Journal rankings · indicator year 2015
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2015
Molecular Biology journal rankings 2015
1,073 ranked journals · Subfield in Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Molecular Biology has 1,073 ranked journals in 2015. The median journal has an OJR of 0.99, below the world average of 1.00, down 0.02 on 2014; Q1 starts at OJR 1.50. The top three are Cell, Nature Genetics, and Pharmacological Reviews.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2015. 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 2012–2014, the window the 2015 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)
1,073 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 2014. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2012–2014, the window the 2015 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2012–2014 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 2006 to 2015. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1CellCell Press · United States | 9.74Q1 | 24.44 2.80 down from 2014 | 1,866 | 99% | $11,400 | ||
2Nature GeneticsNature Portfolio · United States | 9.50Q1 | 23.56 0.51 up from 2014 | 961 | 64% | $12,690 | ||
3Pharmacological ReviewsAmerican Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics · United States | 8.46Q1 | 21.03 0.80 down from 2014 | 99 | 51% | $4,500 | ||
4NatureNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 7.34Q1 | 12.67 0.94 down from 2014 | 9,768 | 36% | $12,690 | ||
5FEMS Microbiology ReviewsOAOxford University Press · Netherlands | 6.60Q1 | 14.13 1.39 up from 2014 | 117 | 90% | $3,297 | ||
6Molecular Biology and EvolutionOAOxford University Press · United States | 6.05Q1 | 14.04 3.18 up from 2014 | 923 | 88% | $3,418 | ||
7Nature CommunicationsOANature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.00Q1 | 13.55 0.32 down from 2014 | 5,111 | 100% | $6,990 | ||
8Systematic BiologyOxford University Press · United States | 5.97Q1 | 6.61 5.97 down from 2014 | 312 | 51% | $2,166 | ||
9Nature BiotechnologyNature Portfolio · United States | 5.84Q1 | 14.73 2.39 up from 2014 | 1,121 | 32% | $12,690 | ||
10Cell MetabolismCell Press · United States | 5.83Q1 | 15.45 0.94 down from 2014 | 648 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
11Cell stem cellElsevier BV · United States | 5.70Q1 | 15.38 0.08 down from 2014 | 627 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
12Nature MethodsNature Portfolio · United States | 5.63Q1 | 11.21 2.71 down from 2014 | 1,307 | 33% | $12,690 | ||
13ScienceAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · United States | 5.50Q1 | 9.10 0.12 up from 2014 | 11,688 | 19% | — | ||
14GigaScienceOAUniversity of Oxford · United Kingdom | 5.43Q1 | 8.72 6.19 down from 2014 | 69 | 100% | $2,638 | ||
15Progress in Lipid ResearchElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 5.42Q1 | 13.36 1.62 up from 2014 | 83 | 36% | $5,530 | ||
16MicrobiomeOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 5.27Q1 | 12.01 1.59 up from 2014 | 74 | 100% | $4,990 | ||
17Journal of Clinical InvestigationOAAmerican Society for Clinical Investigation · United States | 5.19Q1 | 12.77 0.74 down from 2014 | 1,605 | 100% | $5,200 | ||
18Nature ProtocolsNature Portfolio · United States | 5.18Q1 | 11.72 0.39 down from 2014 | 566 | 52% | — | ||
19Biotechnology AdvancesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 5.17Q1 | 11.68 1.46 up from 2014 | 355 | 27% | $5,460 | ||
20Nature Cell BiologyNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 5.13Q1 | 15.19 1.00 up from 2014 | 601 | 68% | $12,690 | ||
21Molecular Aspects of MedicineElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.95Q1 | 13.58 1.72 up from 2014 | 129 | 42% | $5,220 | ||
22Cell Host & MicrobeCell Press · United States | 4.70Q1 | 10.79 0.39 down from 2014 | 517 | 99% | $10,400 | ||
23Pharmacology & TherapeuticsElsevier BV · United States | 4.60Q1 | 12.45 1.06 up from 2014 | 326 | 38% | $5,660 | ||
24Molecular CellElsevier BV · United States | 4.55Q1 | 13.69 0.17 up from 2014 | 1,121 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
25Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesNational Academy of Sciences · United States | 4.50Q1 | 10.34 0.40 down from 2014 | 12,728 | 100% | — | ||
