About

Genome Biology publishes outstanding research in all areas of biology and biomedicine studied from a genomic and post-genomic perspective.

The current impact factor is 10.1 (2023) * and the journal is ranked 3rd among research journals in the Genetics and Heredity category, and 2nd among research journals in the Biotechnology and Applied Microbiology category by Thomson Reuters. Genome Biology is the highest ranked open access journal in the category.

Our team of highly trained in-house Editors works with our Editorial Board of leading international experts to ensure that the journal is at the cutting edge of both scientific advances and community standards. The Editors engage regularly with researchers at conferences and institute visits.

Transparent peer review. All articles from January 1, 2019 submitted to Genome Biology will undergo transparent peer review, where the reviewer reports will be published with the final article as an additional file, but the reviewers' identities are still anonymous. For more information see our editorial.

Hospitable publishing process. The journal is dedicated to excellent service to authors, reviewers and readers. When you submit your manuscript to Genome Biology, you can be confident that the status of your manuscript is will be constantly monitored and handling Editors will proactively communicate with you to give updates on progress.

High article visibility. Articles published in Genome Biology achieve high visibility through our engaging homepage, press releases of articles of especially broad interest, and our highly active Twitter account, which has over 46,000 followers.

bioRxiv transfers. Genome Biology is happy to consider manuscripts that have been, or will be, posted on a preprint server. For a trial period, authors are also able to submit their manuscripts to Genome Biology directly from bioRxiv, without having to re-upload files.

Portable peer review policy

To improve the efficiency of peer review we are open to considering manuscripts on the basis of reviews received at other journals, including those outside of Springer Nature. Authors wishing to transfer papers with reviews to Genome Biology should email us at editorial@genomebiology.com to enquire about the suitability of the manuscript, and provide the previous journal’s identity and all reviews, alongside a point-by-point response to the reviewers’ comments. We aim to expedite any further peer review in these cases.

We are also happy to facilitate transfers to journals outside BMC and Springer Nature by sharing reviews and reviewer identities at the authors’ request.

Flexible formatting. To facilitate the submission process, we are flexible with regard to the format, style and length of initial submissions. If it is more convenient to the authors, manuscripts can be uploaded as a single PDF or a Microsoft Word file with high resolution figures, figure legends and supplemental information included. The cover letter is provided separately during the submission process. Journal-specific formatting, which is described below, is required only once manuscripts reach the later stages of the publication process.

Scoop protection. Genome Biology offers "scoop protection", meaning that if other researchers publish similar findings after submission, or post them on a preprint server, this will not be a reason for rejection. However, the initial submission can still be rejected on other grounds.

_{*The Impact Factor (IF) is just one measure used for evaluating the impact of research. For further information on the IF and alternative metrics used to measure the impact of research, please click here.}

Aims and scope

Genome Biology covers all areas of biology and biomedicine studied from a genomic and post-genomic perspective. Content includes research, new methods and software tools, and reviews. Areas covered include, but are not limited to: sequence analysis; bioinformatics; insights into molecular, cellular and organismal biology; functional genomics; epigenomics; population genomics; proteomics; comparative biology and evolution; systems and network biology; genome editing and engineering; genomics of disease; and clinical genomics. All content is open access immediately on publication.

Open access

All articles published by Genome Biology are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in Genome Biology you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article according to the licence terms.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BMC can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Data Availability Policy

Genome Biology follows the policies of the BMC series of journals, unless otherwise noted below and are designed to support our commitment to open data sharing.

Availability of datasets

Authors must deposit all raw data in an appropriate repository prior to peer review. If an appropriate repository does not exist, or if the available repositories do not support a confidential peer-review process, we ask authors to submit their data to a generalist repository such as figshare. A list of recommended repositories by subject area and data type can be found on the Springer Nature Recommended Repositories list. If you have questions as to the suitability of a given repository, please contact the helpdesk at researchdata@springernature.com. Supporting data
must be made available to editors and peer reviewers at the time of submission for the purposes
of evaluating the manuscript. Authors may use reviewer access tokens at initial submission, but all datasets must be made public prior to acceptance.

If a dataset is not able to be deposited in any of the above repositories due to legal guidelines or ethical reasons, this must be clearly stated in the “Availability of Data and Materials” section and is subject to editor approval.

Availability of research materials

Genome Biology follows the Nature Research policies for the sharing of research materials. Read these policies in full here.

A condition of publication is that authors are required to make unique materials promptly available to others without undue qualifications. It is acceptable to request reasonable payment to cover costs of distribution and reagents may be made available via commercial or non-commercial third party providers. Any restrictions on materials availability, including if materials are to be distributed by a for-profit company, must be clearly stated in the paper. As per our policy on authorship responsibilities, it is expected that the corresponding author (or relevant designated authors) will be responsible for materials availability unless otherwise stated.

Availability of computer code and software

Authors must make available, to editors and reviewers, any previously unreported custom computer code or algorithm used to generate the data presented in the manuscript. All software or methods papers must be shared on a repository such as Github in combination with a DOI-providing repository such as Zenodo to provide permanent access to a usable instance of code (how to archive GitHub code with Zenodo; how to archive GitHub code with figshare). Code with an assigned DOI must be formally cited and listed in the References section of the manuscript. License information for the software or method should also be stated clearly in the “Availability of Data and Materials" section and on the repository site.

For all studies using custom code in the generation or processing of the described data, a statement must be included under the Declaration section “Availability of Data and Materials", indicating whether and how the code can be accessed, including any restrictions to access. Authors may supply code as Supplementary Information files, particularly when code must be kept private during peer review. Before final publication, however, authors are encouraged to archive their code in a public repository that can assign it a DOI, such as figshare.

