Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Encyclopedia
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, usually referred to as PNAS, is the official journal of the United States National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

 (NAS). PNAS is an important scientific journal
Scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...

 that printed its first issue in 1915 and continues to publish highly cited research reports, commentaries, reviews, perspectives, feature articles, profiles, letters to the editor, and actions of the Academy. Coverage in PNAS broadly spans the biological, physical, and social sciences. Although most of the papers published in the journal are in the biomedical sciences, PNAS recruits papers and publishes special features in the physical and social sciences and in mathematics. PNAS is published weekly in print, and daily online in PNAS Early Edition.

History

PNAS was established by NAS in 1914, with its first issue published in 1915. The NAS itself had been founded in 1863 as a private institution, but chartered by the US Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

, with the goal to "investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art." By 1914, the Academy was well established.

Prior to the start of the journal, NAS published three volumes of organizational transactions, consisting mostly of minutes of meetings and annual reports. In accordance with the guiding principles established by astronomer George Ellery Hale
George Ellery Hale
George Ellery Hale was an American solar astronomer.-Biography:Hale was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was educated at MIT, at the Observatory of Harvard College, , and at Berlin . As an undergraduate at MIT, he is known for inventing the spectroheliograph, with which he made his discovery of...

, the foreign secretary of NAS in 1914, PNAS publishes brief first announcements of Academy members' and foreign associates' more important contributions to research and of work that appears to a member to be of particular importance.

Editors

  • 1914–1918 – Arthur A. Noyes
    Arthur Amos Noyes
    Arthur Amos Noyes was a U.S. chemist and educator. He served as the acting president of MIT between 1907 and 1909. He received a PhD. in 1890 at Leipzig under the guidance of Wilhelm Ostwald. Roscoe Gilkey Dickinson was one of his famous students. Noyes served as Professor of Chemistry at the...

  • 1918–1940 – Raymond Pearl
    Raymond Pearl
    Raymond Pearl was an American biologist, regarded as one of the founders of biogerontology. He spent most of his career at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore....

  • 1940–1949 – Robert A. Millikan
  • 1950–1955 – Linus Pauling
    Linus Pauling
    Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century...

  • 1955–1960 – Wendell M. Stanley
    Wendell Meredith Stanley
    Wendell Meredith Stanley was an American biochemist, virologist and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Stanley was born in Ridgeville, Indiana, and earned a BS in Chemistry at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. He then studied at the University of Illinois, gaining an MS in science in 1927 followed by...

  • 1960–1968 – Saunders Mac Lane
    Saunders Mac Lane
    Saunders Mac Lane was an American mathematician who cofounded category theory with Samuel Eilenberg.-Career:...

  • 1968–1972 – John T. Edsall
    John Tileston Edsall
    John Tileston Edsall was anearly protein scientist, who contributed significantly to theunderstanding of the hydrophobic interaction.-Protein research:In 1943, Edsall and Cohn published a...

  • 1972–1980 – Robert Louis Sinsheimer
  • 1980–1984 – Daniel E. Koshland, Jr.
    Daniel E. Koshland, Jr.
    Daniel Edward Koshland, Jr. reorganized the study of biology at the University of California at Berkeley and was the editor of the leading US science journal, Science, from 1985 to 1995...

  • 1985–1988 – Maxine Singer
    Maxine Singer
    Maxine Frank Singer is an American molecular biologist and science administrator. She is known for her contributions to solving the genetic code, her role in the ethical and regulatory debates on recombinant DNA techniques , and her leadership of Carnegie Institution of Washington.Singer...

  • 1988–1991 – Igor B. Dawid
  • 1991–1995 – Lawrence Bogorad
    Lawrence Bogorad
    Lawrence Bogorad was an American botanist, pioneer of photosynthesis research and President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.- External links :* http://www.mcb.harvard.edu/Bogorad/...

  • 1995–2006 – Nicholas R. Cozzarelli
  • 2006–2011 – Randy Schekman
    Randy Schekman
    Randy W. Schekman is an American cell biologist at the University of California, Berkeley and Editor-in-Chief of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2011 he was announced as the editor of a new high profile open access journal published by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the...

  • 2011-present – Inder M. Verma


The first managing editor of the journal was mathematician Edwin Bidwell Wilson
Edwin Bidwell Wilson
Edwin Bidwell Wilson was an American mathematician and polymath. He was the sole protégé of Yale's physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs and was mentor to MIT economist Paul Samuelson. He received his AB from Harvard College in 1899 and his PhD from Yale University in 1901, working under Gibbs.E.B...

