Roya Huang is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, US.
At the time of their study published in eLife, they were based in senior author Sharad Ramanathan’s lab in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, US.
Here, Roya tells us about their experience of publishing their recent landmark paper with us.
Can you tell us about your paper?
Our paper found three neural transcription factors (ZIC2, SOX11, and ZNF521) that are required for proper morphogenesis in a human stem cell-based model of neural tube closure. To isolate the roles of individual genes in morphogenesis, we developed a high-throughput method that allowed us to perturb whole organoids, rather than individual cells, with dozens of CRISPR guides in parallel.
One thing that’s exciting about our method is that it is broadly useful for studying the morphological genetics of any organoid system, and our biological findings could be useful for studying genetic and environmental cases of exencephaly, an embryonic lethal disease in which the anterior neural tube fails to close in vivo.
Why did you choose to submit this paper to the eLife Model?
As a reader, I am impressed by eLife’s commitment to open publishing and open access. I like that its publication model preserves the effort of peer review, including important critiques and concurrence on strong partial results, that would otherwise be lost during a paper rejection, and that the Reviewed Preprint stage gives the opportunity for a full field of experts to give feedback before final publication.
I admire eLife’s move away from the impact factor model – I’m glad our work can be judged by its quality and relevance, rather than a publishing metric.
I also like that eLife requires submissions to be preprinted and gives free access to Versions of Record, which advances a culture of early and open access. Because most academic biology research in the US is publicly funded, its results should be freely and openly accessible.
As an author, I especially appreciated eLife’s publish-review-curate model. Our manuscript was preprinted in June of 2025 and reviews were made available by eLife within six weeks, which enhanced the value of the preprint for our readers. It was also empowering to know that any revisions we made would be toward what we knew would be an indexed paper.
And finally, I admire eLife’s move away from the impact factor model – I’m glad our work can be judged by its quality and relevance, rather than a publishing metric.
How did you find the new publishing process?
I found eLife’s publishing process to be smooth and constructive. The resubmission allowed us to make changes we found valuable and mark when we thought certain suggestions were outside the scope of the work.
The process put the decision to revise and publish in our hands, making it both collaborative and empowering.
Did you have any reservations about submitting through our model and how did these aspects turn out?
No, I am very excited about what eLife is doing in the publishing space.
Why did you choose to revise your paper, resubmit and then declare it a Version of Record at eLife?
We had a great experience at eLife and thought it was a great place for our work to be issued.
The process put the decision to revise and publish in our hands, making it both collaborative and empowering.
Do you have any advice for people who are unsure about the eLife Model?
Science is better when we publish according to our values!
What do you think about the current publishing and research landscape?
Most publishing models act as a barrier, rather than a medium, between authors and audiences; eLife feels like the opposite.
Typical review processes can also create a somewhat antagonistic relationship between author and reviewer; here, we were given advice and also the agency to incorporate it. It felt like everyone had the mutual goal of the best science, which is what critique is all about.
Thank you for speaking to us, Roya.
Roya Huang bio:
Roya Huang is a Weill Neurohub Fellow and NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Stephen Brohawn’s lab at U.C. Berkeley, studying ultrastructural development of the vertebrate nervous system. They performed their Ph.D. work with Dr. Sharad Ramanathan at Harvard University, where they studied morphogenesis of the human neural tube and cell fate selection in human pluripotent stem cells. They received a B.A. in Biology and Chemistry from Williams College.
What are other eLife authors saying?
“we liked the idea of having an open "conversation" with the reviewers...without the threat of rejection.” – Patrick Allard
Read more about Patrick’s experience publishing with eLife.
“In this new process of publishing, authors have significant autonomy over their papers. The entire publication and review process are more transparent.” – Chunxiao Li
Read more about Chunxiao’s experience publishing with eLife.
“... the review and publication process with eLife was smooth, fair, and transparent.” – Ushio Masayuki
Read more about Ushio’s experience publishing with eLife.
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