The Molecular Therapy family of journals continues to lead the field of gene and cell therapy

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The past 2 years have witnessed many changes and challenges at the Molecular Therapy family of journals: a new Editor-in-Chief and section editors at Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids, the introduction of a fully staffed editorial office to help handle the sustained growth of all four journals, and the implementation of new procedures to prevent the infiltration of papermill papers, to name a few. Our attitudes toward the impact factor (IF) have also changed significantly.¹ No single metric can define success, and we believe that our journals are proof of that.

While the recently released IFs indicate the continued strength of our journals, with Molecular Therapy (MT) holding above 12 (12.4 to be precise, nearly unchanged from the year before), Molecular Therapy – Methods & Clinical Development (MTMCD), Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids (MTNA), and Molecular Therapy – Oncolytics (MTO) have seen mild reductions in their (nonetheless quite healthy) IFs to 4.7, 8.8, and 5.7, respectively. However, multiple factors transiently lifted the IFs of many biomedical journals in the previous year. For example, many journals that captured large numbers of papers on clinical outcomes of COVID-19 saw massive increases in citations during the pandemic and its aftermath, reflecting the transient effects of hot topics on the IF.² There’s also speculation that Clarivate’s change in the IF calculations from the date of print publication to the date of e-publication for journals indexed in the Web of Science database would temporarily increase the IFs of some, but not all, journals.³

Nonetheless, MT’s current IF and Web of Science rankings place it firmly among other high-impact journals. To provide some examples for comparison, MT is ranked slightly above PNAS and EMBO Molecular Medicine and slightly below Biomaterials and the Journal of Clinical Investigation in the Web of Science. Based on these rankings, MT and MTNA continue to be the leading journals in the gene therapy field. Going forward, we see indicators for strong future performance of all our journals, as we receive submissions of superb quality across the journal family.

In our quest to continuously innovate our journals, we are constantly adapting to a changing environment and fast-moving field. We are proud to report the following.

• (1)Our renewed focus on research integrity is working. Most papermill papers are desk-rejected before reaching an associate editor, providing more time for our editors to focus on cutting-edge research and reviews that will move the field forward.
• (2)Among the growing number of journals in the gene and cell therapy field, the Molecular Therapy family of journals remains a leader in terms of readership and downloads, with over 700,000 full-text downloads for MT, over 400,000 for MTMCD, over 600,000 for MTNA, and nearly 300,000 for MTO in 2022.
• (3)New associate editors have joined our ranks to expand expertise in the areas of gene editing, epigenetic regulation, nucleic acid-based therapeutics, rare diseases, exosomes/extracellular vesicles, and cancer immunotherapies. These editors are leaders in their fields or up-and-coming investigators who hold great promise for the future of gene and cell therapies.
• (4)We have expanded the scope of two of our journals, MTMCD and MTO, to better accommodate new and emerging topics important to the readers in the fields these journals serve.

These holistic changes in how we approach our journals are not reflected by the IF. So instead, we would like to celebrate the improved quality of submissions we’re receiving and publishing, the strength and resilience of our editors, and all the progress we’ve made as a journal family over the past 2 years. We’re also looking forward to many more years of progress in gene and cell therapy. Thank you for reading and continuing to support our journal family.