Any reason that would preclude the need for code or algorithm sharing will be evaluated by the editors who reserve the right to decline the paper if important code is unavailable.

Data Citation

BMC endorses the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI).

Authors are required to formally cite any datasets stored in external repositories that are mentioned within their manuscript before acceptance, including the main datasets that are the focus of the submission, as well as any other datasets that have been used in the work. For previously published datasets, we ask authors to cite both the related research articles and the datasets themselves. All methods, software, and code developed for the manuscript should include a citation on the reference list.

All Springer Nature journals, including Genome Biology, are participants in the Initiative for Open Citations. As such, data citations are included in full in the formal reference list, exported to Crossref and are openly available.

An author list and title for the dataset should be included in the data citation, and should reflect the author(s) and dataset title recorded at the repository. If author or title is not recorded by the repository, these should not be included in the data citation. The name of the data-hosting repository, URL to the dataset and year the data were made available are required for all data citations. For DOI-based (e.g. figshare or Dryad) repositories the DOI URL should be used. For repositories using accessions (e.g. SRA or GEO) an identifiers.org URL should be used where available. For first submissions, authors may choose to include just the accession number. Genome Biology staff will provide further guidance after peer-review and the journal will verify the dataset citation prior to publication. Please refer to the following examples of data citation for guidance:

Zhang, Q-L., Chen, J-Y., Lin, L-B., Wang, F., Guo, J., Deng, X-Y. Characterization of ladybird Henosepilachna vigintioctopunctata transcriptomes across various life stages. figshare https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4064768.v3 (2018).

NCBI Sequence Read Archive https://identifiers.org/ncbi/insdc.sra:SRP121625 (2017).

Barbosa, P., Usie, A. and Ramos, A. M. Quercus suber isolate HL8, whole genome shotgun sequencing project. GenBank https://identifiers.org/ncbi/insdc:PKMF00000000 (2018).

DNA Data Bank of Japan https://trace.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/DRASearch/submission?acc=DRA004814 (2016).

Indexing services

All articles published in Genome Biology are included in:

Biological Abstracts
BIOSIS
CABI
CABS
CAS
Citebase
Embase
EmBiology
Global Health
MEDLINE
OAIster
PubMed
PubMed Central
Science Citation Index
Science Citation Index Expanded
SCImago
Scopus
SOCOLAR
Zetoc
Zoological Record

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by BioMed Central on SpringerLink.

Article processing charges

Authors who publish open access in Genome Biology are required to pay an article processing charge (APC). The APC price will be determined from the date on which the article is accepted for publication.

The current APC, subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable, for Research, Method, Software, Database, Review, Correspondence is: £3590.00/$5290.00/€4290.00.

Short reports are subject to an APC of £2700.00/$3980.00/€3220.00.

Visit our open access support portal and our Journal Pricing FAQs for further information.

Open access funding

Visit Springer Nature’s open access funding & support services for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs.

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover open access publishing costs. Learn more about our open access agreements to check your eligibility and discover whether this journal is included.

Springer Nature offers APC waivers and discounts for articles published in our fully open access journals whose corresponding authors are based in the world’s lowest income countries (see our APC waivers and discounts policy for further information). Requests for APC waivers and discounts from other authors will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and may be granted in cases of financial need (see our open access policies for journals for more information). All applications for discretionary APC waivers and discounts should be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review process or after acceptance are unable to be considered.

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

Genome Biology operates a transparent peer review system, where the reviewers are aware of the names and affiliations of the authors, but the reviewer reports provided to authors are anonymous. Reviews and author point-by-point responses to reviews are included as an additional file with the published manuscript, although reviewer identities are not disclosed.

Genome Biology considers articles that are scientifically valid and a useful contribution to the field. Articles must also be of interest to a broad readership of biologists and/or represent an exceptional advance within a specific field. Manuscripts are initially assessed by our experienced team of in-house editors, and those that are deemed of interest are sent for peer review. Peer reviewers primarily assess the scientific content and coherence of articles, but are also asked to comment on interest levels and advance.

Manuscripts submitted to Genome Biology are assessed by our experienced in-house editorial team, who make all decisions based on an extensive and rigorous peer review process by academic experts. Editorial Board Members may provide advice on manuscripts submitted but are not involved in the final decisions. The overall editorial responsibility for the journal is with the Chief Editor.

Transferred manuscripts

A manuscript submitted to Genome Biology might not meet the expectations for publication, but could be well-suited for another at Springer Nature. To help authors publish their work quickly, we offer a transfer service between our journals. Please note that if a manuscript you reviewed is transferred by the authors to another journal, your identity and report will also be transferred, where it will be assessed by the in-house editorial team. If you are asked to review a revised version of the manuscript post-transfer, we ask that you do your best to adapt your expectations to the standards of the new journal in relation to perceived significance and interest.

Portable peer review policy

We are also happy to facilitate transfers to journals outside BMC and Springer Nature by sharing reviews and reviewer identities at the authors’ request.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Genome Biology should adhere to BioMed Central's editorial policies.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Citing articles in Genome Biology

Articles in Genome Biology should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. Genome Biol [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Genome Biol 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies .

Benefits of publishing with BMC

High visibility

Genome Biology's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience.

Speed of publication

Genome Biology offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF.

Flexibility

Online publication in Genome Biology gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Genome Biology are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on Genome Biology’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in Genome Biology may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Genome Biology. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in Cancer & Metabolism you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work. For further information, see our guide to licensing, copyright and author rights.

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BMC, please click here.