The Cell Biology subfield contains 203 scored journals in our dataset. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology leads at 41.7, and the median Journal Metrics Score is 2.1.
This page previously reported the cell biology journals that received a first Journal Impact Factor™ in the June 2026 JCR release. Journal Metrics no longer displays JCR data; all figures below are 2026 Journal Metrics Scores computed from OpenAlex (CC0) data and are not Journal Impact Factors.
See the full analysis of newly scored journals in 2026- Journals scored
- 203
- Mean score
- 2.88
- Median score
- 2.10
- Highest score
- 41.7
Statistics cover all 203 scored cell biology journals in the current dataset. The chart and table below list the top 15 by score.
Cell Biology journals ranked by Journal Metrics Score
Values come from the current Journal Metrics dataset, computed from OpenAlex data. Hover or tap for each journal's score and best subfield quartile.
Leading cell biology journals by score
| Rank | Journal | 2026 Score | Quartile | OpenAlex subfields | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NATURE REVIEWS MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY | 41.7 | Q1 | Molecular Biology; Cell Biology | 1,202,741 |
| 2 | FUNGAL DIVERSITY | 18.3 | Q1 | Cell Biology; Plant Science; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Molecular Biology | 60,930 |
| 3 | NATURE CELL BIOLOGY | 15.8 | Q1 | Cell Biology; Molecular Biology | 1,080,498 |
| 4 | Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering | 13.2 | Q1 | Biomedical Engineering; Cell Biology; Surgery | 115,968 |
| 5 | Mycosphere | 12.0 | Q1 | Plant Science; Cell Biology; Pharmacology; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics | 19,124 |
| 6 | Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology | 10.4 | Q1 | Cell Biology; Molecular Biology | 278,650 |
| 7 | DEVELOPMENTAL CELL | 10.4 | Q1 | Cell Biology; Molecular Biology | 698,500 |
| 8 | Annual Review of Phytopathology | 10.1 | Q1 | Plant Science; Cell Biology | 271,161 |
| 9 | TRENDS IN CELL BIOLOGY | 8.9 | Q1 | Molecular Biology; Cell Biology | 460,657 |
| 10 | MICROBIOLOGICAL RESEARCH | 8.6 | Q1 | Plant Science; Cell Biology; Ecology | 149,338 |
| 11 | Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology | 8.5 | Q1 | Molecular Biology; Cell Biology | 329,093 |
| 12 | SPORTS MEDICINE | 8.1 | Q1 | Orthopedics and Sports Medicine; Complementary and alternative medicine; Cell Biology | 484,320 |
| 13 | PHYTOPATHOLOGY | 7.4 | Q1 | Cell Biology; Plant Science | 566,996 |
| 14 | STUDIES IN MYCOLOGY | 7.3 | Q1 | Cell Biology; Plant Science; Molecular Biology | 54,724 |
| 15 | Autophagy | 7.1 | Q1 | Epidemiology; Cell Biology; Physiology | 359,840 |
What the 2026 data shows
Cell biology has the strongest scores among these five discipline pages, with a mean of 2.9 and a median of 2.1.
Review titles are prominent at the top of the ranking; 71 journals rank Q1 in their best OpenAlex subfield, with 49 at Q2, 54 at Q3, and 29 at Q4.
How this cohort is defined
Several titles also belong to biochemistry, developmental biology, or biotechnology subfields, so this page describes one OpenAlex assignment rather than exclusive subject identity.
The Journal Metrics Score is the two-year mean citedness of a journal, computed from OpenAlex (CC0) data: citations received in the most recent complete year to works published in the two prior years, divided by the number of those works. Quartiles rank journals within each OpenAlex subfield by score. Data source: OpenAlex (CC0).
Frequently asked questions
Which Cell Biology journal has the highest Journal Metrics Score in 2026?
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology leads the 203-journal subfield with a 2026 Journal Metrics Score of 41.7.
What is the median Journal Metrics Score in Cell Biology?
The median among the 203 scored journals is 2.1, while the mean is 2.9.
Continue exploring
Written by Dr. Meng Zhao
Physician-Scientist · Founder, LabCat AI
MD · Former Neurosurgeon · Medical AI Researcher
Dr. Meng Zhao is a former neurosurgeon turned medical-AI researcher. After years in the operating room, he moved into applied AI for clinical workflows and now leads LabCat AI, a medical-AI company working on decision support and research tooling for clinicians. He built Journal Metrics as a free resource for researchers who need reliable journal metrics without paid database subscriptions.
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