In 2025, AOB reviewers continue to make outstanding contributions to the peer review process. They demonstrated professional effort and enthusiasm in their reviews and provided comments that genuinely help the authors to enhance their work.

Hereby, we would like to highlight some of our outstanding reviewers, with a brief interview of their thoughts and insights as a reviewer. Allow us to express our heartfelt gratitude for their tremendous effort and valuable contributions to the scientific process.

Deborah Tolich, Cleveland Clinic, USA

Peter L. Turecek, University of Applied Sciences, Austria

Deborah Tolich

Dr. Deborah Tolich serves as Director of Blood Management at Cleveland Clinic, bringing over 25 years of expertise in patient blood management (PBM). She specializes in anemia management and the development of evidence-based clinical protocols to enhance patient outcomes. Within hospital settings, she excels at integrating service components, fostering customer-centric frameworks, and minimizing care variability through stakeholder collaboration, education, data analysis, and standardization. Her strategic planning, fiscal oversight, and staff development skills have been instrumental in driving organizational success. Beyond clinical leadership, her research explores patient perspectives on blood transfusion experiences and the implementation of PBM programs. A sought-after national speaker and author, she holds a Doctorate of Nursing Practice from American Sentinel University, a Master’s in Nursing Science from Walden University, and a Bachelor’s in Nursing Science from Excelsior University. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

Dr. Tolich reckons that peer review is essential to critically evaluate research and ideas before publication or implementation, serving as a cornerstone of quality assurance, accuracy, and credibility. It identifies errors, biases, or methodological gaps, ensuring findings are reliable and valid. This process fosters accountability, requiring researchers to meet rigorous standards set by their peers. By subjecting work to collective scrutiny, it encourages collaboration, constructive feedback, and idea refinement, ultimately strengthening the field. Peer review also builds trust within the scientific and professional community, reassuring clinicians, patients, and policymakers that decisions and practices are rooted in sound evidence. In short, it is indispensable for upholding integrity and driving progress.

In Dr. Tolich’s opinion, reviewers must bear in mind four core principles:

• Maintain unwavering objectivity, focusing on the research’s rigor rather than personal preferences.
• Provide constructive, actionable feedback that directly helps authors strengthen their work.
• Critically evaluate methodology, data analysis, and conclusions to ensure the research contributes meaningfully to the field.
• Uphold confidentiality, avoid conflicts of interest, and adhere strictly to the journal’s guidelines.

The ultimate goal is to enhance manuscript quality while safeguarding the integrity of the peer-review process.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

Peter L. Turecek

Dr. Peter L. Turecek is a biochemist and pharmacist. He is lecturer at the University of Vienna and Honorary Professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Krems, Austria. His expertise is pharmacology, toxicology, protein-biotechnology, quality and regulatory affairs. He has 40 years of experience in R&D of biopharmaceutical industries, Immuno, Baxter, Baxalta, Shire, and Takeda in the areas of vaccines, recombinant proteins, downstream processing, plasma fractionation, diagnostics and medical device development and preclinical research. His work resulted in more than 1,400 patents and 150 papers and book articles. He runs a biopharma consulting company, pharmbiotech-consulting. His fields of expertise include plasma fractionation and plasma products, protein purification and characterization, drug modification technologies, hemophilia, blood coagulation, pathogen safety, diagnostics, and pharmaceutical biotechnology. He is chairman of the Group of Experts Nr. 6B on Human Plasma and Plasma Products of the European Pharmacopoeia, and the Standards Committee “Haemostaseology” of DIN. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

AOB: What do you regard as a healthy peer-review system?

Dr. Turecek: A well-functioning and, thus, healthy peer-review system is characterized by transparency and accountability with clear guidelines for authors and reviewers, honest disclosure of conflicts of interest, and transparent editorial decisions. Reviewers must be selected based on expertise, not on personal or institutional bias. Double-blind or at least single-blind systems can help reduce bias. Reviews should be open-minded for new and unconventional research and science. It should focus on improving the work, not gatekeeping, with balanced critique that highlight strengths and weaknesses with actionable suggestions.

AOB: What reviewers have to bear in mind while reviewing papers?

Dr. Turecek: All elements of good science:

• Is the question or study clear, relevant, and significant?
• Are the methods appropriate, well-described, and reproducible?
• Are results interpreted accurately?
• Do the conclusions logically follow from the data without overstating findings?
• Is the research ethical?

From a manuscript point-of-view:

• Does the paper present novel insights and/or advance the field?
• Is the manuscript well-organized, with clear figures, tables, and references?
• Is the language understandable and professional?
• For human and animal studies: Were ethical approvals obtained?
• Is data integrity given, and is it no fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism?
• Are conflict of interest disclosures complete?
• Does the paper properly cite relevant prior work?
• Are claims supported by evidence and references?

AOB: Peer reviewing is often anonymous and non-profitable. What motivates you to do so?

Dr. Turecek: Peer review is the backbone of scientific publishing which I see as part of my role in the academic community. When I publish, I benefit from others reviewing my work, so it’s a reciprocal system. By reviewing, I try to help maintain quality, accuracy, and credibility in our field. It’s a way to protect science from flawed or unethical work. My personal benefit is that reviewing exposes me to cutting-edge research before it’s published. Also, it sharpens my critical thinking and analytical skills, which improves my own writing and research.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)