The ''Journal of Biological Chemistry'' (''JBC'') is a weekly

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...

that was established in 1905., jbc.org Since 1925, it is published by the

American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906, at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel ( Johns Hopkins University). The roots of the society were in the American Ph ...

. It covers research in areas of

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

and

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

. The editor is Alex Toker. As of January 2021, the journal is fully open access. In press articles are available free on its website immediately after acceptance.

Editors

The following individuals have served as editors of the journal: * 1906–1909:

John Jacob Abel John Jacob Abel (19 May 1857 – 26 May 1938) was an American biochemist and pharmacologist. He established the pharmacology department at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1893, and then became America's first full-time professor o ...

and Christian Archibald Herter * 1909–1910: Christian Archibald Herter * 1910–1914:

Alfred Newton Richards Alfred Newton Richards (March 22, 1876 – March 24, 1966) was an American pharmacologist. Richards, along with Wearn, is credited with the method of renal micropuncture to study the functioning of kidneys in 1924. Career Richards was born in ...

* 1914–1925: Donald D. Van Slyke * 1925–1936: Stanley R. Benedict. After Benedict died, John T. Edsall served as temporary editor until the next editor was appointed. * 1937–1958: Rudolph J. Anderson * 1958–1967: John T. Edsall * 1968–1971:

William Howard Stein William Howard Stein (June 25, 1911 – February 2, 1980) was an American biochemist who collaborated in the determination of the ribonuclease sequence, as well as how its structure relates to catalytic activity, earning a Nobel Prize in Ch ...

* 1971–2011:

Herbert Tabor Herbert Tabor (November 28, 1918 – August 20, 2020) was an American biochemist and physician-scientist who specialized in the function of polyamines and their role in human health and disease. Tabor was a principal investigator at the Nationa ...

* 2011–2015: Martha Fedor * 2016–2021:

Lila Gierasch Lila Mary Gierasch (born 1948 in Needham, Massachusetts) is an American biochemist and biophysicist. Life Lila M. Gierasch, like her mother Marian Bookhout Gierasch, studied at Mount Holyoke College. She graduated in ...

* 2021–Present: Alex Toker

Ranking and criticism of impact factor

The editors of the ''Journal of Biological Chemistry'' have criticized the modern reliance upon the

impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as i ...

for ranking journals, noting that

review article A review article is an article that summarizes the current state of understanding on a topic within a certain discipline. A review article is generally considered a secondary source since it may analyze and discuss the method and conclusions i ...

s, commentaries, and retractions are included in the calculation. Further, the denominator of total articles published encourages journals to be overly selective in what they publish, and preferentially publish articles which will receive more attention and citations. Due to these factors, the journal's practice of publishing a broad cross-section of biochemistry articles has led it to suffer in impact factor, in 2006 ranking 260 of 6,164, while remaining a highly cited journal. When science journals were evaluated with a

PageRank PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank webpages, web pages in their search engine results. It is named after both the term "web page" and co-founder Larry Page. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. A ...

-based algorithm, however, the ''Journal of Biological Chemistry'' ranked first. Using the

Eigenfactor The Eigenfactor score, developed by Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom at the University of Washington, is a rating of the total importance of a scientific journal. Journals are rated according to the number of incoming citations, with citations from ...

metric, the ''Journal of Biological Chemistry'' ranked 5th among all ISI-indexed journals in 2010. The impact factor of the journal in 2021 was 5.486.

History and classic papers

The journal was established in 1905 by

and Christian Archibald Herter, who also served as the first editors; the first issue appeared in October 1905. The location of the journal's editorial offices has included

Cornell Medical College The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is Cornell University's biomedical research unit and medical school located in Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York. Weill Cornell Medicine is affiliated with N ...

(until 1937),

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

(1937–1958),

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(1958–1967), and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

(from 1967). the journal is published by the

. The most cited paper of all time was published in the journal by Oliver H. Lowry on ''Protein measurement with the Folin phenol reagent'' and describes the

Lowry protein assay The Lowry protein assay is a biochemical assay for determining the total level of protein in a solution. The total protein concentration is exhibited by a color change of the sample solution in proportion to protein concentration, which can then be ...

, and has been cited well-over 300,000 times. In 1990, librarian

Eugene Garfield Eugene Eli Garfield (September 16, 1925 – February 26, 2017) was an American linguist and businessman, one of the founders of bibliometrics and scientometrics. He helped to create ''Current Contents'', ''Science Citation Index'' (SCI), ''Journ ...

wrote that the "Journal of Biological Chemistry lead the list of journals ranked by the number of '' SCI'' Top papers published", with 17 of the top 100 most cited papers published. The next journals on the list were ''

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''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 Sci ...

'', with 6, then ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

'', with 5.

Social media

The journal is very active on

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

. In March, the journal hosts "Methods Madness," a

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

styled after

March Madness The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from ...

. The event takes place on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and lets users vote for their favorite biochemistry or molecular biology methods.

References

{{Portal bar, Chemistry, Biology Open access journals Publications established in 1905 Biochemistry journals Weekly journals English-language journals Academic journals published by learned and professional societies 1905 establishments in the United States