Journal rankings · indicator year 2012
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2012
Molecular Biology journal rankings 2012
955 ranked journals · Subfield in Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Molecular Biology has 955 ranked journals in 2012. Its median journal scores above the world average: OJR 1.05 against 1.00, unchanged on 2011. A journal needs OJR 1.65 to reach Q1. The top three are Nature Genetics, Pharmacological Reviews, and Cell.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2012. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2009–2011, the window the 2012 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (14)
955 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2011. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2009–2011, the window the 2012 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2009–2011 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2003 to 2012. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Nature GeneticsNature Portfolio · United States | 12.22Q1 | 29.44 2.95 down from 2011 | 820 | 57% | $12,690 | ||
2Pharmacological ReviewsAmerican Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics · United States | 10.21Q1 | 27.63 2.95 up from 2011 | 81 | 35% | $4,500 | ||
3CellCell Press · United States | 9.89Q1 | 25.42 0.85 up from 2011 | 1,664 | 100% | $11,400 | ||
4NatureNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.97Q1 | 12.72 0.98 up from 2011 | 9,699 | 31% | $12,690 | ||
5Cell stem cellElsevier BV · United States | 6.64Q1 | 18.30 0.35 up from 2011 | 559 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
6FEMS Microbiology ReviewsOAOxford University Press · Netherlands | 6.33Q1 | 12.75 0.08 down from 2011 | 172 | 73% | $3,297 | ||
7Nature Cell BiologyNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.19Q1 | 17.66 2.37 up from 2011 | 704 | 48% | $12,690 | ||
8Nature CommunicationsOANature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.10Q1 | 12.49 2.61 up from 2011 | 606 | 99% | $6,990 | ||
9ScienceAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · United States | 5.62Q1 | 8.31 0.05 up from 2011 | 12,468 | 23% | — | ||
10Progress in Lipid ResearchElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 5.25Q1 | 12.75 0.81 up from 2011 | 89 | 13% | $5,530 | ||
11Nature BiotechnologyNature Portfolio · United States | 5.19Q1 | 11.76 2.41 up from 2011 | 1,100 | 27% | $12,690 | ||
12Journal of Clinical InvestigationOAAmerican Society for Clinical Investigation · United States | 5.17Q1 | 12.39 0.23 down from 2011 | 1,447 | 99% | $5,200 | ||
13Systematic BiologyOxford University Press · United States | 5.09Q1 | 8.87 0.25 up from 2011 | 270 | 49% | $2,166 | ||
14Biotechnology AdvancesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 5.05Q1 | 9.97 0.80 down from 2011 | 354 | 19% | $5,460 | ||
15Cell MetabolismCell Press · United States | 4.89Q1 | 13.18 1.77 up from 2011 | 483 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
16Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesNational Academy of Sciences · United States | 4.84Q1 | 11.23 0.05 down from 2011 | 12,345 | 100% | — | ||
17Molecular CellElsevier BV · United States | 4.74Q1 | 14.45 0.89 up from 2011 | 1,145 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
18Molecular Aspects of MedicineElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.71Q1 | 12.05 0.39 up from 2011 | 87 | 47% | $5,220 | ||
19Molecular Systems BiologyOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 4.67Q1 | 13.59 3.74 up from 2011 | 319 | 100% | $7,990 | ||
20Drug Resistance UpdatesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.63Q1 | 12.34 1.94 up from 2011 | 64 | 52% | $5,410 | ||
21Nature ProtocolsNature Portfolio · United States | 4.54Q1 | 10.38 0.11 down from 2011 | 495 | 49% | — | ||
22Cell Host & MicrobeCell Press · United States | 4.38Q1 | 10.73 0.46 down from 2011 | 411 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
23PLoS BiologyOAPublic Library of Science · United States | 4.33Q1 | 10.63 0.66 up from 2011 | 854 | 100% | $5,500 | ||
24Developmental CellElsevier BV · United States | 4.27Q1 | 11.07 0.78 down from 2011 | 676 | 99% | $10,400 | ||
25Nature Structural & Molecular BiologyNature Portfolio · United States | 4.19Q1 | 11.82 0.01 up from 2011 | 757 | 56% | $12,690 | ||
26Molecular Biology and EvolutionOAOxford University Press · United States | 4.14Q1 | 10.49 5.12 up from 2011 | 979 | 81% | $3,418 | ||
27TrAC Trends in Analytical ChemistryElsevier BV · Netherlands | 4.07Q1 | 6.16 0.42 up from 2011 | 434 | 14% | $5,150 | ||
