Nature Reviews Genetics

About Nature Reviews Genetics

Journal Overview

Nature Reviews Genetics is a monthly peer-reviewed review journal published by Nature Portfolio, the journal-publishing division of Springer Nature. Established in 2000 with its first issue appearing in October 2000 (Volume 1, Issue 1), it is one of the founding titles of the Nature Reviews portfolio and has grown into one of the most cited and prestigious journals in genetics and genomics worldwide.

Unlike primary research journals, Nature Reviews Genetics publishes no original (previously unpublished) research data. Instead it serves as the premier synthesis venue for the field: its Review and Perspective articles are written by leading experts and are intended to be authoritative, accessible, and enhanced with clearly presented figures and display items so that busy researchers can stay current with fast-moving areas of genetics and genomics.

Each monthly issue also contains short-form content — Research Highlights, Comments, News & Views-style pieces, and features such as "Tools of the Trade" — many of which are researched and written in-house by the journal's team of full-time professional editors.

With a 2025 Journal Impact Factor of 51.4 reported on the publisher's own metrics page, the journal has repeatedly ranked at or near the very top of the "Genetics & Heredity" category — for example, it ranked 1st out of 175 journals in the category in the 2021 Journal Citation Reports. Articles published in the journal attract exceptionally high citation counts, reflecting its role as the go-to reference for authoritative overviews of the field.

History and Key Milestones

Nature Reviews Genetics was launched in October 2000, in the same year the draft human genome sequence was announced — timing that placed it at the center of the genomics revolution from day one. Library catalog records confirm publication began with "Vol. 1, no. 1 (Oct. 2000)" and the journal has appeared monthly ever since, under Nature Publishing Group (now Nature Portfolio, Springer Nature).

• 2000 — First issue published (October 2000, Volume 1). The journal set out to cover the full scientific breadth of modern genetics.
• 2001 — The journal's early years coincided with the completion of the Human Genome Project's draft sequence, giving it a rich landscape of genome-era developments to synthesize.
• 2009 — Linda Koch joined Nature Reviews Endocrinology as an editor (later becoming Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Genetics).
• 2014 — Linda Koch became Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Genetics, a role she continues to hold.
• 2017 — Dorothy Clyde moved from Nature Protocols to Nature Reviews Genetics as Senior Editor.
• 2021 — The journal recorded a 2021 Journal Impact Factor of 59.943, ranking 1st of 175 journals in Genetics & Heredity.
• 2023 — Henry Ertl joined the editorial team as Associate Editor (promoted to Senior Editor in September 2025).
• 2025 — 2025 Journal Impact Factor reported as 51.4, with a 5-year impact factor of 54.6, on the publisher's official metrics page.

Over more than two decades of continuous monthly publication, the journal has expanded its article portfolio to include Perspectives, Primers-style technical coverage, single-cell omics and machine-learning collections, and early-career-oriented formats such as "Tools of the Trade" and "Journal Club."

Aims & Scope (Paraphrased from the Official Site)

According to its official journal-information page, Nature Reviews Genetics aims to be the leading source of reviews and commentary for the genetics and genomics research communities. The editorial team strives to publish pieces that are authoritative yet accessible, with clear figures, tables, and visual aids, and to provide a high level of service to authors, referees, and readers — maximizing the usefulness and impact of every article.

The journal publishes Research Highlights, Comments, Reviews, and Perspectives aimed at geneticists and genomicists, with a deliberately broad scope so articles reach the widest possible audience. The editors note that, to an extent, all life scientists are geneticists today, since genetic technologies and accumulating genomic information have enriched the whole of biology — and anyone working on or with genes benefits from knowing the latest developments.

Coverage spans the full breadth of modern genetics, including:

• Genomics — genome projects, sequencing, bioinformatics, cancer genomics, metagenomics, pharmacogenomics
• Functional genomics — transcriptomics, functional screens
• Evolutionary genetics — evo-devo, genome evolution, comparative and population genomics, phylogenetics
• Technology — new methods, experimental strategies, computational biology, applied genetics
• Gene expression — regulation at transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels, regulatory RNAs, networks
• Multifactorial genetics — complex traits, mapping strategies, genetic variation
• Disease — gene identification, genotype–phenotype relationships, molecular pathology, disease susceptibility
• Chromosome biology — telomeres, centromeres, mobile elements, chromosome stability
• Epigenetics — DNA methylation, histone modification, chromatin, imprinting, epigenomics
• Developmental biology, systems biology, and the ethical, legal and social implications of genetics and genomics

Editorial Team

Like other Nature Portfolio journals, Nature Reviews Genetics has no external editorial board; all editorial decisions are made by a team of full-time professional editors, listed on the journal's official "About the Editors" page:

