A century through the lens of Journal of Cell Science

Around 170 years ago, the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science (QJMS) was launched under the editorship of Edwin Lankester and George Busk, with Samuel Highley as the publisher (Box 1). The journal was founded at the advent of the rapidly growing field of microscopy with the belief that the time had come “when a journal devoted entirely to objects connected with the use of the microscope would contribute to the advancement of science” (Lankester and Busk, 1853). With the key objective being “the diffusion of information relating to all improvements in the construction of the microscope”, QJMS soon flourished as an international journal where the likes of Joseph Lister, a surgeon who pioneered the concept of antiseptic surgery, and Thomas Huxley, an English biologist and anthropologist who was one of the first advocates of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, published (Lister, 1853; Huxley, 1853; Box 1). For more than a decade, the Transactions of the Microscopical Society of London were also published in QJMS, and this arrangement continued until 1866, when the society was incorporated by the Royal Charter and reformed as the Royal Microscopical Society. Although publishers changed hands, the journal kept being steered by the original Editors until 1869, when George Busk retired and Ray Lankester joined his father in the editorship (Bourne, 1919). As noted by British zoologist Gilbert Bourne, QJMS's scope changed substantially in its first few decades, ranging from botany and zoology, to bacteriology, embryology, histology, bionomics and the comparative anatomy of animals. By the late 1910s, QJMS had already secured a long-standing position amongst biologists and microscopists, although the format of the journal was apparently still “rather meagre and cramped” (Skaer, 2001) and was in need of a redesign.

By 1921, the marine biologist George Parker Bidder III became (rather mysteriously, as far as we can tell) associated with QJMS. Bidder founded The Company of Biologists in 1925 and, nearly 20 years later, transferred the ownership of QJMS, which he had “somehow come to own”, to the Company (Bray et al., 2025). In the early 1950s, the Company underwent a significant transformation and became a registered charity. Soon after this, Harold Callan joined QJMS as an Editor, which marked a new beginning for the journal. By 1962, submissions of ‘cytological’ work progressively increased to the extent that, Bill Grimstone and Henry Harris, the Editors at the time, “expressed their intention of restricting the content of the journal to cytology” (Grimstone and Harris, 1969; https://focalplane.biologists.com/2020/07/01/origin-story-focalplane/). To accommodate this new scope, the Company's Board of Directors agreed that the title of QJMS should be changed to ‘Journal of Cell Science’. Rumour has it that the name ‘Cell’ was considered at this time, but the board thought this would be too radical a change so decided on Journal of Cell Science (JCS), a change that was finally implemented in 1966; we can only imagine what the publishing landscape today would look like if the name ‘Cell’ had been chosen instead.

“The new journal was intended from the outset to be devoted to all aspects of cell organisation: it was to be concerned with cell biology in the broadest sense”, the Editors shared (Grimstone et al., 1986). Publication of JCS was transferred to Cambridge University Press, and it commenced under the editorship of Callan and Grimstone. Around this time, the Company made an agreement with the British Society for Cell Biology (BSCB), which had just been founded, to offer copies of JCS to society members at reduced rates. Later, in the 1970s, the Company initiated a series of grants to the BSCB, enabling them to offer Travel Bursaries to young researchers and invite overseas speakers to the society meetings, which continue to date. The ties between JCS and the BSCB progressively strengthened, and the transactions from the first joint symposium between the BSCB and the Company were published as a JCS supplement in 1984. More about the Company's relationship with the BSCB will be highlighted in an article that will be published later this year.

In the years following the name change, JCS published a wide range of high-quality research-based articles pertaining to cell biology, covering topics such as nuclear and chromosomal organisation, cell recognition and adhesion, cell junctions and malignancy. A new series of supplements to the journal were also introduced, designed to reflect areas of current interest in cell biology. As JCS celebrated the 20th anniversary of its first appearance, distinguished cell and molecular biologists contributed to a commemorative volume, reiterating the success of the then-newly (re)-formed journal (Grimstone et al., 1986).

