When Zane Andrews, PhD, published his very first scientific paper while working on his PhD in 2001, it was in the pages of the Endocrine Society’s Endocrinology. This month, he assumes his newest role as Endocrinology’s editor-in-chief.
This month, Zane Andrews, PhD, of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, will begin his tenure as editor-in-chief of Endocrinology, as the previous editor-in-chief, Carol Lange, PhD, of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minn., steps down to transition into her new position as the Endocrine Society’s president-elect.
Andrews is a professor in the Department of Physiology at Monash University and deputy head of the Metabolism, Diabetes, and Obesity Program at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute. His research interests include neuroendocrinology, obesity, and metabolism and diabetes. His current research focuses on understanding neuroendocrine control of metabolism, mood, and motivation, with particular attention to the neuroendocrine actions of ghrelin and ghrelin-target cells in the brain.
Endocrine News caught up with Andrews to discuss his new role, publishing his first PhD paper as first author in Endocrinology, his current research, and his vision for the future of the Society’s flagship basic science journal.
Endocrine News: How does it feel to be appointed editor-in-chief of Endocrinology?
Zane Andrews: It feels great. I’m extremely proud and humbled to be the EIC (even to be asked, actually), especially considering that I work at Monash University in Australia. My first first-author publication was in Endocrinology in 2001 when I was still a PhD student, so it feels like I have come full circle.
EN: Can you tell me a little about your path to endocrinology?
ZA: It’s a little hard to remember all the way back, but I’ll try. I was a physiology and anatomy major, and I always got good marks for the endocrinology parts. I’m not sure why, but something about hormones resonated with me. I was also particularly intrigued with how the brain — and more specifically the hypothalamus — controlled hormone release from the pituitary. It kind of felt like studying neuroscience without the complexity of studying neuroscience. I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Otago in New Zealand and went to do honors, which is a one-year, research-intensive course, with a new lecturer in the department (Dave Grattan). He was really into hormones and the brain (neuroendocrinology) and if I was going to do a PhD, then I wanted it to be with some I got on with. Together we looked at how the brain regulated prolactin release during pregnancy, understudied but critically important.
During the PhD I was fortunate to attend quite a few international conferences, including the International Congress of Endocrinology in Sydney in 2000 and the International Congress of Neuroendocrinology in Bristol and the Society for Neuroscience, both in 2002. It was so stimulating and interesting for a kid from medium-town NZ (still only 100,000 people).
At this point, I knew I wanted to make this my career, so I started looking to go to the U.S. to do a post doc; science in little New Zealand was pretty small and all of the professors spoke about getting experience overseas, so after my PhD (from Uni of Otago in New Zealand) I went to the U.S. to explore options. I lined up four interviews and lab visits and ended up going to Yale University to work with Tamas Horvath. A key reason was to diversify my exposure to different sciences, but still in the neuroendocrinology space. Here, I studied how ghrelin from the stomach acts in the brain to regulate food intake.
EN: And that’s what led to your current research on understanding neuroendocrine control of metabolism, mood, and motivation?
ZA: Ghrelin from the stomach is increased during hunger (sometimes it’s referred to as the hunger hormone). Obviously when you’re hungry, you want to eat and there are ghrelin receptors in parts of the brain that control food intake (the hypothalamus for example). But there are ghrelin receptors also expressed in many different brain regions that were not important for food intake (at least at the time). As a signal of hunger, it quickly dawned on us that ghrelin does much more than simply want to make you eat; plus, you can only eat if food is available. We recognized that ghrelin did different things whether food was present during experiments.
Looking back now it seems obvious that ghrelin would have many diverse roles in physiology, behavior, and metabolism, because it signaled many behavioral and physiological changes that help you deal with hunger. It increases your motivation, it regulates mood and the stress axis to enhance exploration, it can increase learning and memory — calorie restriction increases the generation of new brain cells, for example. When you look deeper it’s easy to see that metabolic dysfunction — like that seen in obesity, diabetes, anorexia, or binge eating — is often accompanied by many mood-related disorders like depression and anxiety. We are still working on ghrelin actions in the brain, amongst other things. But the major theme is to understand how the metabolic hormones communicate with multiple brain regions to coordinate the control of metabolism and behavior.
EN: You published your first paper as first author in Endocrinology in 2001. What was the paper on? Can you point to some other of your proudest moments while being involved with this journal?
ZA: The first paper was titled “Dissociation of prolactin secretion from tuberoinfundibular dopamine activity in late pregnant rats.” Instant classic — it didn’t get that many citations, but I remember the reviewer saying they thought the discussion was insightful and well written. As a second year PhD student, that gave me a buzz to think that I wrote something insightful gave me some confidence.
Another highlight was joining the editorial board. In 2016 and I received an award for recognition as an outstanding reviewer for Endocrinology. I was proud of that, and I still have the certificate in my office. I remember smiling to myself thinking I was just doing what a reviewer should, reading the paper and writing what I thought was good and not. I actually thought, “If I was rated as outstanding, what were other people doing?”
I wanted to represent a journal that serves its community. Endocrinology is the basic research journal for the Endocrine Society, and the Society does so much for the research community (both basic and clinical, as well as clinical practice) through advocacy, training, mentorship, conferences, travel award — the list goes on. As scientists looking to the future of the field, we should all support and publish in journals that give back to their societies and members, that foster trainees and that prioritize science first.
I think that was an important moment, as I was asked to join the academic editor team in 2017. I remember travelling at the time in Europe for work, so I wasn’t keeping up with emails. I saw one from Tim Beardsley at the Endocrine Society and thought, I’ll get to that later. Turns out it was an invitation to be an associate editor for Endocrinology, and I overlooked it for about five days. When I finally saw it, I was on a train from Swansea to London to fly back home to Melbourne, and I jumped at the chance and saw it as a natural progression.
EN: What attracted you to the role of EIC of Endocrinology?
ZA: Firstly, as deputy editor for three years I saw how the behind-the-scenes team functioned. The journal office is amazing: Maggie Haworth, Tim Beardsley, Richard O’Grady, everyone was so helpful. I remember thinking before being asked, this would definitely be the best journal to be EIC.
I saw the hard work from Carol Lange, the outgoing EIC, and I have a great working relationship with her.
I wanted to represent a journal that serves its community. Endocrinology is the basic research journal for the Endocrine Society, and the Society does so much for the research community (both basic and clinical, as well as clinical practice) through advocacy, training, mentorship, conferences, travel award — the list goes on. As scientists looking to the future of the field, we should all support and publish in journals that give back to their societies and members, that foster trainees and that prioritize science first.
EN: What’s your vision for the future of Endocrinology?
ZA: The first-choice journal for fundamental research in endocrinology. A smooth, fast, seamless publishing experience for all authors, from submission to acceptance to publication. I hope to build upon the strength of Endocrinology from North American authors and publish more research articles from around the world.
EN: What do you feel sets Endocrinology apart from other peer-reviewed journals in this field?
Free publication charges for Endocrine Society members under a standard license, unlimited article pages and figures so authors can share the entire story, and a strong, large, and diverse reviewer pool, ensuring expert reviewers from scientists in the field.
EN: Do you have any plans to expand the scope of Endocrinology’s subject matter?
ZA: Endocrinology has been a leading journal for decades so its fundamentals and tried and true, but we will set down and plan a strategic future path for the journal to discuss issues like these.
Andrews will serve as editor-in-chief beginning June 1, 2024, until December 31, 2025.
Bagley is the senior editor of Endocrine News. He writes the monthly “Trends and Insights” section and has been with the Endocrine Society since 2013.
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