26Drug Resistance UpdatesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.36Q1 | 9.24 2.40 down from 2014 | 48 | 30% | $5,410 | ||
27Genome biologyOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 4.21Q1 | 11.14 1.12 up from 2014 | 822 | 100% | $5,490 | ||
28Journal of Extracellular VesiclesOATaylor & Francis · United States | 4.19Q1 | 14.76 5.86 up from 2014 | 89 | 100% | $4,410 | ||
29Science Translational MedicineAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · United States | 4.16Q1 | 9.58 0.10 up from 2014 | 1,450 | 35% | — | ||
30Molecular Systems BiologyOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 4.15Q1 | 11.67 0.63 down from 2014 | 206 | 100% | $7,990 | ||
31TrAC Trends in Analytical ChemistryElsevier BV · Netherlands | 3.91Q1 | 7.33 0.68 up from 2014 | 534 | 22% | $5,150 | ||
32Nature Structural & Molecular BiologyNature Portfolio · United States | 3.73Q1 | 11.34 0.30 up from 2014 | 687 | 54% | $12,690 | ||
33Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Reviews on CancerElsevier BV · Netherlands | 3.64Q1 | 9.49 0.51 down from 2014 | 185 | 32% | $5,070 | ||
34Medicinal Research ReviewsWiley · United States | 3.62Q1 | 9.82 2.15 up from 2014 | 86 | 33% | $4,980 | ||
35eLifeOAeLife Sciences Publications Ltd · United Kingdom | 3.59Q1 | 8.90 0.14 up from 2014 | 995 | 100% | $2,500 | ||
36EMBO Molecular MedicineOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 3.53Q1 | 9.63 0.35 up from 2014 | 385 | 100% | $7,990 | ||
37TheranosticsOAIvyspring International Publisher · Australia | 3.53Q1 | 9.01 0.91 up from 2014 | 317 | 100% | $1,671 | ||
38Stem Cell ReportsOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 3.51Q1 | 9.33 1.93 up from 2014 | 247 | 100% | $4,190 | ||
39mBioOAAmerican Society for Microbiology · United States | 3.51Q1 | 7.99 0.33 up from 2014 | 850 | 100% | $3,900 | ||
40Cell ReportsOACell Press · United States | 3.50Q1 | 9.59 0.47 down from 2014 | 1,451 | 100% | $5,620 | ||
41Nucleic Acids ResearchOAOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 3.48Q1 | 10.11 0.39 up from 2014 | 4,205 | 100% | $3,992 | ||
42Circulation ResearchLippincott Williams & Wilkins · United States | 3.44Q1 | 9.44 0.37 up from 2014 | 1,145 | 37% | — | ||
43Cellular Physiology and BiochemistryOAKarger Publishers · Switzerland | 3.42Q1 | 12.71 6.51 up from 2014 | 818 | 100% | $1,925 | ||
44PLoS BiologyOAPublic Library of Science · United States | 3.39Q1 | 8.05 0.16 down from 2014 | 775 | 100% | $5,500 | ||
45Cancer ResearchAmerican Association for Cancer Research · United States | 3.23Q1 | 8.63 0.86 down from 2014 | 2,107 | 5% | — | ||
46Redox BiologyOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 3.23Q1 | 7.98 1.33 up from 2014 | 242 | 100% | $4,310 | ||
47Current Protocols in BioinformaticsWiley · United States | 3.19Q1 | 9.95 4.97 up from 2014 | 60 | 32% | $5,050 | ||
48Physiological ReviewsAmerican Physiological Society · United States | 3.16Q1 | 37.41 1.22 up from 2014 | 114 | 71% | — | ||
49Developmental CellElsevier BV · United States | 3.14Q1 | 8.36 0.30 down from 2014 | 844 | 99% | $10,400 | ||
50The EMBO JournalOASpringer Nature · Germany | 3.13Q1 | 8.32 1.39 down from 2014 | 915 | 100% | $7,990 |
Subfields of Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology, with Molecular Biology highlighted.
- Molecular Biology1,073
- Genetics116
- Cell Biology26
- Cancer Research25
- Molecular Medicine10
- Biophysics8
- Clinical Biochemistry4
- Aging2
- Biochemistry2
- Physiology2
- Structural Biology2
- Developmental Biology1
- Biotechnology0
- Endocrinology0
Journals
Citations made in 2015. Corpus-wide, 78.1% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
348 additional Molecular Biology journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2012–2014, 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: 2015. Publication window: 2012–2014. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 1,073
- Window papers (baseline)
- 374,398 +8.6% from indicator year 2012
- Median OJR
- 0.99 -6.1% from indicator year 2012
- Rising journals (2025)
- 129
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2012–2014 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.