Journal of Cell Biology
Encyclopedia
The Journal of Cell Biology is an international, peer-reviewed journal owned by The Rockefeller University and published by The Rockefeller University Press
.
anatomy
using the emerging technology of electron microscopy. Many of these researchers were at The Rockefeller Institute of Medicine, the predecessor of The Rockefeller University. As their work progressed to publication, they were disappointed with the limited quality of halftone image reproduction in the printed journals of the time, and frustrated by the narrow editorial policies of existing journals regarding their image-based results. In 1954, the Director of the Rockefeller Institute, Detlev Bronk
, convened a luncheon to discuss the creation of a new journal as a venue for publication of this type of work.
The first issue of The Journal of Biophysical and Biochemical Cytology was published less than a year later on January 25, 1955. A subscription cost $15 per year. The list of editors comprised Richard S. Bear, H. Stanley Bennett, Albert L. Lehninger
, George E. Palade, Keith R. Porter
, Francis O. Schmitt
, Franz Schrader, and Arnold M. Seligman. The instructions to authors described the scope of the journal, "The Journal of Biophysical and Biochemical Cytology is designed to provide a common medium for the publication of morphological
, biophysical, and biochemical investigations on cells, their components, and their products. It will give special attention to reports on cellular organization at the colloidal and molecular levels and to studies integrating cytological information derived from various technical approaches." Recognizing that they needed a catchier title, the editors changed the name to The Journal of Cell Biology ("JCB") in 1962.
The discipline of cell biology
emerged and developed on the pages of the JCB.
Many seminal discoveries have been published in the journal, including the first descriptions of numerous cellular functions and structures, such as the secretory pathway
, mitochondrial and chloroplast
DNA
, microtubules, intermediate filaments, tight junctions (including occludin
s and claudins), adherens junctions, and cadherins.
In January, 2001, in response to calls from the research community to provide free access to the results of publicly funded research, the JCB was one of the first journals to release its primary research content to the public 6 months after publication.
In June, 2003, all of the back content of the JCB starting from volume 1, issue 1, was posted on the JCB website. The back content is provided for free.
In November, 2007, in anticipation of the National Institute of Health mandate on public access to the results of NIH-funded research, the JCB began depositing all of its content in PubMed Central
, where the final, published version is released to the public 6 months after publication.
All of the content of the JCB has always been free online in 143 developing nations.
in which the intensity of a single band had been selectively adjusted relative to the other bands.
The original data were obtained from the authors, and it was evident that the manipulation affected the interpretation of the data. The editorial acceptance of the manuscript was revoked, and the JCB immediately initiated a policy to screen all images in all accepted papers for evidence of image manipulation.
These numbers were first made public in November, 2004, at the Research Conference on Research Integrity organized by the Office of Research Integrity.
in April, 2005, entitled "CSI Cell Biology". On Christmas Day, 2005, The New York Times
published an article showing that image manipulation was part of the scientific fraud perpetrated by Hwang Woo-Suk
and colleagues. When it became apparent that the JCB screening program would have detected the image manipulation before publication, the New York Times highlighted JCB's process on the cover page of its Science Times section on January 24, 2006. This raised awareness among the public and among other biomedical journals of the potential value of image screening by journal editors including:
President Ralph Cicerone
. The letter, along with subsequent concerns about digital data raised by other scientific publishers, provided the impetus for a study by the The Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (a joint unit of the NAS, the National Academy of Engineering
, and the Institute of Medicine
) to examine the issue of data integrity. The study was commissioned in May, 2006.
Mike Rossner presented a talk to the Committee at an open meeting in April, 2007, in which he described the experience of the JCB and the other Rockefeller University Press journals in handling image manipulation. He noted that it should be the responsibility of the research community to develop standards of data integrity, but the JCB had taken on this role because no such standards existed when JCB first confronted the problem in 2002.
The Committee released its report, entitled "Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age, in July, 2009. The NAS announcement specifically cited the JCB for its proactive steps in establishing specific guidelines for "acceptable and unacceptable ways to alter images". The report approached the problem of data integrity from the perspective of both truth and accuracy in data acquisition and reporting, and from the perspective of accessibility of data over time. It provided no specific standards for maintaining data integrity and no recommendations for enforcing those standards once established. The report reached the broad conclusion that "researchers themselves are responsible for ensuring the integrity of their research data".
Previously, authors were asked to convert their RGB files to the CMYK color scheme necessary for printing on paper, which results in a substantial loss of image luster. Those CMYK files were then converted back to RGB by the publisher to post online, resulting in a second round of alteration to the original colors. The advent of the RGB workflow allowed colors to be displayed in the online publication exactly as they appeared in the authors' original files.
