Interview with Prof. Huba Kalasz

We have interviewed last week Professor Huba Kalasz. 

Prof. Kalasz is affiliated with the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy at Semmelweis University, Budapest (Hungary). Dr Kalasz is Ph.D. (chemistry), D.Sc. (chemistry), med habil (pharmacology). He served as visiting Professor at the University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine, USA and Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University. His scientific career started on 1963.

Prof. Kalasz’s research interests are: pharmacokinetics and drug metabolism, determination of small molecular size metabolites, determination of drug excipients, bioequivalence studies and stability studies of various drugs. Prof. Kalasz is member of the editorial board of many reputed journals like “Journal of Liquid Chromatography and Related Technologies” or “Pharmacology and Pharmacy”.

ARJ: What do you think about The All Results Journals and their scope?
 It is an unusual and pioneering type of publication.

ARJ. What is your opinion about the publication of negative results?
Any kind of reliable results/opinion should be published.

ARJ. Since you have been in editorial board of many reputed journals, what is your opinion about the researchers complain that editors don’t want the negative results and it is the editor who does not accept the negative results manuscript and not the researcher.

I don’t think that this statement is generally valid. Editors’ duty and privilege are to accept any result that is well supported by both experiments and theory. However, any author should keep all formal requirements including to concentrate on the project (in Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion). It means if Introduction and Discussion gives statements on positive results, his/her experiments indicate negative ones, the author has to explain all contradictions in an evident/understandable manner.


ARJ. How easily an experienced researcher like you distinguishes between a negative result and a false negative (experimental inconsistency)?
We have to do several experiments (e.g. 5 parallel tests) to check reproducibility; we should also use cooperation with other labs to do inter-laboratory tests.

ARJ. When you get a negative result what comes immediately in your mind, discard the result, keep it in your file drawer or proceed to publish?
We double-check it. Always.

ARJ. How do you normally manage negative results in your lab/team?
In my lab/team we often manage unexpected results. Our duty is to confirm them, and to explain these so-called negative results. We are doing it regularly.

ARJ. As a senior member of the research community, would you recommend other to publish genuine negative results at The All Results Journals?
Yes, I am going to do it.

ARJ: Thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us!


Prof. Kalasz was interviewed by our collaborator Dr. Syed M. Nurulain for The All Results Journals.


NOTE FROM DAVID ALCANTARA: Please post your comments below trying to add something with some value. Contribute to this conversation with an insight, a practice, or a resource that we can all use to create more value. Thank you!