Elsevier Announces New Medical Hypotheses Editor-in-Chief

Dr. Mehar Manku Assumes Leadership of Unique Journal, Vowing to Embrace the Journal's Original Ethos While Implementing a Different Approach to the Peer Review Process

OXFORD, England, June 24, 2010 - Elsevier (www.elsevier.com) announced today that Dr.
Mehar Manku has accepted the position of Editor-in-Chief of the journal
Medical Hypotheses (www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws
_home/623059/description#description). In this role Dr. Manku will lead a
popular, unique journal that constitutes a bridge between cutting-edge
theory and the mainstream of medical and scientific communication. Dr. Manku
provided invaluable editorial help to Dr. David Horrobin, the journal's
founder and first Editor-in-Chief, during a period of illness, before
becoming a member of the Editorial Board in 2004.

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Dr. Manku stated upon his appointment, "Elsevier and I make
two commitments to ensure the long term success of this journal. First, we
will retain the ethos, heritage and unique characteristics of the journal as
they were proposed at inception. Second, we will engage a medically qualified
editorial board to get members more involved in the review system to help
ensure radical new ideas and speculations in medicine are given open-minded
consideration while ensuring scientific merit."

Medical Hypotheses is a forum for ideas in medicine and
related biomedical sciences. It will publish interesting and important
theoretical papers that foster the diversity and debate upon which the
scientific process thrives. In the words of Dr. David Horrobin in Volume 1,
Issue 1, "Medical Hypotheses will publish papers which describe theories,
ideas which have a great deal of observational support and some hypotheses
where experimental support is yet fragmentary".[1]

Dr. Manku is responsible for implementing a new form of peer
review that is unique to Medical Hypotheses submissions. Medical Hypotheses
aims to give open-minded consideration to novel, radical new ideas and
speculations in medicine which would probably be rejected by most
conventional journals. Submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by the Editor
and external reviewers to ensure their scientific merit. All reviewers will
be fully aware of the Aims and Scope of the journal and will be judging the
premise, originality and plausibility of the hypotheses submitted.

Dr. Manku has been in biomedical sciences for 35 years,
developing medicines based on fatty acids and lipids. He also spent the last
26 years as Executive Editor and Editor-in-Chief (since 2003) of one of the
leading peer-reviewed journals in the lipid field: "Prostaglandins,
Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids." Dr. Manku is a part time Chief
Scientist at Amarin Corporation, a member of the American Oil Chemists
Society and The International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids
(www.issfal.org.uk/).

The journal also plans to implement an online comment section
encouraging active participation and debate on the journal's contents.

About Elsevier

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and medical information products and services. The company works in
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than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet (www.thelancet.com) and Cell
(www.cell.com), and close to 20,000 book titles, including major
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which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more
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A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier
(www.elsevier.com) employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part
of Reed Elsevier Group PLC (www.reedelsevier.com), a world-leading
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PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam),
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    [1] (Horrobin DF, 1975 Ideas in Biomedical Science: Reasons for the
        foundation of Medical Hypotheses. Medical Hypotheses Volume 1,
        Issue 1, January-February 1975, Pages 1-2.).

    Tom Reller
    Vice President, Global Corporate Relations
    +1-215-239-3508
    T.Reller@Elsevier.com

Tom Reller, Vice President, Global Corporate Relations, +1-215-239-3508, T.Reller at Elsevier.com