This revolutionary application allows JCB authors to present multidimensional image data as they were acquired, giving them the opportunity to share data that were not possible to share previously. JCB readers get to see original data supporting a published paper, and they can interact with those data by scrolling through a z stack or a stack of time-lapse images. Users can select individual channels to view or view all channels separately on the same screen. They can also produce line plots of pixel intensities along any horizontal or vertical axis.
Rockefeller University Press
The Rockefeller University Press is a department of The Rockefeller University. It publishes three scientific journals: The Journal of Experimental Medicine, founded in 1896, The Journal of General Physiology, founded in 1918, and The Journal of Cell Biology, founded in 1955 under the title The...
.
History
In the early 1950s, a small group of biologists began to explore intracellularIntracellular
Not to be confused with intercellular, meaning "between cells".In cell biology, molecular biology and related fields, the word intracellular means "inside the cell".It is used in contrast to extracellular...
anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
using the emerging technology of electron microscopy. Many of these researchers were at The Rockefeller Institute of Medicine, the predecessor of The Rockefeller University. As their work progressed to publication, they were disappointed with the limited quality of halftone image reproduction in the printed journals of the time, and frustrated by the narrow editorial policies of existing journals regarding their image-based results. In 1954, the Director of the Rockefeller Institute, Detlev Bronk
Detlev Bronk
Detlev Wulf Bronk was President of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland from 1949 to 1953 and President of the National Academy of Sciences from 1950 to 1962. Bronk is credited with reshaping the postwar university environment at Hopkins...
, convened a luncheon to discuss the creation of a new journal as a venue for publication of this type of work.
The first issue of The Journal of Biophysical and Biochemical Cytology was published less than a year later on January 25, 1955. A subscription cost $15 per year. The list of editors comprised Richard S. Bear, H. Stanley Bennett, Albert L. Lehninger
Albert L. Lehninger
Albert Lester Lehninger was an American biochemist in the field of bioenergetics. He made fundamental contributions to the current understanding of metabolism at a molecular level. In 1948, he discovered, with Eugene P...
, George E. Palade, Keith R. Porter
Keith R. Porter
Keith Roberts Porter was a Canadian cell biologist. He did pioneering biology research using electron microscopy of cells , such as work on the 9 + 2 microtubule structure in the axoneme of cilia. Porter also contributed to the development of other experimental methods for cell culture and nuclear...
, Francis O. Schmitt
Francis O. Schmitt
Francis O. Schmitt was an American biologist and Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Schmitt received an A.B. in 1924 and a Ph.D. in 1927 from Washington University in St. Louis...
, Franz Schrader, and Arnold M. Seligman. The instructions to authors described the scope of the journal, "The Journal of Biophysical and Biochemical Cytology is designed to provide a common medium for the publication of morphological
Morphology (biology)
In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
, biophysical, and biochemical investigations on cells, their components, and their products. It will give special attention to reports on cellular organization at the colloidal and molecular levels and to studies integrating cytological information derived from various technical approaches." Recognizing that they needed a catchier title, the editors changed the name to The Journal of Cell Biology ("JCB") in 1962.
The discipline of cell biology
Cell biology
Cell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...
emerged and developed on the pages of the JCB.
Many seminal discoveries have been published in the journal, including the first descriptions of numerous cellular functions and structures, such as the secretory pathway
Secretory pathway
The secretory pathway is a series of steps a cell uses to move proteins out of the cell; a process known as secretion. The path of a protein destined for secretion has its origins in the rough endoplasmic reticulum, a membrane-bound compartment in the cell...
, mitochondrial and chloroplast
Chloroplast
Chloroplasts are organelles found in plant cells and other eukaryotic organisms that conduct photosynthesis. Chloroplasts capture light energy to conserve free energy in the form of ATP and reduce NADP to NADPH through a complex set of processes called photosynthesis.Chloroplasts are green...
DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
, microtubules, intermediate filaments, tight junctions (including occludin
Occludin
Occludin is a protein that in humans is encoded by the OCLN gene.Occludin is a 65-kDa integral plasma-membrane protein located at the tight junctions, described for the first time in 1993 by Shoichiro Tsukita...
s and claudins), adherens junctions, and cadherins.
Key dates
- January 25, 1955: Publication of the first issue of The Journal of Biophysical and Biochemical Cytology.
- January, 1961 – December, 1983: Ray Griffiths is Executive Editor.
- January, 1962: Journal name changed to The Journal of Cell Biology.
- January, 1984 – December, 1998: Bernie Gilula is Editor in Chief.
- January 13, 1997: First issue of the JCB is published online.
- April, 1997 – April, 2007: Mike Rossner is Managing Editor.
