PLOS began publishing influential open access science in 2003. As PLOS Biology enters its third decade, we reflect on our mission, what…
Biology & Life Sciences
PLOS Biology 20th Anniversary
As PLOS Biology turns 20 years old, we are celebrating two decades of publishing high-impact life sciences research at the forefront of open science. This collection contains articles that look back at landmark PLOS Biology studies and how they have influenced their respective fields, and others that look at how far given fields have come in the past 20 years and where they are going, and others that discuss how publishing and open science have evolved in the past 20 years and what is to come. We will continue to update this collection with content throughout 2023.
Image Credit: Masami Overstreet
Editorials
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PLOS Biology PLOS Biology at 20: Ain’t no mountain high enough
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PLOS Biology PLOS Biology at 20: Reflecting on the road we’ve traveled
Why was PLOS Biology launched and how has it changed over the past 20 years? Three editors who have been at the helm of the journal…
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Image creditCompass, Orientation, Map by MarandaP, CC BY SA LicensePLOS Biology PLOS Biology at 20: Exploring possible futures
Twenty years ago this month, PLOS Biology was launched, helping to catalyze a movement that has transformed publishing in the life…
From our Blog
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PLOS Blogs Navigating my scientific journey: the guiding light of a PLOS Biology paper
As we celebrate our 20th anniversary, Lisa Maier shares the story of how one PLOS Biology paper set the course for her research career.
The future(s) of scientific publishing and Open Science
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PLOS Biology Biomedical publishing: Past historic, present continuous, future conditional
Academic journals have been publishing the results of biomedical research for more than 350 years. Reviewing their history reveals that…
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PLOS Biology Open Science 2.0: Towards a truly collaborative research ecosystem
Conversations about open science have reached the mainstream, yet many open science practices such as data sharing remain uncommon. Our…
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PLOS Biology Open peer review urgently requires evidence: A call to action
Open Peer Review is gaining prominence in attention and use, but to responsibly open up peer review, there is an urgent need for…
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Image creditSheeps mountain! by Patrice THOMAS, CC BY 2.0PLOS Biology A call to implement preclinical study registration in animal ethics review
Protocol registration is required in clinical trials. Registration of animal studies could improve research transparency and reduce…
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PLOS Biology Available upon all requests? How and why we should better incentivize the sharing of biomaterials
Biomaterial sharing offers enormous benefits for research and for the scientific community. Individuals, funders, institutions, and…
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Image creditKnowledge, Book, Library by DariuszSankowski, CC BY SA LicensePLOS Biology Authorship practices must evolve to support collaboration and open science
Journal authorship practices have not sufficiently evolved to reflect the way research is now done. Improvements to support teams,…
Perspectives: Past and future of research fields
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PLOS Biology Innate sensing pathways: Defining new innate immune and inflammatory cell death pathways has shaped translational applications
The past 20 years of research has elucidated new innate immune sensing and cell death pathways with disease relevance. Future molecular…
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PLOS Biology Human microbiome research: Growing pains and future promises
Human microbiome research is evolving from describing associations to understanding the impact of bioactive strains on humans. Despite…
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PLOS Biology The future is bright, the future is biotechnology
As PLOS Biology celebrates its 20th anniversary, our April issue focuses on biotechnology with articles covering different aspects of the…
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PLOS Biology Biotechnology: Overcoming biological barriers to nucleic acid delivery using lipid nanoparticles
The promise of therapeutic nucleic acids has long been tempered by difficulty in overcoming biological barriers to their delivery. The…
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PLOS Biology Synthetic biology: Learning the way toward high-precision biological design
Since its inception, synthetic biology has overcome many technical barriers but is at a crossroads for high-precision biological design.…
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PLOS Biology Aging research: A field grows up
Breakthroughs in the longevity field over the past few decades have led to major shifts in how we attack the problem of aging. What have…
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PLOS Biology Structural biology: A golden era
In the past 2 decades, structural biology has transformed from a single technique used on single proteins to a multimodal integrative…
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PLOS Biology Systems neuroscience: A box full of tools to illuminate the black box of the brain
Investigation of brain function has been fueled by an accelerating development of novel technologies and tools. This Perspective looks at…
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PLOS Biology Behavioral ecology: New technology enables a more holistic view of complex animal behavior
As any animal observer will tell you, behavior is complex. A more holistic view of this complexity is emerging as technological advances…
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Image creditNeuroscience by Dr. Curtis Cripe, CC BY 2.0PLOS Biology Computational and systems neuroscience: The next 20 years
Over the past 20 years, neuroscience has been propelled forward by theory-driven experimentation. We consider the future outlook for the…
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Image credit198 komentarze by Gerd Altmann, CC BY SA LicensePLOS Biology Circadian clocks: It’s time for chronobiology
Circadian clocks are everywhere, yet we still have not translated the vast knowledge gained in the past 20 years on the properties of…
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PLOS Biology Obesity research: Moving from bench to bedside to population
Globally, obesity is on the rise. Research over the past 20 years has highlighted the far-reaching multisystem complications of obesity,…
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PLOS Biology Global change ecology: Science to heal a damaged planet
Humanity has drastically altered the biophysical systems that sustain life on Earth. We summarize progress and chart future directions in…
Perspectives: Revisiting landmark PLOS Biology papers
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PLOS Biology A rising tide of parasite transcriptomics propels pathogen biology
Twenty years ago, the first transcriptome of the intraerythrocytic developmental cycle of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum was…
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PLOS Biology The dawn of relaxed phylogenetics
Tracing the history of evolution across time is a primary goal of evolutionary biology. The 2006 publication of a landmark study on…
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PLOS Biology Mapping the multimodal connectome: On the architects of brain network science
Delineating the human brain network and analyzing its architecture is one of the major goals of modern neuroscience. Here, we commemorate…
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PLOS Biology Approaches to vascularizing human brain organoids
A major challenge in brain organoid technologies is the lack of vasculature. In recent years, innovative approaches have been taken to…
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PLOS Biology PINK1: From Parkinson’s disease to mitophagy and back again
The genetics of Parkinson’s disease has been key to unravelling the PINK1-dependent mitophagy process. Here, we discuss the implications…
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PLOS Biology Bioimage informatics: Investing in software usability is essential
In 2018, PLOS Biology announced CellProfiler 3.0, which has become one of the most used pieces of image analysis software in biology. The…
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PLOS Biology Planting the seeds for a forest of RNAi pathways
Cells from most eukaryotic species make several different types of small interfering RNAs. Pioneering work in plants, published in PLOS…
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PLOS Biology Cell senescence, the senescence-associated secretory phenotype, and cancers
Cellular senescence is a cell fate caused by multiple stresses. A 2008 article in PLOS Biology reported a senescence-associated secretory…
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Image creditInsect, Insectarium, Insects by Domianick, CC BY SA LicensePLOS Biology How many species are there on Earth? Progress and problems
How many species exist on Earth? Projections range from millions to trillions. A 2011 paper in PLOS Biology provided a comprehensive…