In 2025, ACR 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.

Aditya Mahadevan, University of California, USA

Pratyusha Vadagam, Johnson & Johnson, USA

Aditya Mahadevan

Dr. Aditya Mahadevan is a resident physician in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He completed his biochemistry degree at the University of California San Diego, followed by medical school at the University of California Irvine. As he continues his training in pursuit of a career in medical oncology, his research focus has shifted toward gastrointestinal and genitourinary malignancies and management of immune-related adverse events (iRAEs). Learn more about him here.

According to Dr. Mahadevan, peer review plays a key role in advancing scientific discovery. Reviewers have a responsibility to not only verify the accuracy of a manuscript’s comments, but also to aid in improving a manuscript for a journal’s readership.

In Dr. Mahadevan’s opinion, an objective review includes an assessment of a manuscript’s value to the scientific community, rigor, and thorough analysis of the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses. When reviewing a manuscript, he tries to evaluate these characteristics as independently as possible to respect the time spent by the authors in performing experiments and drafting a manuscript for peer review.

“As a budding translational investigator, I am driven by a desire to help my patients through not only direct patient care, but through innovation and discovery. Peer review allows me to appreciate and evaluate the innovation of others in our pursuit of improving patient care,” says Dr. Mahadevan.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

Pratyusha Vadagam

Ms. Pratyusha Vadagam works as an Associate Director, Real-World Value & Evidence, Oncology, Solid Tumors, focusing on lung cancer at Johnson & Johnson in Pennsylvania, USA. She holds a Master of Science in Pharmacy Administration from Duquesne University and a Master of Pharmacy in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from BITS Pilani, India. Her research interests include health economics and outcomes research, demonstrating clinical and economic value of novel interventions, affordability, patient-reported outcomes, and real-world evidence including primary and secondary research. She explores methodologies to effectively demonstrate the value of interventions that are essential for decision-makers in public health, including clinicians, regulatory agencies, payers, patients & patient advocacy groups, pharmacists, and policymakers. Pratyusha is also a regular invited reviewer for international journals. She has published her work as manuscripts and presented her work at various international conferences, contributing valuable insights to the field. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

Pratyusha believes that peer review is crucial for manuscript publication. It validates research, ensuring findings are reliable, original, and significant. By upholding high standards, it filters out weak studies, promoting only top-notch research to the scientific community. Reviewers' constructive feedback helps authors refine their work, enhancing clarity and rigor. This process builds trust in scientific research among the public and institutions.

Pratyusha reckons that reviewers must be objective, avoiding personal biases. They should assess a manuscript's clarity, structure, and research validity, like methodology and data analysis. Checking for originality, proper literature review, and relevance to the journal's scope is essential. Ethical compliance, including conflict-of-interest reporting, also falls under their purview. Despite technological advancements, human reviewers' critical thinking and domain knowledge are irreplaceable. Their feedback should be targeted and constructive to help authors improve.

As a full-time HEOR professional, Pratyusha acknowledges the challenge of finding time for peer review. However, the sense of satisfaction from knowing that her review contributes to improving research quality is highly rewarding. She employs several strategies. Firstly, she prioritizes her commitments, treating peer review as an important professional responsibility alongside her full-time job, given its significance in advancing science and patient care. She sets specific time blocks in her weekly schedule, often after work or on weekends, dedicated solely to peer review activities. This structured approach helps ensure uninterrupted time for the task. She also uses time and work management tools, keeping a daily to-do list in a journal and crossing off completed tasks according to priority. She manages tasks by creating timelines backward from deadlines and setting reminders for when to start reviewing manuscripts. She divides the peer-review process into manageable parts, such as reading, commenting, and drafting feedback, instead of trying to complete it all at once. Finally, she carefully selects manuscripts based on their originality, relevance, and alignment with her expertise and research interests, making the process more engaging and manageable.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)