- January, 1999 – December, 2008: Ira MellmanIra MellmanIra Mellman, Ph.D. is an American cell biologist who discovered endosomes. He serves as Vice President of Research Oncology at Genentech in South San Francisco, California.-Research:...
is Editor in Chief. - July, 2000: Authors allowed to post the final, published pdf file of their articles on their own websites.
- January 2001: JCB begins to make its online content free to the public six months after publication.
- July, 2002: JCB adopts completely electronic workflow.
- September, 2002: JCB begins screening all digital images for evidence of manipulation.
- January, 2003: JCB pioneers RGB workflow for color digital images.
- June, 2003: JCB releases all of its back content older than six months for free to the public back to volume 1, issue 1.
- May, 2007 – July, 2010: Emma Hill is Executive Editor.
- November, 2007: JCB begins posting all of its content on PubMed CentralPubMed CentralPubMed Central is a free digital database of full-text scientific literature in biomedical and life sciences. It grew from the online Entrez PubMed biomedical literature search system. PubMed Central was developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine as an online archive of biomedical journal...
, where it is available for free to the public six months after publication. - May 1, 2008: New copyrightCopyrightCopyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
policy allows authors to retain copyright to their own works and third parties to reuse JCB content under a Creative Commons licenseCreative Commons LicenseCreative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...
. - December, 2008: JCB launches Dataviewer
- January, 2009 – present: Tom MisteliTom MisteliTom Misteli, Ph.D. is a Swiss-born cell biologist and pioneer in the field of genome cell biology. He is a Senior Investigator at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Cell Biology and Current Opinion in Cell Biology.Tom Misteli...
is Editor in Chief. - September, 2010 – present: Elizabeth H. Williams is Executive Editor.
Online access
The Journal of Cell Biology was first published online on January 13, 1997. All content was free to the public during that first year of online publication. In January, 1998, all primary research content was placed under access controls, but all news and review content remained free to the public immediately after publication.In January, 2001, in response to calls from the research community to provide free access to the results of publicly funded research, the JCB was one of the first journals to release its primary research content to the public 6 months after publication.
In June, 2003, all of the back content of the JCB starting from volume 1, issue 1, was posted on the JCB website. The back content is provided for free.
In November, 2007, in anticipation of the National Institute of Health mandate on public access to the results of NIH-funded research, the JCB began depositing all of its content in PubMed Central
PubMed Central
PubMed Central is a free digital database of full-text scientific literature in biomedical and life sciences. It grew from the online Entrez PubMed biomedical literature search system. PubMed Central was developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine as an online archive of biomedical journal...
, where the final, published version is released to the public 6 months after publication.
All of the content of the JCB has always been free online in 143 developing nations.
Copyright and third party use
In July 2000, the JCB began to harness the power of the internet to promote further distribution of its content when it became one of the first journals to allow authors to post the final, published pdf file of their articles on their own websites. On May 1, 2008, The JCB changed its traditional copyright policy to allow authors to retain copyright to their own works. Authors can do anything they want with their published articles, including for commercial gain. At the same time, the content of the JCB was opened up to use by third parties under a Creative Commons license. The only restriction on this use by third parties is that they cannot create a free mirror site of JCB content within the first six months after publication.Origins of image screening
In 2002, the JCB adopted a completely electronic production workflow. This means that all text is submitted as electronic document files and all figures are submitted as electronic image files. While formatting figure files for an accepted manuscript, Mike Rossner, who was then the Managing Editor of the JCB, discovered a Western blotWestern blot
The western blot is a widely used analytical technique used to detect specific proteins in the given sample of tissue homogenate or extract. It uses gel electrophoresis to separate native proteins by 3-D structure or denatured proteins by the length of the polypeptide...
in which the intensity of a single band had been selectively adjusted relative to the other bands.
The original data were obtained from the authors, and it was evident that the manipulation affected the interpretation of the data. The editorial acceptance of the manuscript was revoked, and the JCB immediately initiated a policy to screen all images in all accepted papers for evidence of image manipulation.
Guidelines for handling digital images
In consultation with practicing scientists on the Editorial Board, the JCB developed guidelines for handling digital images, which were first published in June, 2003. The current version is available here. A more in-depth discussion of these guidelines and the ethics of image manipulation was published in a feature article in the NIH Catalyst in May, 2004, entitled "What's in a picture? The temptation of image manipulation." The article was reprinted in the JCB in July, 2004.Data on data manipulation
At the time it instituted the image screening program, the JCB was unique in applying a systematic approach to detecting data manipulation in manuscripts accepted for publication. This approach provided the first hard data on the frequency and severity of data manipulation in biomedical research publications. The editors of the JCB have revoked the acceptance of approximately 1% of papers that passed peer review because they detected image manipulation that affected the interpretation of the data. Acceptance is revoked if any conclusion in a paper is called into question by the manipulation. 25% of all accepted manuscripts have at least one figure that must be remade because of "inappropriate" manipulation, that is the manipulation does not affect the interpretation of the data, but it violates the journal's guidelines for presenting image data.These numbers were first made public in November, 2004, at the Research Conference on Research Integrity organized by the Office of Research Integrity.