In 1992, The Company of Biologists extended its Travelling Fellowships programme, which until then had been limited to JCS's sister journal Development, to JCS, enabling early-career researchers (ECRs) in the field of cell biology to make collaborative visits to other laboratories across the world. Over the past three decades, this programme has allowed hundreds of ECRs specialising in cell biology from around the globe to gain invaluable scientific and lifestyle experiences that have often been major turning points in their careers. More about the Company's Travelling Fellowships programme will be published in a later article this year.

1992 also saw another major development for JCS as Fiona Watt (current Director of the European Molecular Biology Organisation) was appointed to be the first female Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of JCS, which was also a first for the Company. All JCS articles became fully available online in 1997 in tune with technological advancements around that time.

The millennium brought with it many exciting yet challenging changes within the publishing ecosystem, as the demand for engaging scientific content became increasingly vital. Keeping with changing times, Richard Sever, who served as Executive Editor of JCS from 1999 to 2007, spearheaded the launch of some of the journal's ‘quirky’ features in the early 2000s. This included the still popular ‘Cell Science at a Glance’ poster series and the ‘Sticky Wicket’ section, which introduced a few special characters, including Caveman, Mole and friends, who candidly share their perspectives on science and life in the lab, gaining immense popularity amongst JCS's readership over the years (Watt, 2007). Indeed, ‘Who is Mole?’ is a question that we hear quite frequently. Another addition was the launch of the JCS Best Paper Prize, which enables the journal to award a £1000 prize to the first author(s) of the most outstanding publication in the journal in a particular year as judged by the Editors.

In 2009, under Watt's guidance and with the then-new Executive Editor Sharon Ahmad on board, JCS launched its first special issue, which focused on the topic of integrins. Around the same time, JCS Editorial Advisory Board member, Martin Schwartz, published an essay on the importance of stupidity in scientific research, which has now reached over a million people and continues to be our most widely read article (Schwartz, 2008).

Watt also oversaw the addition of a dedicated team of in-house staff (Box 2), including Reviews Editors, Production Editors and Editorial Administrators. She stepped down in 2012 after nearly two decades of service to the journal and JCS's current EiC, Michael Way (The Francis Crick Institute), took over (Watt, 2011; Ahmad, 2011). In his introductory Editorial, Way wrote, “The first immunofluorescence image I ever recorded ended up on the cover of JCS, so it is particularly exciting to be asked to become Editor-in-Chief” (Way, 2012). Having been an Editor of JCS since 2005, Way aimed to improve the publishing and peer review processes at JCS.

The late 2010s, therefore, proved to be quite eventful for the journal. The ‘Cell Scientists to Watch’ interview series was launched in 2015 to specifically feature researchers in cell biology who have recently set up their own group. In 2017, the journal appointed its first Guest Editor, Andrew Ewald (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine), who coordinated a special issue on 3D cell biology; since then, the journal has published various special issues, each focusing on a hot topic in cell biology. Concomitantly, JCS organised its first Journal Meeting, along with launching the ‘First Person’ interview series, which aims to promote the first authors of papers. In alignment with the journal's commitment to making submissions easier for authors, format-free submissions were introduced. In 2018, the journal moved to a continuous publication model, allowing articles to be published as soon as they are ready instead of waiting for the corrected proofs of all the accepted articles in an issue (Ahmad, 2018). Around this time, the journal also introduced cross-referee commenting and transparent peer review, with the aim of improving and promoting transparency around the editorial process.

Soon after this, JCS, along with two other journals – Journal of Cell Biology and Molecular Biology of the Cell – announced a new manuscript transfer option, enabling authors to seamlessly transfer their manuscripts and associated peer review forms between the journals. In a similar vein, JCS, along with its sister journals became part of Review Commons, a new initiative facilitating journal-independent peer review. Moreover, with the community's growing interest in preprints, The Company of Biologists launched preLights, a community site where ECRs curate and showcase preprints in biology. Some of the cell biology-related posts that are published by ‘preLighters’ from around the world are now featured in the journal.

