Editors say the new mission statement and shift in editorial criteria are in response to changing nature of biological research
The Journal of Biological Chemistry's editors are unveiling this week a number of changes to the journal's publishing policies. They say the changes are in response to the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of biological research and will help the journal better meet the evolving needs of the scientific community.
In an editorial in this week's issue of the JBC, which became available online Friday, the editors announced the journal's new mission statement and laid out changes to how manuscripts are judged by peer review. They also reported that the journal's submission fees have been eliminated to expedite the submission process and hold down costs to authors.
"These developments represent a commitment to publishing the very best science in the JBC," said Dr. Herbert Tabor, the journal's longtime editor-in-chief. "Our new mission statement reflects our understanding that molecular and cellular biology studies are being carried out in a variety of fields, and modifying how our reviewers approach manuscripts will better serve both readers and authors."
When the JBC was established in 1905, its founders set out to publish "anything of a chemical nature in the whole field of biology, whether this touches the plant or animal kingdom." In the decades since, the journal has embraced papers that provide clear "mechanistic insight" into any molecular process, which is to say it accepted papers that not only reported that a molecular process occurred but how or why it occurred.
Now, JBC editors are broadening their definition of "mechanism," in light of path-breaking research being done in new, still-developing fields that, while molecular in the level of analysis, has not yet reached the stage at which it provides the level of detailed mechanistic information expected in more established research areas.