humans have. This should be the researchers’ driving force. It is a lot of work, and it can sometimes be hard and disappointing; eventually, your touch will be there. If you feel the motivation from this, nobody can stop you.

We recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Guoming Li about his paper “Tracking and Characterizing Spatiotemporal and Three-Dimensional Locomotive Behaviors of Individual Broilers in the Three-Point Gait-Scoring System” which was published in Animals (ISSN: 2076-2615) in 2023 and has received a significant amount of positive feedback from readers.

The following is a brief interview with Dr. Guoming Li:

1. Dr. Li, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your current research?
I am a director of the Intelligent Systems for Poultry Laboratory and an Assistant Professor of the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Georgia, USA. I am also an affiliated faculty member at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture, and the School of Computing at the University. I was a post-doc in the Department of Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering and Animal Science at Iowa State University. I got my Ph.D. degree in agriculture engineering from Mississippi State University and my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, majoring in agriculture engineering, from China Agricultural University.
My mission and current lab research are related to conducting cutting-edge research on integrated precision management and the application of digital technologies into vertically integrated poultry production systems and beyond, including data analytics, automation, and models.
My research topics include poultry smart sensing and environmental control, applied artificial intelligence, robotics, automated animal welfare assessment, digital phenotyping, three-dimensional reconstruction, and automatic behavior monitoring and analytics.

2. What inspired you to conduct this research?
During my undergraduate studies at China Agricultural University, I visited a lot of poultry farms to complete my undergraduate thesis or capstone projects. Those farms included different types of integrated poultry production systems such as breeder farms, hatcheries, and commercial farms. It was clear that most of the chores still heavily rely on human involvement, as human caretakers spend a lot of time completing their jobs, which is very laborious for production. There is a risk that animal farming will become extremely limited due to human resource shortages, as many young generations are not choosing this field for their careers and future jobs. Sensing and automation can address the practical needs and challenges in various phases of animal production. This is a motivation to conduct my research. I aim to ensure that, thanks to this research, we have sufficient and affordable protein to consume in the future with improved workforce and production efficiency.

3. What do you think made the academic community respond so well to your research? What do you think readers can learn from your article?
Research for the publication “Tracking and Characterizing Spatiotemporal and Three-Dimensional Locomotive Behaviors of Individual Broilers in the Three-Point Gait-Scoring System” was conducted when I was a post-doc at Iowa University. My co-authors, Dr. Richard S. Gates, Dr. Meaghan M. Meyer, and Dr. Elizabeth A. Bobeck, are very well-known scholars in this field. I believe multidisciplinary innovations are the key to attracting a lot of attention in research. This research addresses a very significant problem in current commercial broiler farming, which is lameness, and it is highly related to animal welfare and precision poultry farming. Nearly 50-70% of commercial broilers are suffering from moderate-to-severe lameness, especially in the late phases of production. To solve this, we examined the gait score. Gait scoring is a useful measure for evaluating broiler walking ability, production efficiency, welfare status, bone quality, and physiology. The research objective was to track and characterize the spatiotemporal and three-dimensional locomotive behaviors of individual broilers with known gait scores by jointly using deep-learning algorithms, depth sensing, and image processing. We aimed to develop automated methods by integrating different sensing techniques and we found the method was feasible to automate the gain scoring process, which can save labor and provide timely report bird lameness to the producers. Therefore, producers can take advantage of early intervention for this abnormality. From another aspect, it synergizes and modifies different techniques and methods such as 3D sensing, image processing, and deep learning, which are very hot topics right now, and those integration methods and modifications are still very new for the agriculture engineering community. The whole study provides solid steps to validate these proposed tools and this is very inspiring to the engineers. This can be a feasible solution to address these needs and questions.

4. What do you think are the future directions for your research?
We have multiple ongoing projects and some future directions still surround the research mission that I mentioned earlier, such as integrating newer methods, algorithms, and newer solutions for the poultry sector system that can support production. Continuing our research with the gait scoring system, we were funded by some organizations and institutions that play important roles in the poultry sector. We are developing our research in poultry robotics, not only focused on sensing but also on ways to pick up lame chickens with robots. These robots can work 24/7, which can reduce human involvement and also enhance the efficiency and productivity of the farm. This is a very convenient solution in poultry production.

