Cell Host & Microbe

Contents

Cell Host & Microbe Cell Host & Microbe is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing research on host–microbe interactions, pathogen biology, and microbiome science. The journal sits within the publishing portfolio of Cell Press alongside titles such as Cell (journal), Neuron (journal), Nature (journal), Science (journal), and The Lancet, and it serves readers in communities linked to Harvard University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, and University of Oxford.

Overview

Cell Host & Microbe focuses on experimental and conceptual advances in the biology of infectious agents and their interactions with animal, plant, and microbial hosts, attracting submissions from investigators at institutions including National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wellcome Trust, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, and Max Planck Society. Topics commonly covered include virus replication and pathogenesis studied by groups at University of California, San Francisco, Imperial College London, and Karolinska Institute; bacterial secretion systems researched at California Institute of Technology and ETH Zurich; fungal pathogenesis explored by teams associated with University of Cambridge and Yale University; and microbiome-host signaling investigated by consortia linked to Broad Institute, Salk Institute, and Wageningen University. The journal's editorial board has included scientists with affiliations to Rockefeller University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Pasteur Institute, University of Tokyo, and Monash University.

Launched in 2007 by Cell Press in response to growing intersections among virology, bacteriology, immunology, and microbiome research, the journal emerged during a period marked by high-profile events and institutions such as the SARS outbreak, H1N1 influenza pandemic (2009), Human Microbiome Project, Wellcome Sanger Institute, and funding initiatives from agencies like the National Science Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Early editorial leadership drew on figures who had worked at Nature Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and EMBO Journal, positioning the title amidst debates involving World Health Organization, GAVI, and global research consortia. Over time the journal incorporated advances in technologies developed at Illumina, Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and academic centers such as MIT Media Lab and Stanford Genome Technology Center.

The journal accepts original research articles, reviews, perspectives, and commentaries covering microbial pathogenesis, host immunity, symbiosis, and microbiome ecology, reflecting intersections with institutions like European Research Council, US Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Medical Research Council (UK). Editorial policies emphasize rigorous experimental design, reproducibility standards advocated by NIH and ARRIVE guidelines, data sharing consistent with repositories such as GenBank, Sequence Read Archive, and European Nucleotide Archive, and ethical oversight aligning with standards from Institutional Review Board (IRB), Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and international accords like the Declaration of Helsinki. Peer review is managed by editors with ties to University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, University of Washington, and University of Toronto.

Published monthly, the journal is indexed in major services including PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, MEDLINE, and Embase, facilitating discoverability alongside literature from JAMA, BMJ, Nature Communications, and PLoS Pathogens. Digital object identifiers (DOIs) and metadata practices follow standards from CrossRef and ORCID integration supports author identification used widely by researchers at Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and institutional repositories at Cornell University and University of California campuses. The journal participates in licensing and access models debated by stakeholders such as Plan S, Creative Commons, SPARC, and major university consortia including Association of American Universities.

Cell Host & Microbe has influenced discourse in fields connected to prominent figures and institutions like Anthony Fauci, Robert Koch Institute, Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur, and contemporary centers such as Pasteur Institute and Ragon Institute. Its articles have been cited in policy reports by WHO, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and national health agencies, and have been covered by media outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Nature News, Science Magazine, and BBC News. The journal's citation metrics place it among leading specialty publications cited alongside Trends in Microbiology, Annual Review of Microbiology, and Cell Reports.

Noteworthy publications have included work on coronavirus biology published by teams connected to Wuhan Institute of Virology, University of Hong Kong, and University College London; microbiome-based studies involving collaborators from Human Microbiome Project, MetaHIT, and American Gut Project; antibiotic resistance research featuring authors from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, European Commission, and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute; and immunometabolism papers with contributions from Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, and UCSF Medical Center. Influential methodological advances described in the journal reference technologies and platforms developed at Broad Institute, Illumina, CRISPR Therapeutics, Addgene, and Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology.

Category:Scientific journals