The millennium also saw the Open Access (OA) movement in publishing gain significant momentum (Tennant et al., 2016). In 2004, JCS embraced its first steps towards OA, giving authors the option to make their articles OA. More recently, JCS and its sister journals, Development and Journal of Experimental Biology, were the first journals to be awarded transformative status by Plan S, demonstrating our commitment to OA. It remains free to publish in JCS, and The Company of Biologists' Read & Publish agreements mean that many researchers can publish OA without paying an article processing charge (APC). We hope that these options mean that all authors are able to publish with JCS, whatever their funder or financial status.

Although the journal continued to flourish, and as the field of cell biology continued to expand, it was clear that more could be done to bring the community together. Around 2018, Sharon Ahmad started discussing with Sean Munro (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) and Steve Royle (University of Warwick), both Company Directors, the possibility of JCS hosting a community site. They agreed that microscopy was “a common theme tying many of cell biology topics together” (https://focalplane.biologists.com/2020/07/01/origin-story-focalplane/). Soon after this, JCS announced the launch of FocalPlane (https://focalplane.biologists.com/) – a community site for anyone who uses microscopy in their research. The establishment of FocalPlane was a way of “embracing our origins” in microscopy dating back to 1853 when the journal was founded as QJMS (Ahmad et al., 2020). Although a relatively young community site, FocalPlane has been influential in providing opportunities for researchers to interact with the global community of imaging scientists, engineers, chemists and bioimage analysts. Over the past 5 years, the site has grown from strength to strength, partnering up with microscopy forums and groups across the world. It was also recently expanded to include jobs and events boards for cell biologists as well as microscopists. To provide further support to the cell biology community and recognising the importance of microscopy training, the journal recently launched JCS–FocalPlane Training Grants aimed at ECRs working in an area covered by JCS who would like to attend a microscopy training course.

Throughout 2023 and 2024, with Seema Grewal on board as our current Executive Editor, the journal welcomed a suite of new Editors to expand the journal's scope, reach into the community and to ensure that all topics in the ever-shifting field of cell biology are well represented. This was followed by the appointment of a set of new ‘Associate Editors’, helping us to assess and handle research in newly emerging and/or expanding fields of cell biology (Way, 2025).

2023 also marked the launch of The Forest of Biologists– the Company's biodiversity initiative (Moulton and Freeman, 2023). We are pleased to see this initiative being embraced by the cell biology community (Moulton, 2023), and we are proud to have planted over 500 new trees (and protected many more) since the launch of the project, each one representing a peer-reviewed article in the journal. We'll be continuing this project throughout 2025 and look forward to planting and protecting more trees on the community's behalf.

This year, as The Company of Biologists celebrates its 100th birthday, we have lots to look forward to. The landmark event of this remarkable year of celebrations will be our Biologists @ 100 conference, which will be hosted at the ACC Liverpool, UK, from 24–27 March 2025. This unique conference will be combining the spring meetings of the British Society for Cell Biology (BSCB) and the British Society for Developmental Biology (BSDB), along with an exciting line-up of plenary speakers, including Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz (Janelia Research Campus) and Manu Prakash (Stanford University). Throughout the year, the journal – along with its sister journals – will be publishing various articles that look back on the 100 years of The Company of Biologists and also on how the field of cell biology has changed during this time. We also recognise that the past 100 years would not have been possible without contributions from the cell biology community; so, we will be highlighting (in our issues and social media channels) some of the extraordinary cell biologists who have been an important part of our journey. We hope you will enjoy these articles and highlights, and we invite you to join us in celebrating this extraordinary Company. We also hope that you will consider JCS as a venue for your next article, so that you too can be part of our journey.