28Nature MethodsNature Portfolio · United States | 3.99Q1 | 10.73 1.34 up from 2011 | 1,033 | 34% | $12,690 | ||
29PLoS GeneticsOAPublic Library of Science · United States | 3.97Q1 | 10.31 0.22 down from 2011 | 1,533 | 100% | $3,043 | ||
30Nature Chemical BiologyNature Portfolio · United States | 3.87Q1 | 8.93 1.23 down from 2011 | 640 | 42% | $12,690 | ||
31Pharmacology & TherapeuticsElsevier BV · United States | 3.85Q1 | 9.19 0.15 down from 2011 | 316 | 31% | $5,660 | ||
32Circulation ResearchLippincott Williams & Wilkins · United States | 3.79Q1 | 11.80 2.55 up from 2011 | 1,056 | 44% | — | ||
33Expert Reviews in Molecular MedicineOACambridge University Press · United Kingdom | 3.76Q1 | 8.68 1.13 down from 2011 | 115 | 32% | $3,550 | ||
34Critical Reviews in MicrobiologyTaylor & Francis · United States | 3.70Q1 | 6.69 1.05 down from 2011 | 68 | 16% | — | ||
35Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Reviews on CancerElsevier BV · Netherlands | 3.69Q1 | 9.81 0.43 down from 2011 | 148 | 35% | $5,070 | ||
36The EMBO JournalOASpringer Nature · Germany | 3.66Q1 | 10.04 0.44 up from 2011 | 1,255 | 93% | $7,990 | ||
37Genome biologyOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 3.62Q1 | 7.81 1.65 down from 2011 | 760 | 100% | $5,490 | ||
38Human Molecular GeneticsOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 3.40Q1 | 8.19 0.42 down from 2011 | 1,614 | 76% | $4,390 | ||
39TheranosticsOAIvyspring International Publisher · Australia | 3.37Q1 | 8.61no 2011 value | 33 | 100% | $1,671 | — | |
40Cancer ResearchAmerican Association for Cancer Research · United States | 3.36Q1 | 9.80 0.66 up from 2011 | 3,179 | 6% | — | ||
41Stem CellsOxford University Press · United States | 3.26Q1 | 9.19 0.80 up from 2011 | 809 | 64% | $4,477 | ||
42Nanomedicine Nanotechnology Biology and MedicineElsevier BV · United States | 3.22Q1 | 5.80 1.02 down from 2011 | 380 | 23% | $3,670 | ||
43Critical Reviews in BiotechnologyTaylor & Francis · United States | 3.19Q1 | 6.07 0.24 up from 2011 | 81 | 9% | — | ||
44PhysiologyAmerican Physiological Society · United States | 3.18Q1 | 6.55 0.49 down from 2011 | 138 | 28% | — | ||
45The Journal of PathologyPublisher not listed | 3.14Q1 | 7.99 0.28 up from 2011 | 536 | 42% | $5,450 | ||
46Cell Death and DifferentiationSpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 3.10Q1 | 8.22 0.29 up from 2011 | 578 | 98% | $5,790 | ||
47mBioOAAmerican Society for Microbiology · United States | 3.09Q1 | 6.74 0.16 up from 2011 | 200 | 100% | $3,900 | ||
48Drug Metabolism ReviewsTaylor & Francis · United States | 3.07Q1 | 5.35 0.66 up from 2011 | 128 | 13% | — | ||
49Science Translational MedicineAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · United States | 3.06Q1 | 7.15 1.93 up from 2011 | 928 | 29% | — | ||
50Molecular & Cellular ProteomicsOAElsevier BV · United States | 3.06Q1 | 8.17 0.90 up from 2011 | 757 | 100% | $3,430 |
Subfields of Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology, with Molecular Biology highlighted.
- Molecular Biology955
- Genetics102
- Cell Biology23
- Cancer Research21
- Molecular Medicine7
- Biophysics6
- Biochemistry3
- Structural Biology3
- Clinical Biochemistry2
- Developmental Biology1
- Endocrinology1
- Physiology1
- Aging0
- Biotechnology0
Journals
Citations made in 2012. Corpus-wide, 75.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
281 additional Molecular Biology journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2009–2011, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2012. Publication window: 2009–2011. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 955
- Window papers (baseline)
- 344,870 +13.6% from indicator year 2009
- Median OJR
- 1.049 +8.2% from indicator year 2009
- Rising journals (2025)
- 129
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2009–2011 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 519 | 546 | 586 | 626 | 650 | 687 | 707 | 752 | 778 | 801 | 844 | 901 | 955 | 996 | 1,034 | 1,073 | 1,109 | 1,133 | 1,155 | 1,157 | 1,141 | 1,136 | 1,158 | 1,167 | 1,149 | 1,152 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 181,358 | 194,151 | 205,259 | 217,711 | 227,129 | 242,923 | 257,591 | 273,038 | 286,182 | 303,541 | 319,771 | 333,582 | 344,870 | 354,245 | 365,796 | 374,398 | 378,858 | 377,367 | 371,908 | 369,033 | 372,681 | 388,390 | 409,363 | 424,318 | 425,615 | 430,199 | |
| Median OJR | 0.66 | 0.65 | 0.70 | 0.79 | 0.82 | 0.872 | 0.923 | 0.929 | 0.95 | 0.97 | 1.010 | 1.051 | 1.049 | 1.014 | 1.001 | 0.99 | 0.98 | 0.944 | 0.940 | 0.933 | 0.937 | 0.917 | 0.9097 | 0.870 | 0.89 | 0.9095 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.