5. Why did you choose Animals as the best platform for your work?
As a young scholar, the Animals journal provides a lot of support. I also served as a Guest Editor of multiple Special Issues. So from my perspective, Animals provides a lot of support for publication, which is very important for young scholars with limited funding in the beginning. At the early stage of our research path, we want to maximize our funds and we are happy to receive any additional support that can help us grow so we appreciate the journal’s support. That was a major motivation for me to select Animals. Also, MDPI’s procedures enhance the early and fast publishing of the work and thanks to that, it can gain more attention around the world which influences the decision of where to publish.

6. What advice would you give to young scholars seeking to get into academia or publish their work?
To be honest, there are a lot of young scholars who are more successful than I am, but as an Assistant Professor and graduate advisor, I do have some advice for people who just got into this field. As my post-doc advisor always mentioned — Your work will tell itself. You don’t need to worry about the world not recognizing you, as long as you keep doing great and impactful research work, the whole community will recognize you in a specific moment. You do not have to worry about the future but you just have to perform your best. You have to find your passion in the research that greatly excites you. Passion is about curiosity and perseverance, which are very crucial among academics. You have to build very strong networks with mentors, peers, and professionals in the field. Attending conferences, workshops, and seminars is helpful to expand your network and stay updated with the latest research in the community. You have to have mentorship with some mentors who can guide you through the academic landscape. Those mentorships are not only for graduate students but for faculty as well. You should be persistent—while acceptance is rewarding, rejections are part of the process. Learn from the feedback and improve yourself, and then your work will be definitely accepted. It is important to find a work-life balance between research and your personal life. Academic life can be very demanding. There can be endless work and meetings that are waiting for you. Make sure to find the balance and don’t exhaust yourself.

The editorial team at Animals extends our heartfelt thanks to the dedicated reviewers whose expertise and commitment have been key to the journal's success in 2024. Last year, Animals received 18803 review reports from 7067 reviewers representing 102 countries and regions worldwide.

To recognize the invaluable time, effort, and attention to detail that each reviewer dedicates, Animals expresses its sincere gratitude through an annual acknowledgment of reviewers. As a further token of appreciation, all reviewers are eligible for the Outstanding Reviewer Award, which honors their essential role in enhancing the quality of our publications.

We are honored to recognize the reviewers who allowed us to publish their names each year. The names of these reviewers are listed below in alphabetical order by first name:

Nine new journals covering multiple subjects launched their inaugural issues in December 2024. We are excited to be able to share with you the newest research rooted in the value of open access.

We would like to express our deepest appreciation to all of the Editorial Board Members, and each journal will ensure its high-quality output by using excellent editorial and rigorous peer-review processes, to ensure that the articles achieve high impact and visibility.

Please feel free to browse and discover more about the new journals below.

Journal	Founding Editor-in-Chief	Journal Topics (Selected)
	Prof. Dr. Zhaoyang Dong City University of Hong Kong, China Editorial | View inaugural issue	energy storage technologies; energy storage system management; energy storage applications; strategies in renewable energy generation grid integration; distributed storage systems; economics and markets for energy storage View journal scope | Submit an article
	Prof. Dr. Yang-Hui He 1. London Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Royal Institution, UK 2. University of Oxford, UK Editorial | View inaugural issue	Euclidean geometry; differential geometry; algebraic geometry; complex geometry; discrete geometry; computational geometry; geometric group theory;  convex geometry View journal scope | Submit an article
	Dr. Michel Planat Université de Franche-Comté, France Editorial | View inaugural issue	differential topology; algebraic topology; manifold topology; homology theory; low-dimensional topology; fuzzy sets View journal scope | Submit an article
	Prof. Dr. Rashid Al Abri 1. Sultan Qaboos University, Oman 2. Oman Medical Association, Oman Editorial | View inaugural issue	clinical practices as well as research and innovation in medical education, risk management in healthcare, and patient safety View journal scope | Submit an article
	Prof. Dr. Ecevit Bilgili* New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA *Prof. Dr. Ecevit Bilgili passed away before the completion of the inaugural issue. His dedication and vision for JPBI will always be remembered and serve as a guiding inspiration. Editorial | View inaugural issue	early drug discovery and development; product characterization and pre-clinical testing; drug delivery systems and drug design; active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production View journal scope | Submit an article
	Dr. Weiyong Liu Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China Editorial | View inaugural issue	theories, methodologies, technologies, and applications in the fields of laboratory medicine and clinical chemistry View journal scope | Submit an article
	Prof. Dr. Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar University of Granada, Spain Editorial | View inaugural issue	scientometrics; informetrics; bibliometrics; altmetrics; webometrics; research evaluation View journal scope | Submit an article
	Prof. Dr. Fei Fan Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China Editorial | View inaugural issue	regional growth theory and methods; regional system modeling and optimization; regional development policy; regional spatial evolution; environmental policy and instrument choice View journal scope | Submit an article
	Dr. Kevin Cianfaglione Université Catholique de Lille, France Editorial | View inaugural issue	wild species and their habitats; wild environments and biodiversity; natural environment management; wild land preservation View journal scope | Submit an article

