ACS Chemical Biology is a peer-reviewed

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 scientific journal

Scientific journal

In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...

 published since 2006 by the American Chemical Society

American Chemical Society

The American Chemical Society is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...

. The journal covers research at the interface between chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

 and biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 spanning all aspects of chemical biology

Chemical biology

Chemical biology is a scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology that involves the application of chemical techniques and tools, often compounds produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and manipulation of biological systems. This is a subtle difference from...

. The journal is available in both printed and online versions and is indexed in major database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s including Chemical Abstracts Service

Chemical Abstracts Service

Chemical Abstracts is a periodical index that provides summaries and indexes of disclosures in recently published scientific documents. Approximately 8,000 journals, technical reports, dissertations, conference proceedings, and new books, in any of 50 languages, are monitored yearly, as are patent...

, the ISI's

Institute for Scientific Information

The Institute for Scientific Information was founded by Eugene Garfield in 1960. It was acquired by Thomson Scientific & Healthcare in 1992, became known as Thomson ISI and now is part of the Healthcare & Science business of the multi-billion dollar Thomson Reuters Corporation.ISI offered...

 Web of Knowledge, and MEDLINE

MEDLINE

MEDLINE is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information. It includes bibliographic information for articles from academic journals covering medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and health care...

.

Types of content

ACS Chemical Biology publishes research letters, articles, and reviews that are all peer-reviewed. In addition, specially commissioned articles that describe journal content are solicited. Letters describe findings of broad interest are generally five printed pages or shorter in length, while articles are comprehensive reports of research of "immediate, broad, and lasting impact". Usually articles are twelve printed pages or shorter in length. Finally, reviews cover key concepts of interest to a broad readership.

Web-only content includes podcast

Podcast

A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...

s, a wiki

Wiki

A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...

, and articles published online ahead of print. ACS Chemical Biology has published the first three-dimensional

3D computer graphics

3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...

 interactive chemical structure

Chemical structure

A chemical structure includes molecular geometry, electronic structure and crystal structure of molecules. Molecular geometry refers to the spatial arrangement of atoms in a molecule and the chemical bonds that hold the atoms together. Molecular geometry can range from the very simple, such as...

s replicating printed journal figures. These structures can be viewed in a web browser

Web browser

A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...

 by means of Jmol

Jmol

Jmol is an open-source Java viewer for chemical structures in 3D,that does not require 3D acceleration plugins.Jmol returns a 3D representation of a molecule that may be used as a teaching tool, or for research e.g...

 - an open-source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 structure viewer.

Interactive features

In addition to traditional features present in scientific journals, ACS Chemical Biology offers interactive features. These include the "Ask the Expert" section in which readers submit questions that are then forwarded to experts in the field. Another interactive feature is the chemical biology wiki

Wiki

A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...

, which is an experimental endeavor in scientific publishing. Recently, the journal instituted the ChemBio WIKIspot, an online journal club

Journal club

A journal club is a group of individuals who meet regularly to critically evaluate recent articles in scientific literature. Journal clubs are usually organized around a defined subject in basic or applied research. For example, the application of evidence-based medicine to some area of medical...

 in the form of a wiki. The stated goal of this journal club is to allow any user to write a spotlight of a scientific paper or website that is perceived to be of broad interest to the chemical biology community. Once a month a spotlight is chosen for publication in the journal. In addition, the journal allows events of interest to chemists and biologist to be submitted to the website.

Awards

• 2006 Award for Innovation in Journal Publishing from the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers
  Association of American Publishers
  The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly...
  
  .
• Runner-up R.R. Hawkins Award for the Outstanding Professional, Reference or Scholarly Work of 2006.

External links

• ACS Chemical Biology wiki
• Events page
• The first freely-available 3d chemical structure corresponding to a journal figure