Cell

About Cell

Cell: Journal Overview

Cell is the flagship journal of Cell Press (an imprint of Elsevier), publishing peer-reviewed research described on the journal's homepage as "findings of unusual significance in any area of experimental biology" (source: cell.com/cell/home, accessed October 2026). The journal's remit spans cell biology, molecular biology, neuroscience, immunology, virology and microbiology, cancer, human genetics, systems biology, signaling, and disease mechanisms and therapeutics — making it one of the most influential life-science journals in the world.

Cell's standing is reflected in its official journal metrics. According to the journal homepage, Cell's Journal Impact Factor is 45.1 in the Journal Citation Reports 2025 (Clarivate Analytics, 2026), and its CiteScore is 67.8 (2025 CiteScore, © 2026 Elsevier B.V.) (source: cell.com/cell/home, accessed October 2026). The journal also reports rapid editorial handling: a median of 10 days from submission to first editorial decision, and a median of 28 days from acceptance to first online publication for papers published online (source: cell.com/cell/home, accessed October 2026).

Cell operates with an in-house team of full-time professional scientific editors who evaluate every submission. Editorial decisions at Cell are made by the journal's own editorial staff, reflecting the Cell Press model of professional editors with active research backgrounds rather than academic editorial boards (source: cell.com/cell/home; cell.com/multi-journal-submission/authors).

History of Cell

Cell was founded in January 1974 by molecular biologist Benjamin Lewin, under the aegis of the MIT Press. Lewin had developed his ideas for a comprehensive biology journal while working at the National Institutes of Health, following a period editing Nature New Biology, and he set out to build Cell into a leading journal of cellular biology able to rival Nature and Science (sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(journal); en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Lewin).

In 1986, Lewin bought the title outright and established an independent publishing company, Cell Press. Under his leadership the company spun off new journals: Neuron (March 1988), Immunity (April 1994), and Molecular Cell (December 1997) (source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Press). In April 1999, Lewin sold Cell Press to Elsevier; he remained as editor-in-chief briefly and left the company in October 1999 (sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(journal); Nature 398, 551 (1999) — Declan Butler, "Cell sale to Elsevier will boost web ventures").

Since the Elsevier acquisition, Cell Press has grown into one of the world's most prominent scientific publishers, adding titles including Developmental Cell (2001), Cancer Cell (2002), Cell Metabolism (2005), Cell Host & Microbe (2007), Cell Stem Cell (2007), Cell Systems (2015), Chem (2016), Joule (2017), iScience (2018), and One Earth (2019), and acquiring the Trends family of review journals in 2007 (source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Press).

In 2024, Cell celebrated its 50th anniversary — fifty years since the first issue appeared in January 1974. The anniversary was marked with special content across the year, and Editor-in-Chief John W. Pham opened Cell volume 188 (January 2025) with an editorial titled "Cell after 50," thanking everyone who had contributed to the journal's first five decades (source: cell.com — "Cell after 50," doi:10.1016/j.cell.2024.12.033).

Leadership and Editorial Team

The current Editor-in-Chief of Cell is Dr. John Pham (also styled John W. Pham), appointed to the role in 2018 following the departure of former Cell Press CEO and Cell Editor-in-Chief Dr. Emilie Marcus in February 2018 (source: cell.com/news-do/cell-john-pham, Cell Press announcement, 2018).

Pham earned his PhD from Northwestern University, where he studied the mechanisms of RNA splicing and RNA interference with Dr. Erik Sontheimer, and conducted postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital before joining Cell Press (source: cell.com/news-do/cell-john-pham). He remained in the role into 2026: in January 2025 he signed the "Cell after 50" anniversary editorial as Editor-in-Chief, and Cell Press communications from 2026 continue to name Dr. John W. Pham as Editor-in-Chief (sources: cell.com — "Cell after 50"; Cell Press Blue official posts, 2026).

Pham's stated editorial direction emphasizes engaging with authors, reviewers, and readers as partners, and bringing the journal's voice to issues facing scientists, including reproducibility and ethical research conduct (source: prnewswire.co.uk — "Dr. John Pham Appointed as New Editor-in-Chief of Cell," 2018).