• Chief Editor: Linda Koch, Dr. rer. nat. — based in London, UK. She earned her doctorate in genetics from the University of Cologne, Germany (studying conditional gene targeting in mice in the lab of Jens Brüning), followed by postdoctoral work on a knockout mouse model of the obesity gene Fto. She joined Nature Reviews Endocrinology in August 2009 as Associate Editor, rising to Senior Editor and Acting Chief Editor, before becoming Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Genetics in 2014.
• Senior Editor: Dorothy Clyde, PhD — based in London, UK. PhD from the University of Edinburgh (sex-specific gene expression in Drosophila), with postdoctoral research at New York University and in the UK on Drosophila embryonic development. She joined Nature Protocols in January 2006 and moved to Nature Reviews Genetics in January 2017.
• Senior Editor: Henry Ertl, PhD — based in New York, USA. PhD from the University of Michigan studying the pioneer factor Grainy head in the evolution of gene expression in Drosophila. He joined the journal as Associate Editor in September 2023 and was promoted to Senior Editor in September 2025.

General editorial inquiries, manuscript-status queries, and correspondence are directed to the Editor at nrg@nature.com. (Editorial staff changes over time; the list above reflects the publisher's official editors page as accessed in October 2026.)

Review and Editorial Process

Nature Reviews journals publish only non-primary content: none of the articles contain original, previously unpublished data, although new analyses of existing data may occasionally be included in small measure to support a narrative review. Short-form content (Research Highlights, News & Views, Comments, and similar pieces) is developed, researched, and written in-house by the professional editorial team.

According to the publisher's "Editorial input and checks" documentation, externally authored Review-type articles (Reviews, Perspectives, and related formats) go through:

• Editorial development of scope, scientific editing, and artwork development
• External peer review (Review-type articles; News and Comment pieces are not peer reviewed)
• Copy editing
• Ethics checks: plagiarism screening, patient-consent checks, clinical-trial-registration requests, checks on references to unpublished work, declared competing interests, and third-party rights clearance
• Community-standard upholds: author-contribution statements, author identification, peer-review recognition, early-career-researcher peer-review involvement, diversity commitment, and sensitivity reads

The vast majority of Review articles are commissioned (invited) by the editors, who work closely with authors throughout development. Unsolicited proposals may be considered through the journal's online submission system in the form of a short synopsis (typically a ~200-word abstract, a description of the main sections, key references, and author affiliations) — the Nature Reviews portfolio states that it considers proposals only for Review-type and Comment-type articles and does not publish original research, case studies, meta-analyses, or systematic reviews. Details and submission links are provided by the editor; prospective authors are advised to contact the journal before preparing a full manuscript.

Impact & Metrics

The publisher reports the following metrics for Nature Reviews Genetics on its official journal-metrics page (figures labeled 2025, accessed October 2026):

• Journal Impact Factor: 51.4 (2025); 5-year Journal Impact Factor: 54.6 (2025)
• Immediacy Index: 7.4 (2025)
• Eigenfactor® Score: 0.04432 (2025)
• Article Influence® Score: 23.303 (2025)
• SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper): 8.581 (2025)
• SCImago Journal Rank (SJR): 20.403 (2025)
• Usage in 2025: ~3.25 million article downloads and 8,365 Altmetric mentions

Historical trajectory (from Journal Citation Reports, via secondary reporting): the impact factor has ranged roughly from the 30s to the high 50s over the past decade, peaking at 59.943 in 2021, when the journal ranked 1st of 175 journals in the "Genetics & Heredity" category. Third-party databases report an h-index in the 400s (approximately 440–460), consistent with its role as one of the most cited review venues in the life sciences.

Note: Springer Nature is a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), and its metrics page cautions that citation measures such as the 2-year impact factor are not, by themselves, measures of journal quality — readers and authors should consider a range of metrics.

Submission Guidelines

The following reflects the Nature Reviews portfolio's published author guidance (as posted on the official Nature Reviews submission pages):

• Scope of content: Review-type articles (Reviews, Perspectives) and Comment-type articles only. The journal does not publish original research, case studies, meta-analyses, or systematic reviews.
• Commissioning: Most articles are invited by the editors. Unsolicited proposals are submitted through the online submission system as a synopsis: a ~200-word abstract, a brief description of the main article sections, a list of key references, and author names and affiliations.
• Submission route: Synopses and manuscripts are submitted electronically through the journal's online submission system, using the link and instructions provided by the editor. Authors should generally contact the editors before preparing a full unsolicited manuscript.
• Editorial contact: nrg@nature.com for general editorial inquiries and manuscript-status questions.
• Acceptance rate and turnaround times: the publisher does not publicly disclose an acceptance rate or median decision times for this journal.

