About us
Welcome to preLights, the preprint highlights service run by the biological community and supported by The Company of Biologists.
What is preLights?
As the number of preprints grows, it will become increasingly difficult to find and filter relevant/interesting preprints. preLights does some of that work for you. Our dedicated team of scientists (= ‘preLighters’) select, highlight and comment on preprints they feel are of particular interest to the biological community. You’ll find a summary of each preprint, the reasons it was selected and the preLighter’s thoughts on its significance. You might also see relevant comments from the preprints’ authors. And we’d really welcome your thoughts and comments too.
Our regular digest of preprints means:
- some of the hard work of sifting through the growing volume of preprints is done for you
- you’ll see a mix of preprints across the biological sciences – which can highlight new thinking or new techniques that may be applicable to your research
- you’ll see the comments and opinions of other researchers
- you can comment on those that interest you
You can read preprint highlights (= ‘preLights’) on our website and stay up-to-date by signing up to alerts or by following us on Mastodon, X, Bluesky, LinkedIn (all: @preLights) or Facebook (/preLights). The Company of Biologists facilitates these channels, but the views expressed represent those of our community.
The preLights community
Our community consists of an international, diverse group of early-career researchers with a shared interest in reviewing and communicating new research. The service is supported by The Company of Biologists, but the opinions and views expressed on this website are those of the community. If you would like to know more about the team behind the selection of preprints, visit the community page.
Join the preLighter team
If you are interested in becoming a preLighter, please send us an email at prelights@biologists.com, outlining your motivation for joining. Please also include a sample highlight you’ve written about a recent preprint explaining why you found it interesting. We welcome researchers from a range of ‘early-career’ stages – or you may want to apply as a group to, for example, share outputs from a department journal club. Our preprint highlights service covers the whole of biology.
About the banner image
We are grateful to Christophe Leterrier (CNRS-AMU, Marseille) for allowing us to use his beautiful image of cultured rat hippocampal neurons as our banner image. The image reflects the connections and interactions we hope preLights will promote
About The Company of Biologists
The Company of Biologists exists to support and inspire the biological community. We do this through our publications, events and grants. The growth of preprints gives us a new opportunity to promote the exchange of scientific ideas and to back the work of young scientists.
If you’d like to find out more about our journals, meetings or charitable grants, visit our website. You can also sign up for updates about our different services and products.