Editorial Spotlight: Chen Ling

This interview and blog post was prepared by PLOS One Senior Editor Jianhong Zhou.

Dr. Ling is currently a Principal Investigator at Fudan University. He received his B.S. from the School of Life Sciences at Fudan University in 2007. In 2011, he earned his Ph.D. in Medical Genetics from the University of Florida, after which he remained at UF as a Postdoctoral Associate, Research Assistant Professor, and Adjunct Research Associate Professor. His research focuses on gene therapy for genetic diseases and cancers, as well as virology. He serves as an Associate Editor for PLOS One, Molecular Therapy — Nucleic Acids and Frontiers in Pharmacology. He has received the Shanghai Sailing Program Award (2016) and was named an Oriental Scholar of Shanghai Universities (2016), with his appointment renewed under the Follow-up Program (2020). He has led three projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and one key research project of Shanghai, and has participated as a core member in three National Key R&D Programs of China. He has published over 40 SCI papers as first or corresponding author.

Your research interests are multidisciplinary, including traditional Chinese and Western medicine, biomedicine, and gene therapy. What are the most exciting topics and achievements in your field at the moment?

Currently, the most exciting direction in our field is achieving precise, inducible control of gene expression using rAAV vectors. One of our key achievements has been developing an iron-responsive gene expression system that allows targeted activation in hepatocytes. We have identified iron-responsive cis-elements and elucidated the underlying mechanism involving the rAAV 3′ end. Additionally, our recent work on capsid mutants that eliminate leaky expression from homologous recombination template represents a meaningful step forward. I am also excited by the growing integration of traditional Chinese medicine approaches with modern gene therapy, such as our findings on dihydroartemisinin reducing pre-existing AAV-neutralizing antibodies.

As an Academic Editor for PLOS One, could you describe your insights and experiences when handling manuscripts?

I have found serving as an Academic Editor for PLOS One to be a very positive experience. I particularly appreciate the journal’s commitment to evaluating manuscripts based on technical soundness rather than perceived novelty or impact. In handling manuscripts, I strive to be fair, constructive, and efficient. I carefully select reviewers with complementary expertise and pay close attention to when and why reviewer opinions diverge. My primary role, as I see it, is to ensure that the data presented adequately support the conclusions drawn, and that the methods are described with sufficient clarity for reproducibility.

Is there any advice you would give to authors submitting to the journal? What are the things you are looking out for when evaluating manuscripts?

I suggest avoiding overclaiming. Conclusions should be proportionate to the evidence. When evaluating a manuscript, I focus on whether the study design is appropriate, whether the controls are adequate, and whether the interpretation follows logically from the results.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by contributors are solely those of individual contributors, and not necessarily those of PLOS.