PLOS Biology Year in Review
2021 was a year to remember for PLOS Biology. We welcomed new editors, published new and noteworthy research, and created even more choice in how researchers publish their findings. Discover journal updates, read a message from our Editor-in-Chief, explore new offerings, and more below.
2,281
Published authors
264
Published articles
57
Countries represented by submitting authors
1,837,032
Article views
This year, we continued to receive and publish high-quality research across the biological sciences. Read some articles recommended by our Editor-in-Chief Nonia Pariente.
- Neural stem cells traffic functional mitochondria via extracellular vesicles
- Synthesis of human amyloid restricted to liver results in an Alzheimer disease–like neurodegenerative phenotype
- Creating clear and informative image-based figures for scientific publications
- Tapping into non-English-language science for the conservation of global biodiversity
- Identification of astroglia-like cardiac nexus glia that are critical regulators of cardiac development and function
Want more recommended reads from the journal? Explore recommended articles from the PLOS Biology editors in our What to Read Now blog series.
“As we reflect on 2021, we would like to thank our authors, reviewers, and academic editors for another great year of open science, for entrusting their work to us, and for helping us assess its suitability for publication, all with patience and grace in difficult circumstances. At PLOS Biology, we introduced changes to increase our author service and equitable accessibility to open access publishing. We launched our Community Action Publishing model, implemented reviewer cross-commenting for every manuscript sent for peer-review, made progress toward expanding into communities historically underrepresented at the journal, and began the process of actively expanding our editorial board.
Thank you again for your contributions and we wish you a safe and happy 2022. We look forward to working with you.”

Nonia Parente, Editor-in-Chief orcid.org/0000-0002-3666-5683
This year we welcomed new Magazine section Senior Editor, Joanna Clarke. We are excited to more strategically use this section to signal our interest in new fields, increase our reach and spark important conversations on matters of interest across the life sciences, with a focus on the most pressing issues of our time.
We also launched a new Meet Your Editor blog series featuring in-depth chats with our current staff editors.
Have you heard about our approach to do away with author fees? The Community Action Publishing (CAP) model, which we launched in January 2021, is designed to shift publishing costs from authors and make selective journals at PLOS both open to read and open to publish. Check to see if your institution has signed up for CAP here.
In 2021, PLOS Biology articles were referenced an estimated 9,060 times by media outlets around the world. Explore articles that made the news.
- Social foraging in vampire bats is predicted by long-term cooperative relationships
- Natural selection in the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in bats created a generalist virus and highly capable human pathogen
- MycoRed: Betalain pigments enable in vivo real-time visualisation of arbuscular mycorrhizal colonisation
- Synthesis of human amyloid restricted to liver results in an Alzheimer disease–like neurodegenerative phenotype
- Anti-science kills: From Soviet embrace of pseudoscience to accelerated attacks on US biomedicine
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