Molecular Biology and Evolution is a monthly journal owned and edited by The Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution and published by Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

. It publishes work in the intersection of molecular biology and evolutionary biology. The founding editors were Walter Fitch

Walter M. Fitch

Walter M. Fitch . Until his death he was professor of molecular evolution at the University of California, Irvine. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was a Foreign Member of...

 and Masatoshi Nei

Masatoshi Nei

is Evan Pugh Professor of Biology at Pennsylvania State University and Director of the since 1990. He was born in 1931 in Miyazaki Prefecture, on Kyūshū Island, Japan...

; the present editor-in-chief is Marcy Uyenoyama.

In 2008, its impact factor

Impact factor

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...

 was 7.3, up from 6.4 in 2007, ranking 4th of the 39 journals in the "Evolutionary Biology" category. By 2010, its impact factor was down to 5.51.

In 2011, Molecular Biology and Evolution was criticized in The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

for hiding a retraction

Retraction

A retraction is a public statement, by the author of an earlier statement, that withdraws, cancels, refutes, diametrically reverses the original statement or ceases and desists from publishing the original statement...

notice behind a paywall (charging readers $32 for the sentence "This article has been permanently retracted from publication by the author").