We wish to thank everyone who has supported the development of open access publishing. You are welcome to send an application here, or contact the New Journal Committee (newjournal-committee@mdpi.com) if you would like to create more new journals.

We recently had the opportunity to interview Ms. Sonya McDowall about her paper “The Impact of the Social Determinants of Human Health on Companion Animal Welfare”, which was published in Animals (ISSN: 2076-2615) in 2023 and has received a significant amount of positive feedback from readers.

The following is an interview with Ms. Sonya McDowall:

I worked in the human health sector for 10 years in London, United Kingdom, before returning to Australia to pursue a career change into the veterinary field. I gained experience in veterinary clinical practice and completed my honors degree at the University of Adelaide. During this time, I discovered my passion for research and its potential to create meaningful change, which inspired me to apply for a Ph.D. scholarship at La Trobe University, in partnership with the University of Adelaide, Australia. After receiving the scholarship, I began my Ph.D. journey, focusing on my chosen research area—understanding human–animal bonds. I teach at the University of Adelaide in the Veterinary School and have recently started working in the School of Public Health.
The main goal of my Ph.D. is to help people maintain their relationships with their pets, which is incredibly important. We all go through challenging periods in our lives, and as we face these challenges, our pets are a key relationship and a key source of support to our health and well-being during these hard times. It is important to me to be able to help people look after their pets and maintain their relationships with them in both the good and challenging periods of their lives. I really discovered my veterinary journey and with my human healthcare background, I’ve come to appreciate the connection between human and animal health and understand how deeply humans influence their pets' lives and how similar challenges exist in both the human and veterinary healthcare space.
At present, human health and animal health exist in silos to each other, which creates a gap and limits the support to maintain the human–animal bond. However, if we were able to integrate these two areas to work together in a multidisciplinary way, we would be able to contribute to a healthier society. I am passionate about addressing these challenges because when pets are neglected or poorly cared for and their guardians are not present, it impacts both their happiness and overall well-being. It’s about building a more sustainable community, sustainable wellness, and health for humans and animals. By including pets, we can create a more inclusive approach to the healthcare system as a whole. We need to find a way that we can talk the same language across both human healthcare and animal care, and bring them both together. I wanted my Ph.D. to fit in that space and I am privileged to have amazing supervisors who support me in this journey. In this journey, I can take part in promoting a healthier society for both humans and animals alike.

Personally, the real driver is the need for change and the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives. That’s my personal motivation. I have two dogs and two cats, and I’m passionate about all species.
Animals do amazing things for us—they reduce anxiety and depression, and improve people’s mental and physical health. They do all these amazing things for us. They provide amazing connection and emotional support, which we, as humans, deeply need. The research was inspired by the increasing recognition of the interconnectedness between human health and animal welfare. Despite significant studies in these individual fields, there was a notable gap in understanding how the social determinants of health (SDHs)—key factors influencing human health—also impact companion animal welfare. I aimed to bridge this gap by exploring how human socioeconomic, physical, and social challenges influence the ability of guardians to provide for their animals, ultimately affecting welfare outcomes. Additionally, the study was motivated by the need for a multidisciplinary approach, integrating frameworks like One Health, One Welfare, and the five domains of animal welfare to holistically improve outcomes for both humans and animals​.

The article highlights the importance of understanding the interplay between human social determinants and companion animal welfare. By adopting an SDH framework tailored to companion animals, the study demonstrates how factors like income, education, access to healthcare, and community environment can directly and indirectly affect animal welfare outcomes. The research suggests the need for integrated, preventative policies that address both human and animal welfare challenges holistically. It emphasizes the value of multidisciplinary collaboration to enhance the human–animal bond and proposes actionable insights for improving service provision and public policy to protect and strengthen this relationship​. There may be a different bias across different professions, which is also really interesting. These biases and challenges play out in various ways in human–animal relationships.