Publicity about image manipulation and image screening
The JCB image screening program was publicized in an article in NatureNature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
in April, 2005, entitled "CSI Cell Biology". On Christmas Day, 2005, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
published an article showing that image manipulation was part of the scientific fraud perpetrated by Hwang Woo-Suk
Hwang Woo-Suk
Hwang Woo-suk is a South Korean veterinarian and researcher. He was a professor of theriogenology and biotechnology at Seoul National University who became infamous for fabricating a series of experiments, which appeared in high-profile journals, in the field of stem cell research...
and colleagues. When it became apparent that the JCB screening program would have detected the image manipulation before publication, the New York Times highlighted JCB's process on the cover page of its Science Times section on January 24, 2006. This raised awareness among the public and among other biomedical journals of the potential value of image screening by journal editors including:
- Harvard Focus Magazine (February 10, 2006)
- National Public Radio (March 13, 2006)
- Science (December 22, 2006)
- The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
(October 2, 2007) and - The Chronicle of Higher EducationThe Chronicle of Higher EducationThe Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....
. (June 6, 2008)
Response of journal editors
Many journals have adopted the JCBs guidelines on image manipulation in their instructions to authors, but only a few are enforcing them with full screening of all images for evidence of manipulation.Response of National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
In February 2006, the JCB Editors voiced the need for community-sanctioned standards for maintaining data integrity in a letter to National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
President Ralph Cicerone
Ralph Cicerone
Ralph J. Cicerone is an American atmospheric scientist, a former chancellor of UC Irvine, and currently president of the National Academy of Sciences....
. The letter, along with subsequent concerns about digital data raised by other scientific publishers, provided the impetus for a study by the The Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (a joint unit of the NAS, the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
, and the Institute of Medicine
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine is a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970, under the congressional charter of the National Academy of Sciences...
) to examine the issue of data integrity. The study was commissioned in May, 2006.
Mike Rossner presented a talk to the Committee at an open meeting in April, 2007, in which he described the experience of the JCB and the other Rockefeller University Press journals in handling image manipulation. He noted that it should be the responsibility of the research community to develop standards of data integrity, but the JCB had taken on this role because no such standards existed when JCB first confronted the problem in 2002.
The Committee released its report, entitled "Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age, in July, 2009. The NAS announcement specifically cited the JCB for its proactive steps in establishing specific guidelines for "acceptable and unacceptable ways to alter images". The report approached the problem of data integrity from the perspective of both truth and accuracy in data acquisition and reporting, and from the perspective of accessibility of data over time. It provided no specific standards for maintaining data integrity and no recommendations for enforcing those standards once established. The report reached the broad conclusion that "researchers themselves are responsible for ensuring the integrity of their research data".
The RGB standard
The JCB was the first journal to adopt the "RGB Standard" for reproduction of color images. To maximize the quality of color image reproduction, the JCB declared in January, 2004 that the online version of the journal is the "journal of record", and images would be reproduced online using authors' files in the same color scheme (Red, Green, Blue) in which they are acquired by digital cameras, and which is used to display them on a computer monitor.Previously, authors were asked to convert their RGB files to the CMYK color scheme necessary for printing on paper, which results in a substantial loss of image luster. Those CMYK files were then converted back to RGB by the publisher to post online, resulting in a second round of alteration to the original colors. The advent of the RGB workflow allowed colors to be displayed in the online publication exactly as they appeared in the authors' original files.
The JCB DataViewer
On December 1, 2008, the JCB launched the JCB DataViewer – the first browser based application for viewing original, multi-dimensional image data. This application was built in conjunction with Glencoe Software using a data management engine based on the OMERO software developed by the Open Microscopy Environment. Glencoe Software also developed a "Rollup" application for uploading original image files to the DataViewer. The DataViewer supports numerous proprietary files types from various microscopes and gel documentation systems.This revolutionary application allows JCB authors to present multidimensional image data as they were acquired, giving them the opportunity to share data that were not possible to share previously. JCB readers get to see original data supporting a published paper, and they can interact with those data by scrolling through a z stack or a stack of time-lapse images. Users can select individual channels to view or view all channels separately on the same screen. They can also produce line plots of pixel intensities along any horizontal or vertical axis.