Article Processing Charges and Open Access

According to the official Nature Reviews publishing-model statement: articles published in Nature Reviews can only be published via the subscription publication route; the journals do not offer an immediate gold open-access option, and they do not charge authors a publication fee. In other words, there is no APC for Nature Reviews Genetics — authors pay nothing to publish.

Authors may self-archive the accepted manuscript on their own website and in funder or institutional repositories six months after the date of online publication. Because non-primary review articles are largely outside the scope of most funder open-access mandates, the publisher notes that most authors do not need to take further action to satisfy OA policies — though authors should check their individual funding requirements.

Article Types and Signature Formats

Understanding the journal's formats helps readers navigate it and helps prospective authors target the right outlet:

• Review Articles — comprehensive, authoritative overviews of a field, typically commissioned from leading experts and developed closely with an editor over several months, with custom-designed figures.
• Perspectives — shorter, opinion-driven pieces that offer a new viewpoint or synthesis, including occasional pieces that draw together fields such as plasmids and extrachromosomal DNA to argue for convergent evolutionary concepts.
• Research Highlights — concise editor-written summaries of important recent primary papers, flagging why they matter.
• Comments — timely opinion and analysis pieces on policy, ethics, or developments affecting genetics and genomics.
• Tools of the Trade — short features in which early-career researchers describe a new tool or method they helped develop and the gap it fills; the editors actively solicit contributions at nrg@nature.com.
• Journal Club — discussion-oriented pieces on recent notable papers.
• Collections — curated sets of Reviews on a theme, such as single-cell omics methods and applications or machine learning in genomics, bringing together key opinion leaders on a topic.
• Milestones — occasional retrospective pieces marking breakthroughs in genetics history, such as the identification of the first Alzheimer's disease gene.

The journal is also known for its strong visual identity: review articles are enhanced with bespoke, clearly structured figures and tables, and the editors' published "editorial input and checks" document makes explicit that artwork development is a standard part of production for Review-type articles.

Key Facts

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the impact factor of Nature Reviews Genetics?

The publisher's official journal-metrics page reports a 2025 Journal Impact Factor of 51.4 and a 5-year impact factor of 54.6. The figure peaked at 59.943 in 2021, when the journal ranked 1st of 175 journals in the "Genetics & Heredity" category of the Journal Citation Reports.

2. Who is the editor-in-chief of Nature Reviews Genetics?

Linda Koch, Dr. rer. nat., who has been Chief Editor since 2014. She earned her doctorate in genetics from the University of Cologne, Germany, and previously worked at Nature Reviews Endocrinology. She is based in London, UK.

3. When was Nature Reviews Genetics founded?

The journal was established in 2000, with its first issue published in October 2000 (Volume 1, Issue 1), under Nature Publishing Group — now Nature Portfolio, Springer Nature.

4. Does Nature Reviews Genetics charge an article processing charge (APC)?

No. Per the official Nature Reviews publishing model, articles are published only via the subscription route; there is no immediate gold open-access option and the publisher does not charge a publication fee.

5. Is Nature Reviews Genetics open access?

Not immediately: it is a subscription journal. However, authors may self-archive the accepted manuscript on their personal website or in institutional/funder repositories six months after online publication.

6. How can I submit an article to Nature Reviews Genetics?

Most articles are invited. Unsolicited proposals can be submitted through the journal's online submission system as a synopsis (~200-word abstract, section outline, key references, author affiliations). Contact the editors at nrg@nature.com for guidance and submission links before preparing a full manuscript.

7. Does Nature Reviews Genetics publish original research?

No. The journal publishes only non-primary content — Reviews, Perspectives, Comments, and short in-house pieces. No article contains original, previously unpublished research data.

8. Are articles in Nature Reviews Genetics peer reviewed?

Yes — Review-type articles (Reviews, Perspectives, etc.) are peer reviewed, in addition to scientific editing, artwork development, and copy editing. Short News-and-Comment pieces written in-house are not externally peer reviewed.

9. What is the acceptance rate of Nature Reviews Genetics?

The publisher does not publicly disclose an acceptance rate or median decision times for this journal. Most published Reviews are commissioned by the editors.

10. What topics does Nature Reviews Genetics cover?

The full breadth of modern genetics: genomics, functional genomics, evolutionary genetics, technology and computational biology, gene expression, complex/multifactorial genetics, genetic disease, chromosome biology, epigenetics, developmental biology, systems biology, and ethical, legal and social implications.

11. How often is Nature Reviews Genetics published?

Monthly — the journal has appeared every month since its launch in October 2000.

12. What are the ISSNs of Nature Reviews Genetics?

Print ISSN 1471-0056 and online ISSN 1471-0064. The standard ISO 4 abbreviation is Nat. Rev. Genet.