Historically, in research, we assumed that the reasons animals were relinquished to shelters by their guardians was solely based on animal behavior, without considering the human side. At the same time, I started seeing lots of different studies that were happening, and one would touch on the person’s education, another on income or on healthcare. They are all things that happen in our lives—all five social determinants. I think what made this work so well received was that it finally brought all these elements together in one place, creating a comprehensive framework where everything could be identified.
This framework brought together two sectors: the human framework—the Social Determinants of Health—and the animal framework—the Five Domains of Animal Welfare. When you put them together, you can show their relationship—the two shallows of key frameworks, which work together. Veterinary professionals can better understand the human factors behind animal care, while human healthcare professionals can understand the impact of animals. Pets play a crucial role in human treatment and health, and this framework helps bridge two significant areas by allowing both sides to speak the same language.

I am hoping for work in academia, in research. I definitely would do more research on how we can improve the integration between human and veterinary health and how we can achieve positive health outcomes for both humans and animals. These would be my primary drivers for the future. I hope this work will encourage funding organizations to recognize the importance and significant role animals play in people’s lives and, in turn, contribute to improving overall population health and wellness. I would like to continue the research in this area. I would also like to see people being able to have better access to support in keeping their pets when needed.

The majority of publishing channels are focused mainly either on human health or on veterinary science and Animals has this space with publications on human–animal bonds. There are a lot of publications in this space, and this fits my research, so that was my main driver. I contacted you with my manuscript proposal for consideration, as it was unique and different, and it was well received and I was encouraged for submission.
It was my first publication; the peer-review process was very smooth and even my supervisor told me that it was not normal to have this smooth and fast of a process. I received such positive reports, so I felt my manuscript was well received and supported.

My advice would be this: don’t be scared of it as it can be an enjoyable process. Research is a very unique area; having amazing supervisors definitely helps as far as making the journey simpler. Your research can make a change if you are passionate about change and you are constantly getting better and wanting to improve things—research is where you probably need to go if you want opportunities to make a difference. I think it’s beneficial for making young scholars realize this is their opportunity to make a difference, to the community. That is really important.

We recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Piotr Bąska about his paper “The Role of the Intestinal Epithelium in the “Weep and Sweep” Response during Gastro-Intestinal Helminth Infections”, which was published in Animals (ISSN: 2076-2615) in 2022 and has since been cited over 20 times.

The following is a brief interview with Dr. Piotr Bąska:

1. Dr. Bąska, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your current research?
   I work as a professor at two institutions—at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW) and at the Military Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology. My research expertise is focused on the interactions between parasites and the response of the immune system, and how these interactions interplay with the nervous system. Specifically, I study how the immune and nervous systems react to parasitic invasions, especially to the dog roundworm (Toxocara canis).
   The second area of my research is tick epidemiology and diseases transported by migratory birds. I investigate diseases transmitted by ticks, in particular Hyalomma spp., a species transported by birds migrating from regions such as Africa and South Europe that is a vector for the Congo hemorrhagic fever virus.
2. What do you think we can learn from your article?
   My publication focuses on the role of the epithelium in the response to gastrointestinal helminth infections. The immune response involves more than just the immune system itself—it is a collaboration of the entire organism. It can be compared to a military force: the immune system is the army, but the whole organism, like a society, is involved. The epithelium serves as the first point of contact with pathogens and sends alarm signals. The nervous system also plays a role here, working alongside the immune system and helping to decide what type of response to initiate. The response against parasites differs from those targeting viruses or bacteria. Parasites are too large for the typical immune attack, requiring the organism to employ a different approach to combat them. My article is a compilation of knowledge on how the organism fights gastrointestinal helminth infections.
3. What inspired you to conduct this research?
   Epithelial cells are the first line of contact with pathogens, and the way they signal this contact determines the immune response in the organism. Parasitic invasions are detrimental, but they also show some positive outcomes in our lives. People exposed to parasites are less likely to suffer from allergies or autoimmune diseases since the immune system is modulated during infections and stays less active, preventing self-aggression. Human trials have shown that individuals suffering from Crohn’s disease experience an improvement in their condition when they are exposed to the swine whipworm. The epithelium may also participate in these interactions. Studying various reactions during infections is fascinating. Collecting as much information as possible and preparing this review on how epithelial cells initiate interactions with the immune system turned out to be a good base for my future research.
4. What do you think made the academic community respond so well to your research?
   I believe the readers and community can find a large amount of information in one place. It is a good source of knowledge compiled in an accessible form.
5. What do you see as future directions for your research?
   My research team and I are working on the direct impact of certain pathogens, not only on the immune system but also on the nervous system, particularly aspects that have not been previously studied. This includes investigating the responses of nervous and immune cells during exposure to parasites. We aim to understand how these cells communicate with each other and how one system influences the other.
6. Why did you choose Animals as the best platform for your work?
   I had a good experience and impression with my first publication in the Animals journal. I enjoyed the fast process of publishing in Animals, which is important for authors. I also had a good past experience as a reviewer and Guest Editor. I would also consider assisting on a Special Issue project again in the future, should an opportunity arise.
7. What advice would you give to young scholars seeking to get into academia or publish their work?
   To read articles that they are interested in, as much as possible, and to explore fascinating aspects of research that have not been focused on before. This can be a great way to start your research.

We recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Isaac Hyeladi Malgwi about his paper “Genes Related to Fat Metabolism in Pigs and Intramuscular Fat Content of Pork: A Focus on Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics”, which was published in 2022 and has since been cited over 50 times.

The following is an interview with Dr. Isaac Hyeladi Malgwi:

1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your current research?
I completed this research during my Ph.D. studies at the University of Padua. Currently, I am with the Department of Research and Development at Kometa, a major pork-processing company in Hungary, where my focus is on optimizing pig product processing. I continue to collaborate with the University of Padua, as I collected substantial data during my time there, which I am now analyzing and preparing for future publications.

2. What inspired you to conduct this research?
The concept of nutritional genomics has traditionally been applied in the context of personalized human nutrition to address health issues based on individual genetic profiles. This established framework inspired me to explore its application within production animals, aiming to optimize health and productivity through genotype-specific nutritional strategies.

In this study, we applied nutritional genomics to swine nutrition to modulate intramuscular fat (IMF), or marbling, within pork, a trait crucial to meat quality attributes like juiciness, flavour, and tenderness.

Understanding the factors that influence IMF deposition in pork is complex, as it requires an interdisciplinary approach that integrates nutrition and genetics to unravel nutrient-gene interactions across multiple genes and mutations. Despite these challenges, I am confident that synthesizing this knowledge is achievable. With the complete pig genome now available, we can leverage genomic insights to precisely quantify nutrient requirements, enabling the design of targeted dietary plans for individual animals to achieve optimal metabolic outcomes.

3. What do you think made the academic community respond so well to your research?
From a scientific perspective, this work added significant value by elucidating the functions of several multi-trait genes, a challenging task, and by showcasing the practical potential of nutritional genomics in genetic applications. Demonstrating this potential has likely inspired researchers across various fields to explore similar approaches within their species of interest. Although this study focused on marbling in pigs, many recognized the broader applicability of this approach.

Future research could leverage nutritional genomics to design interventions aimed at combating disease and optimizing economically relevant traits, such as growth performance, nutrient efficiency, and production emissions. My hope is that researchers globally will be encouraged to adopt nutrient-matching strategies to achieve specific targeted responses in animals. This framework, I believe, is essential for advancing precision livestock nutrition in the future.

4. What challenges did you encounter during your research, and how did you overcome them?
This research requires exceptional collaboration and expertise within your team due to its high complexity and interdisciplinary nature. One of the most challenging aspects is pinpointing the molecular mechanisms involved in fatty acid synthesis and unraveling these intricate details. Furthermore, the complexity of harmonizing and optimizing quantitative trait loci is rarely tackled, presenting a significant challenge that demands the dedication and hard work of a skilled research team to address it effectively.

5. What would you say is your greatest professional accomplishment?
I consider my greatest achievement to be completing my Ph.D. with Summa Cum Laude at the University of Padua. I was the first Nigerian to earn this distinction in my department, a significant accomplishment, especially given the challenges in accessing knowledge and navigating the academic system as someone from an African background. This success was particularly meaningful as it allowed me to share a special moment with my daughter—I took her to Galileo’s lecture rooms when she was just two months old, which brought me great joy. I am also proud that my achievements have inspired young people worldwide in their own Ph.D. journeys.

6. Why did you choose Animals as the best platform for your work?
After reviewing numerous publications in my field, I was highly impressed with the quality of Animals. Given that many respected mentors and prominent researchers have published in this journal, achieving a publication in Animals felt like a significant milestone. The experience of publishing with Animals has been enjoyable, and I’ve chosen it as the outlet for several of my papers. Publishing in a reputable, accessible journal is essential, and I cannot recommend Animals highly enough!