Cell's manuscripts are handled by a team of full-time professional scientific editors, each assigned to particular areas of experimental biology. The journal maintains Cell Press's "behind the scenes with Cell editors" series, introducing the editorial team that evaluates submissions (source: cell.com/cell/home).

Aims & Scope

According to the journal's official description, Cell publishes "findings of unusual significance in any area of experimental biology, including but not limited to cell biology, molecular biology, neuroscience, immunology, virology and microbiology, cancer, human genetics, systems biology, signaling, and disease mechanisms and therapeutics" (source: cell.com/cell/home, accessed October 2026).

In practice, Cell seeks studies that report conceptual advances rather than incremental results — papers that change how a biological question is understood and that command the attention of a broad life-science readership rather than a specialist audience. The journal publishes primary research articles and resource articles alongside shorter formats, reviews, perspectives, and commentary. Since 2018 the editorial leadership has also signaled that Cell welcomes diverse forms of scientific contribution, including work spanning computational biology, AI in biology, and systems-level approaches — themes highlighted in recent focus issues (sources: cell.com/cell/home; Cell Press official communications, 2026).

Editorial Process and Peer Review

Manuscripts submitted to Cell are first evaluated by the journal's in-house scientific editors. This initial editorial assessment determines whether a paper is sent out for external peer review or returned to the authors with an editorial decision — consistent with the journal's reported median of 10 days from submission to first editorial decision (source: cell.com/cell/home, accessed October 2026).

How manuscripts are handled:

1. Initial editorial evaluation. Every submission is read and evaluated by professional scientific editors at Cell. Papers judged unlikely to meet the journal's criterion of "unusual significance" are returned without external review — a triage step typical of highly selective journals.
2. External peer review. Manuscripts with strong potential are sent for in-depth review by expert referees in the relevant field. Cell Press guidance describes peer review as a critical factor in promoting rigorous, high-quality research and as a conversation between authors and reviewers (source: cell.com/multi-journal-submission/reviewers).
3. Editorial decision. Based on reviewers' advice, the editors decide to accept, invite revision, or decline. Cell reports a median of 28 days from acceptance to first online publication for published papers (source: cell.com/cell/home).

Speed. The journal's published medians — 10 days to first editorial decision and 28 days from acceptance to online publication — place Cell among the faster selective life-science journals from acceptance to appearance online (source: cell.com/cell/home, accessed October 2026).

Multi-Journal Submission. Cell Press operates a "Multi-Journal Submission" route in which a primary research paper can be considered simultaneously at several Cell Press journals of the author's choice. A handling editor evaluates the manuscript and discusses it with consulting editors for each requested journal; each journal then makes an independent decision on whether to review it. Authors whose paper is not taken up by one Cell Press journal can thus find an appropriate home without repeated rounds of serial submission and re-review (source: cell.com/multi-journal-submission/authors).

Presubmission enquiries. Cell Press journals provide presubmission enquiry services so authors can check a manuscript's likely fit with the journal before preparing a full submission (source: Cell Press author guidance, e.g., cell.com/star-protocols/information-for-authors).

Impact and Metrics

The following metrics are published on Cell's official journal homepage (cell.com/cell/home, accessed October 2026). Years refer to the metric year as displayed by the journal.

Historical note: Wikipedia's journal infobox records Cell's Impact Factor as 45.5 for 2023 (source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(journal)), consistent with the journal's sustained position among the highest-impact life-science journals. As with all citation metrics, the figures above are updated annually — check the journal's official homepage for the current values before citing.

Submission Guidelines

Cell's "Information for authors" pages set out the journal's policies for manuscript preparation and submission (source: Cell Press author pages, e.g., cell.com/iscience/information-for-authors; cell.com/cell/home). Key points:

• Submission portal: Manuscripts are submitted through the journal's online manuscript submission system, Editorial Manager (EM), accessible from the journal homepage's "Submit article" link (sources: cell.com/cell/home; cell.com information-for-authors pages).
• Article types: Cell publishes Research Articles, Resource articles, Short Articles, Reviews, Minireviews, Perspectives, Previews, Commentaries, SnapShots (graphical summaries), and Leading Edge content. Each format has its own length and figure limits detailed in the author instructions.
• Cover letter: Authors are expected to explain why the work represents an advance of "unusual significance" suited to Cell's broad readership, alongside the title, abstract, and a description of the results.
• Presubmission enquiries: Authors may contact the editors in advance — including before the manuscript is fully written — with a tentative title, abstract, description of results, and an explanation of why Cell's readers would be interested (source: Cell Press author guidance).
• Data and code availability: Cell Press policies require that data, materials, and code underlying published results be made available to the community, with accession numbers and deposition details supplied at submission.
• Ethics and reproducibility: Manuscripts must comply with Cell Press policies on authorship, competing interests, research ethics (human subjects, animal welfare, dual-use research of concern), and image integrity.
• Preprints: Cell Press journals permit posting of preprints prior to submission, consistent with the publisher's support for preprint servers.
• Transfers: Authors can opt into the Multi-Journal Submission workflow or accept editorial offers to transfer a manuscript to a sister Cell Press journal, with the review history carried over where applicable (source: cell.com/multi-journal-submission/authors).

Open Access and APC

Cell is a hybrid journal: it publishes on a subscription basis while offering authors the choice to publish open access for an article publishing charge. The journal homepage states: "Authors may choose to publish open access by paying an article publishing charge," and lists the current gold open access article publishing charge as $11,400, noting that the fee is met by the authors or their research funders for each article published open access (source: cell.com/cell/home, accessed October 2026). APC figures change over time — verify the current charge on the journal's official open access page before relying on any number.

Cell also practices delayed open access: journal content becomes freely available online 12 months after publication, under Cell Press's archive policy (source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(journal), "Open access: After 12 months"; Cell Press author pages note content is "freely available online 12 months after publication").

Institutional arrangements can cover open access costs for eligible authors. Notably, the landmark 2021 University of California–Elsevier transformative agreement — North America's largest open access scholarly publishing deal at the time — was the first in the world to include open access publishing across the entire Cell Press and Lancet families of journals, making it possible for UC corresponding authors to publish open access in Cell with library financial support (sources: universityofcalifornia.edu press release, 2021; library.ucdavis.edu announcement, 2022; science.org, 2021). Many other institutional and national read-and-publish agreements with Elsevier now include Cell Press hybrid titles (source: becker.wustl.edu, 2025).

Landmark Discoveries Published in Cell

Over five decades, Cell has published some of the most cited and consequential papers in the life sciences. Among the best known:

• Induced pluripotent stem cells (2006–2007). Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka's report that defined transcription factors can reprogram mouse fibroblasts into pluripotent stem cells — Cell 126, 663–676 (2006) — launched the iPS cell revolution and led to the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. A follow-up demonstrating reprogramming of adult human fibroblasts also appeared in Cell (2007) (sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_pluripotent_stem_cells; ucsf.edu archives, 2007).
• The Hallmarks of Cancer (2000, 2011). Douglas Hanahan and Robert Weinberg's "The Hallmarks of Cancer" (Cell 100, 57–70, 2000) and its sequel "Hallmarks of Cancer: The Next Generation" (Cell 144, 646–674, 2011) organized the biology of cancer into a small set of unifying principles and became among the most cited papers in all of biomedicine (sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hallmarks_of_Cancer; news.cancerresearchuk.org).
• Telomerase (1985). Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn's identification of telomere terminal transferase activity in Tetrahymena extracts, published in Cell, founded the telomerase field and contributed to their 2009 Nobel Prize.
• MicroRNAs (1993). Victor Ambros's laboratory reported that the C. elegans gene lin-4 encodes small regulatory RNAs — the discovery of microRNAs — in Cell (Lee, Feinbaum & Ambros, 1993), work recognized by the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• CRISPR gene regulation (2013–2016). Cell published foundational papers on repurposing CRISPR-Cas9 for gene regulation, including Stanley Qi and colleagues' CRISPR interference platform (Cell 152, 1173–1183, 2013), Luke Gilbert and colleagues' CRISPR-mediated transcriptional control (Cell 154, 442–451, 2013) and genome-scale CRISPR screening (Cell 159, 647–661, 2014), and Eric Lander's widely read "The Heroes of CRISPR" perspective (Cell 164, 18–28, 2016) (sources: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26771483; nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol201792 reference list).

These papers illustrate why Cell is often described as the journal of "exciting biology": its pages have repeatedly carried the first reports of findings that reshaped entire fields.