.

Peer review

All research papers published in PNAS are peer-reviewed. The standard mode is for papers to be submitted directly to PNAS rather than going through an Academy member. Members may handle the peer review process for up to 4 of their own papers per year—this is an open review process because the member selects and communicates directly with the referees. These submissions and reviews, like all for PNAS, are evaluated for publication by the PNAS Editorial Board. Until July 1, 2010, members were allowed to communicate up to 2 papers from non-members to PNAS every year. The review process for these papers was anonymous in that the identities of the referees were not revealed to the authors. Referees were selected by the NAS member. PNAS eliminated communicated submissions through NAS members as of July 1, 2010, while continuing to make the final decision on all PNAS papers.

Dual use papers and national security

In 2003, PNAS issued an editorial stating its policy on publication of sensitive material in the life sciences. PNAS stated that it would "continue to monitor submitted papers for material that may be deemed inappropriate and that could, if published, compromise the public welfare." This statement was in keeping with
the efforts of several other journals. In 2005 PNAS published an article titled "Analyzing a bioterror attack on the food supply: The case of botulinum toxin in milk" despite objections raised by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
United States Department of Health and Human Services
The United States Department of Health and Human Services is a Cabinet department of the United States government with the goal of protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America"...

. The paper was published with a commentary by the president of the Academy at the time, Bruce Alberts
Bruce Alberts
Bruce Michael Alberts is an American biochemist known for his work in science public policy and as an original author of the Molecular Biology of the Cell...

, titled "Modeling attacks on the food supply".

Impact

PNAS is widely read by researchers, particularly those involved in basic sciences, around the world. PNAS Online receives over 21 million hits per month. The journal is notable for its policy of making research articles freely available online to everyone 6 months after publication (delayed open access
Delayed open access journal
Delayed open access journals are traditional subscription-based journals that provide open access or free access upon the elapse of an embargo period following the initial publication date...

), or immediately if authors have chosen the "open access" option (hybrid open access
Hybrid Open Access journal
A newly popular variation on open access journals is the Hybrid Open Access Journal. This refers to a journal where only some of the articles are open access...

). Immediately free online access (without the 6-month delay) is available to 139 developing countries and for some categories of papers such as colloquia. Abstracts, tables of contents, and online supporting information are free. Anyone can sign up to receive free tables of contents by email.

Because PNAS is self-sustaining and receives no direct funding from the government or the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

, the journal charges authors publication fees and subscription fees to offset the cost of the editorial and publication process.

According to the Journal Citation Reports
Journal Citation Reports
Journal Citation Reports is an annual publication by the Healthcare & Science division of Thomson Reuters. It has been integrated with the Web of Knowledge, by Thomson Reuters, and is accessed from the Web of Science to JCR Web. It provides information about academic journals in the sciences and...

, the journal's 2010 impact factor
Impact factor
The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...

 is 9.771. PNAS is the second most cited scientific journal with 1,338,191 citations from 1994–2004 (the Journal of Biological Chemistry
Journal of Biological Chemistry
The Journal of Biological Chemistry is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1905. Since 1925 it is published by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. It covers research in any area of biochemistry or molecular biology. The editor-in-chief is...

is the most cited journal over this period with 1,740,902 citations in total).

PNAS has received occasional criticism for its practice (sometimes known as news embargo
News Embargo
In journalism and public relations, a news embargo or press embargo is a request by a source that the information or news provided by that source not be published until a certain date or certain conditions have been met...

) of releasing papers to science journalist
Science journalism
Science journalism conveys reporting about science to the public. The field typically involves interactions between scientists, journalists and the public, and is still evolving.-Aim of science journalism:...

s as much as a week before making them available to the general public—according to critics, this allows mainstream news outlets to misrepresent or exaggerate the implications of experimental findings before the scientific community is able to respond. Science writer Ed Yong, on the other hand, has claimed that the real problem is not embargoes themselves, but the press releases issued by research institutes and universities.

PNAS Plus

Beginning in January 2011, PNAS will consider manuscripts for exclusive online publication, PNAS Plus papers. These will have a larger page number (10 rather than 6 pages). Accompanying these papers both online and in print, will be a one- to two-page summary description written for a broad readership. The introduction of PNAS Plus is part of gradual shift in PNAS content described in an editorial: "If PNAS Plus succeeds, we envision transitioning to a print edition of PNAS in a magazine format comprising special features, commentaries on important papers flagged by member editors and the Editorial Board, and summary statements of the online articles."
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