The ''Journal of Heredity'' is a

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication designed to further the progress of science by disseminating new research findings to the scientific community. These journals serve as a platform for researchers, schola ...

concerned with

heredity Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic infor ...

in a biological sense, covering all aspects of

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

. It is published by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

on behalf of the American Genetic Association.

History

The trends in topics that have been published in the journal reflect the history of the discipline of genetics.Crow, J F (2004). "Genetics: Alive and Well. The First Hundred Years as Viewed Through the Pages of the Journal of Heredity. WILHEMINE E. KEY 2003 INVITATIONAL LECTURE". J Hered (95(5):365–374. Early issues included many papers on

eugenics Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...

, particularly under the editorial leadership of the journal's first two

editors-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

, Paul Popenoe and R. C. Cook. Emphasis on eugenics in the journal declined throughout the 1940s and 1950s as support for the topic waned in the scientific community and the general public; when Cook's daughter, Barbara Kuhn, took over as editor in 1962 after her father's 40-year service, "...the subject of eugenics was essentially dropped." Early topics of interest included comparative color inheritance in mammals (as explored in a series of articles that served as precursors to work applying enzyme kinetics to developmental genetics), determination of the number of human chromosomes, genetic histories of a number of types of livestock (including hybridization of cattle with American bison, the discovery of salivary chromosomes in ''Drosophila'', and "A remarkable paper by Prokofyeva-Belgovskaya, pointing out a difference between mother and daughter chromosomes in binucleate cells. This foreshadowed modern work in intestinal tumors in which there are differences between cells containing the template DNA and those with copies."

Editors-in-chief

The following persons have been editor-in-chief of the journal: * Paul Popenoe (1913–1921) * Robert C. Cook (1922–1962) * Barbara Kuhn (1963–1986) * Stephen J. O'Brien (1987–2007) * C. Scott Baker (2007–2016) * William Murphy (2017–present)

Article types

The journal publishes articles in the following categories: * Original Research * Brief Communications * Computer Notes * Letters to the Editor and on invitation: * Reviews * Perspectives * Symposium Articles

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in: *

BIOSIS Previews BIOSIS Previews is an English-language, bibliographic database service, with abstracts and citation indexing. It is part of ''Clarivate Analytics Web of Science'' suite. BIOSIS Previews indexes data from 1926 to the present. BIOSIS Previews i ...

Chemical Abstracts Service Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) is a division of the American Chemical Society. It is a source of chemical information and is located in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Print periodicals ''Chemical Abstracts'' is a periodical index that provid ...

Current Contents ''Current Contents'' is a rapid alerting service database from Clarivate, formerly the Institute for Scientific Information and Thomson Reuters. It is published online and in several different printed subject sections. History ''Current Contents ...

/Life Sciences * EMBASE *

Index Medicus ''Index Medicus'' (''IM'') was a comprehensive bibliographic index of life science, biomedical science, and medical research articles, published from 1879 to 2004. Medical history experts have said of ''Index Medicus'' that it is “America's ...

MEDLINE MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, or MEDLARS Online) is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information. It includes bibliographic information for articles from academic journals covering medic ...

PubMed PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institute ...

Science Citation Index The Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) is a citation index owned by Clarivate and previously by Thomson Reuters. It was created by the Eugene Garfield at the Institute for Scientific Information, launched in 1964 as Science Citation Index ( ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Genetics journals Academic journals established in 1910 Oxford University Press academic journals Hybrid open access journals English-language journals 7 times per year journals