Jessica Polka is a biochemist and the co-founder and the former Executive Director of ASAPbio (Accelerating Science and Publication in biology), a non-profit initiative promoting innovation and transparency via

preprint In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset versi ...

s and

open peer review Open peer review is the various possible modifications of the traditional scholarly peer review process. The three most common modifications to which the term is applied are: # Open identities: Authors and reviewers are aware of each other's iden ...

. She currently serves as the Program Director for Open Science at Astera.

Education

Polka received a BS in biology from the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

in 2007. While there, she was a Morehead Scholar. She obtained a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedic ...

under the supervision of Dyche Mullins in 2012.

Career

In 2013 Polka became a research fellow in the department of Systems Biology at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

with

Pamela Silver Pamela Ann Silver is an American biologist, bioengineer and professor. She holds the Elliot T. and Onie H. Adams Professorship of Biochemistry and Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Systems Biology. Silver is one of ...

as advisor. She was also held a visiting scholar at the

Whitehead Institute Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indep ...

in Massachusetts. Polka conducted research in the assembly, function, and applications of protein polymers in

bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

, such as membrane-breaking protein needles called

R bodies R bodies (from ''refractile'' bodies, also R-bodies) are polymeric protein inclusions formed inside the cytoplasm of bacteria. Initially discovered in kappa particles, bacterial endosymbionts of the ciliate ''Paramecium'', R bodies (and genes enc ...

. Polka's work on R bodies was discussed in the American magazine ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

,'' and covered by the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

. Polka discovered that

carboxysome Carboxysomes are bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) consisting of polyhedral protein shells filled with the enzymes ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase ( RuBisCO)—the predominant enzyme in carbon fixation and the rate limiting ...

, a protein organelle in

cyanobacteria Cyanobacteria ( ) are a group of autotrophic gram-negative bacteria that can obtain biological energy via oxygenic photosynthesis. The name "cyanobacteria" () refers to their bluish green (cyan) color, which forms the basis of cyanobacteri ...

, grows like a crystal until it is coated by a layer of shell proteins. Extended R bodies

Polka was co-chair of the

American Society for Cell Biology The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is a professional society that was founded in 1960.

Improving research culture

Polka is on the steering committee for Rescuing Biomedical Research, an initiative to discuss solutions to problems addressed in the April 2014 ''

PNAS ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of S ...

'' article "Rescuing US biomedical research from its systemic flaws". Polka is recognised as having insight into issues surrounding open peer review, preprint and early career progression, and has been quoted in numerous articles by ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'' and ''

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

'' on these topics. In 2015, Polka and Viviane Callier wrote an article for the careers column in ''Nature'' where they argue that funding agencies should support more than 16% of postdocs through fellowships. This would allow postdocs to "strike out away from the beaten path ndwill bring fresh ideas and approaches to the table".

Future of Research

Polka was one of the organisers of the first Future of Research Symposium in Boston in 2014. She was on the executive committee until she became president of the board of directors in 2016. Polka is involved in creating debate amongst early-career scientists about the financial, historical and political influences on academic research. Future of Research was awarded the People of the Year award in 2015 by

journal for their "efforts to empower early-career and aspiring scientists...".

ASAPbio

Polka was a founder of ASAPbio which began in 2015 after

Ron Vale Ronald David Vale ForMemRS (born 1959) is an American biochemist and cell biologist. He is a Janelia Senior Group Leader at HHMI and an emeritus professor at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Fr ...

showed that

students were taking a long time to publish and proposed that

ing might mitigate the issue. Vale recruited Polka, Daniel Colon-Ramos and

Harold Varmus Harold Eliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an American Nobel Prize-winning scientist. He is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior associate at the New York Genome Center. He was ...

which led to the first ASAPbio meeting in February 2016 attended by scientists, representatives from funding agencies, journals and preprint servers. The meeting Polka led was widely recognized as a turning point in scholarly communication and a catalyst moment in the so-called "preprint revolution" in biology and science more generally. Polka began working full-time at ASAPbio in 2016 after funding was granted from the

Simons Foundation The Simons Foundation is an American private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and James Harris Simons, Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the United States with assets of over $5 ...

Sloan Foundation The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is an American philanthropic nonprofit organization. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., president and chief executive officer of General Motors. The Sloan Foundation makes grants to support origin ...

Arnold Foundation Arnold Ventures LLC (formerly known as the Laura and John Arnold Foundation) is a limited liability company that is the philanthropic vehicle of billionaires John D. Arnold and Laura Arnold. As of 2023, the organization had $4.31 billion in asse ...

, and

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is an American foundation established by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore and his wife Betty I. Moore in September 2000 to support scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements ...

. In 2016 Polka was described in the journal ''Nature'' as an "agent of change" for explaining how junior researchers can increase the impact of their work. For instance, ASAPbio encourages preprints within biology. ASAPbio tries to mitigate the effect of lengthy waiting times before publications are reviewed and published, following the example of physics, computer science and maths, fields that have already adopted preprints. She has also taken an interest in strategies for preventing sexual harassment in the scientific community. In 2017,

PLOS PLOS (for Public Library of Science; PLoS until 2012) is a nonprofit publisher of open-access journals in science, technology, and medicine and other scientific literature, under an open-content license. It was founded in 2000 and launched it ...

cast interviewed Polka about her work which contributes to the changing way that science is published. Since 2019, ASAPBio has begun to host open databases to collate information about academic publishing practices. ReimagineReview tracks the different peer review policies and models of academic journals, with a focus on experimental forms of peer review. The Transpose database extends on this to cover journal policies including on peer review, co-reviewing, preprints, licensing, and versioning.

Awards and honors

Beckman Coulter Beckman Coulter, Inc. is a Danaher Corporation company that develops, manufactures, and markets products relevant to biomedical testing. It operates in the industries of diagnostics under the brand name Beckman Coulter and life sciences under the ...

Distinguished Graduate Student Prize (

American Society for Cell Biology The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is a professional society that was founded in 1960.Jane Coffin Childs The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research (the "JCC"), established in 1937, awards the "Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellowship" for research in the medical and related sciences bearing on cancer. History The Fund was founded ...

Fellowship (2013–2016)

References

External links

*
Rescuing Biomedical Research

ASAPbio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Polka, Jessica American systems biologists Harvard Medical School faculty Living people American molecular biologists American women molecular biologists University of California alumni Synthetic biologists Open content activists University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni 21st-century American chemists 21st-century biochemists 21st-century American women scientists American women biochemists Year of birth missing (living people) American women academics