The Cell Press Family

Cell is the flagship of the Cell Press family of journals, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia under its parent company Elsevier (source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Press). From the three spin-offs launched under Benjamin Lewin — Neuron (1988), Immunity (1994), and Molecular Cell (1997) — the family has grown to more than 50 scientific journals spanning the life, physical, earth, and health sciences (source: library.ucsb.edu, 2022).

Manuscripts submitted to Cell that are judged excellent but better suited to a more specialist audience may be offered transfer to a sister journal — such as Molecular Cell, Developmental Cell, Cell Reports, Cell Stem Cell, Cell Host & Microbe, or Current Biology — with reviewer reports carried over, so authors do not start peer review from scratch (source: cell.com/multi-journal-submission/authors).

Key Facts

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Cell journal?

Cell is the flagship peer-reviewed scientific journal of Cell Press (an imprint of Elsevier), publishing research of unusual significance across experimental biology. Founded in 1974, it is consistently ranked among the world's most prestigious and highly cited life-science journals.

When was Cell founded?

Cell was founded in January 1974 by molecular biologist Benjamin Lewin, initially under the MIT Press. Lewin bought the title in 1986 to establish the independent Cell Press, which he sold to Elsevier in April 1999 (sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(journal); Nature 398, 551 (1999)).

What is Cell's impact factor?

According to the journal's official homepage, Cell's Journal Impact Factor is 45.1 (Journal Citation Reports 2025, Clarivate Analytics, 2026) and its CiteScore is 67.8 (2025, Elsevier). Figures are updated annually — check cell.com/cell/home for the current values.

Who is the Editor-in-Chief of Cell?

Dr. John Pham, a molecular biologist (PhD, Northwestern University; postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital), has been Editor-in-Chief since 2018, succeeding Dr. Emilie Marcus (sources: cell.com/news-do/cell-john-pham; Cell Press 2026 communications).

Does Cell have an editorial board?

Cell uses the Cell Press model of full-time professional scientific editors with research backgrounds who handle manuscripts and make editorial decisions, rather than an external academic editorial board.

How does peer review work at Cell?

Every submission is first evaluated by in-house scientific editors (median 10 days to first editorial decision). Manuscripts with strong potential are sent for in-depth external peer review by expert referees; editors then decide to accept, invite revision, or decline. The median time from acceptance to online publication is 28 days (source: cell.com/cell/home).

What are Cell's criteria for publication?

Cell seeks findings of "unusual significance" in any area of experimental biology — studies representing conceptual advances likely to influence thinking in their field and to interest a broad life-science readership, not only specialists.

How long does Cell take to make a decision?

The journal reports a median of 10 days from submission to first editorial decision and a median of 28 days from acceptance to first online publication (source: cell.com/cell/home, accessed October 2026).

Can I post my manuscript as a preprint before submitting to Cell?

Yes. Cell Press journals permit the posting of preprints prior to submission, and preprints are not considered to compromise novelty.

Is Cell open access?

Cell is a hybrid journal: primarily subscription-based, with an optional gold open access route for an article publishing charge (listed as $11,400 on the journal homepage, October 2026 — subject to change). In addition, all Cell content becomes freely available 12 months after publication under the journal's delayed open access archive policy.

What is Cell's acceptance rate?

Cell does not publish an official acceptance rate. As one of the most selective life-science journals, only a small fraction of submissions proceed to publication — but no verified figure is available, so none is stated here.

What famous papers were published in Cell?

Landmark Cell papers include Takahashi & Yamanaka's induced pluripotent stem cells (2006), Hanahan & Weinberg's "The Hallmarks of Cancer" (2000) and its 2011 sequel, Greider & Blackburn's telomerase discovery (1985), the discovery of microRNAs (lin-4, 1993), and foundational CRISPR gene-regulation papers (2013–2016).

Where can I submit to Cell?

Manuscripts are submitted through the journal's Editorial Manager (EM) online submission system via the "Submit article" link on the journal homepage at cell.com/cell/home. Presubmission enquiries are also welcomed.

Profile compiled October 2026 from official Cell Press and Elsevier sources listed in the accompanying sources file. Metrics, charges, and policies change over time — always verify current figures on the journal's official pages before citing or acting on them.