Molecular Cell aims to publish the best in molecular biology and beyond. In addition to fundamental cellular processes, we are interested in papers that show how molecular biology can be used to go beyond basic mechanisms to discover new biology, understand diseases, and to create new tools.

Topic areas of interest include (but are not necessarily limited to):

The Central Dogma of Molecular Biology - relating to the transmission of information between DNA, RNA, and proteins
Cellular homeostasis - relating to turnover of proteins and organelles, mechanisms of cell death, cell fate, signaling, innate immunity, metabolism, and infection
Tools for studying the above processes including - omics, genome editing, structural biology, microscopy, as well as AI, machine learning, and other computational approaches
Understanding how molecular mechanisms are rewired or go awry in contexts such as cancer, metabolic disease, neurodegeneration, and aging or in other contexts including plants and microbes
We welcome papers reporting new advances in the following formats:

Research Articles should present a significant advance for the broader field that ideally includes a balance of mechanistic insight and biological/functional relevance for the mechanism being described.

Short Articles are intended for concise, highly provocative, fully validated findings. Like Research Articles, they should represent a significant conceptual advance for the field, and in some cases, this can also be used to report results that address a long-standing question in the field.

Resources report datasets that are interesting and valuable to the community. Strong candidates for this format typically use the reported datasets to derive new biological insights.

Technology is meant for manuscripts that describe new reagents, tools, computational approaches, and other technologies that are valuable to the fields covered by the journal. This format is also suitable for new methods and for significant improvements to existing methods.

We consider Letters, Commentaries, or Matters Arising that raise important issues for our readers or about papers we have previously published. We encourage you to contact us prior to submitting one of these formats.

While most of our review content is commissioned by the editors, if you are interested in contributing a Preview, Spotlight, Review, or Perspective please contact us with a proposal. Please keep in mind that we generally move forward with a limited number of such proposals.

Research
Short Article
Resource
Technology
Matters Arising
Preview
Technology Preview
Review
Perspective
Minireview
Letters to Editor

Editor-in-Chief
Brian Plosky
Brian has worked at Cell Press since 2006, spending the majority of his time on Molecular Cell with a brief stint working on Cell Symposia and other aspects of publishing. Brian enjoys hacking the editorial process for authors, reviewers, and editors via technical improvements and making the process more hospitable. He earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Biology at NYU and did postdoctoral work at the NIH. His thesis work with David Scicchitano focused on understanding transcription-coupled DNA repair, and his postdoctoral work with Roger Woodgate contributed to our understanding of the regulation of translesion DNA polymerases.
 
Deputy Editor
Allyson Evans
Allyson has been with Molecular Cell since 2010. She received her Ph.D. from UNC-Chapel Hill where she studied mechanisms of neuronal apoptosis, followed by postdoctoral work at MIT examining the roles of Sirtuins in aging and disease with Dr. Leonard Guarente. As an editor, the best part of her day is flipping through the newly submitted papers over a cup of coffee. She doesn’t mind that her “Eureka!” moments are now lived vicariously through others, and is passionate that science is seen as fashionable and mainstream by future generations.
 
Senior Editor
Miao-Chih Tsai
Miao completed her undergraduate studies in Taiwan and read for her Ph.D. in developmental biology with Dr. Julie Ahringer at the Gurdon Institute of the University of Cambridge. She then moved to sunny California to work with Dr. Howard Chang as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University to characterize the function of long noncoding RNAs. She joined Molecular Cell in 2011. She is interested in all aspects of biology, especially new technological innovations and their applications. She is also interested in learning about the people behind the science, and strives to help authors develop their stories as fully as possible.
 
 
Assistant Editor
Krista Bledsoe
Krista earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Mayo Graduate School where she studied transcription factor fusion genes in Ewing sarcoma and sinonasal sarcoma with Dr. Jennifer Westendorf, followed by postdoctoral work at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia investigating epigenetic inhibitors in Ewing sarcoma with Dr. Margaret Chou. Krista worked as a science writer at Cancer Discovery before joining Cell Press in 2018 as an editor at both Molecular Cell and Cancer Cell. She is excited to work with authors at both journals to help them develop and share their science. 

Assistant Editor
Megha Gulati
Megha completed her Ph.D. in genetics in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Britton, where she investigated the role of GTPases in ribosome assembly. She did her postdoctoral research with Dr. Clarissa Nobile at University of California, Merced, where she studied mechanisms of biofilm formation and infection in Candida albicans and several bacterial species, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Mycobacterium smegmatis. She enjoys interdisciplinary research and is interested in new tools and technologies to gain mechanistic insights into gene and protein regulation. She is passionate about the editorial process and helping authors present their research to the broader scientific community.