Jan Claesen

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

Ruin a book with a car:

Ford of the rings

Music FACT: Placebo were originally a Cure tribute band

She's a real hero!
💪👇

✨ Exciting News ✨I am thrilled to share that I have accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology (IDM), at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health!

These are awesome! Best of luck on your defense.

Slightly diminish a band:
The green mild bell peppers

Was great to see you again Nadine! Have a safe trip back.

Conferencing with my favorite natural product chemist this week at the #ASP2025 in Grands Rapids, Michigan. Great science, inspiring talks, and reconnecting with friends and colleagues! @claesengroup.bsky.social @eustaquiolab.bsky.social @balunaslab.bsky.social #SecMet #NaturalProducts

‘This wasn’t obvious’: the potato evolved from a tomato ancestor, researchers find Hybridisation event took place about 9 million years ago, helping to ‘spark the emergence of a new organ’

Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto
Let's call the whole thing off 🎶🎶

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

ZiemertLab The Ziemert lab is interested in the evolution and distribution of bacterial secondary metabolites. These bioactive compounds are especially important in human medicine as the chemical scaffolds are t...

Check out the Ziemert Lab’s new YouTube channel
m.youtube.com/@ZiemertLab
We’ve uploaded short tutorial videos on how to use our tools for genome mining and natural product discovery.
Thanks Semih, @martinaadamek.bsky.social @turgutmesut.bsky.social ! #GenomeMining #SecMet #naturalproducts

I don't know, just one of our bad habits?

Though when I submit way ahead of time, somehow the grants office ends up sending in last minute anyways.

Even while I am away on travel (with due advance notice) 🤷‍♂️

I guess we're not alone in our bad habits 😁

Less favorite but also interesting is how several Corynes smell like moist armpit 😝

My favorite is hands down the wet forest soil smell of Streptomyces 🥰

NASA is more than rockets and moonwalks. NASA is behind much of our everyday technology. From space discovery, to Air Jordans, to CAT scans, NASA has played a role. We get it all on less than a penny of every federal dollar. Now their science may be gutted by 50%.
#NASADidThat

Photo of Djenet Bousbaine

🎉 Congratulations to Djenet Bousbaine, winner of the 2025 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for her work to illuminate how the immune system responds to the beneficial skin microbiome.

Learn more: scim.ag/4lVwpFx

The new open access policy of NIH will take effect next week (July 1st). All NIH funded research 🔬🧪🧬accepted after July 1st must be open access upon publication. Worried about fees? 💸 Check out how IAI stacks up against other journals—you might be surprised. #OpenAccess #SciComm #Microbiology

When all this pollution is causing you headaches...

💪🦠

An empty booth at ASM that should have housed the NSF

Well this is f’in sad #ASMicrobe

Genomics of host–microbiome interactions in humans Nature Reviews Genetics - In this Review, Ferretti et al. discuss advances in our understanding of interactions between the human genome and the microbiome, including the effects of the microbiome...

Interested in microbiome GWAS and heritability studies? Check out our new Review in Nature Reviews Genetics! We explore key findings, challenges, and future directions of the field.
rdcu.be/epoRR

@blekhman.bsky.social @sambhawa.bsky.social and Dr. Kelsey Johnson.

Pooled analysis of 3,741 stool metagenomes from 18 cohorts for cross-stage and strain-level reproducible microbial biomarkers of colorectal cancer - Nature Medicine An analysis of 18 metagenomic datasets of individuals with colorectal cancer, adenomas and healthy controls yields improved cancer prediction accuracy based solely on gut metagenomics, as well as the ...

🥁NEW publication from our lab:
the largest meta-analysis of gut microbiome associations with CRC!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧵⬇️

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Postdoctoral Associate in IBD genetics in C. elegans and organoids Post a job in 3min, or find thousands of job offers like this one at jobRxiv!

Opening for a #postdoc in the lab available immediately. Please spread the word.

DETAILS HERE: jobrxiv.org/job/baylor-c...

cc: #academicJobs #postdocJobs #microbiome #Celegans #organoids #IBD #PathSky #Medsky #AcademicSky 🧪 🧬 🦠

Of course, added you to the second one

Pull handle for defenestration

Roche extends trials of promising antibiotic against resistant superbug If successful, it would be the first new class of drug against certain bacteria strains for more than 50 years

'If successful, it would be the first new class of antibiotic capable of killing acinetobacter or any other “Gram-negative” bacteria to be developed for more than 50 years. This type of bug has a structure that makes it more difficult to treat.'
www.ft.com/content/1f94...

Congrats! 🎉

😀 Hi Dave, we were considering 'lantibiotic' but autocorrect kept on insisting it IS a an antibiotic 😋

For her future research, Layan aims to
- investigate why the effect is not observed further down the gastrointestinal tract (perhaps the compound is degraded there 🤔)
- develop delivery systems for nisin Z in the colon

Nisin Z likely acts to reduce the inflammatory environment in the gut
- indirectly via modulation of the gut microbiota composition and their metabolic output.
- directly via modulating NF-kB signaling

Layan investigated its activity in colorectal cancer using cell-based assays and a mouse model genetically predisposed to develop intestinal tumors.

Nisin Z reduces tumor cell proliferation and Layan observed a reduction in small intestinal tumors in nisin Z fed animals.