Journal profile · Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
BMC Biotechnology
ISSN 1472-6750 · BioMed Central · ENGLAND · Monthly · Founded 2001
BMC Biotechnology: CAS Zone 2 · Biology (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 4.81; fully open access; APC about USD 3,090; median 103 days to acceptance (98 articles, last 24 months); community-reported acceptance: fairly easy; 158 articles in 2025; indexed in SCIE and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
BMC Biotechnology is published by BioMed Central and is in Zone 2 of Biology in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Monoclonal and Polyclonal Antibodies Research, Viral Infectious Diseases and Gene Expression in Insects and Virus-based gene therapy research, together about 19.2% of its articles. Its main subfields are Molecular Biology. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
BMC Biotechnology is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on technologies and methodologies of relevance for the manipulation or optimization of biological molecules or organisms, the environment, cellular and tissue engineering, or the pharmaceutical/biomedical, agricultural and biotechnological industries. The journal welcomes manuscripts in the following broad sub-topics of biotechnology. Applied immunology including studies on antibody engineering; antibodies in diagnostics, therapy and research; and use in optimization of vaccines and more. Cellular, tissue and whole organism biotechnology including studies on cell and tissue engineering, including stem cell engineering and reprogramming and protein and enzyme modulations and gene therapy. It also includes cell culture methods and bioproduction in cells. Drug discovery and delivery including studies on drug discovery, targeting, delivery and testing with an emphasis on manipulation of cellular processes among others. Environmental biotechnology including studies on manipulation and optimization of processes that have environmental impact such as wastewater treatment, removal of pollution, renewable energy generation or biomass production or similar, by exploiting biological processes towards sustainable development. Food and nutritional biotechnology including studies on use of microbes or plants in the food industry in both small and large-scale productions. Keywords to look out for include probiotics, GMOs, fermentation for better wine and more. Genetic engineering including studies on recombinant DNA technology, RNAi technology, CRISPR technology, transgenic technology, expression systems, DNA transfer methods and vectors, and knock-downs/knock-out systems of gene regulations and other similar studies. Mathematical modeling and biostatistics including studies on computational/mathematical modelling of cellular and biological processes in our understanding of life and disease. Methods and technological advances in biotechnology including studies that creates, optimizes and expands methods broadening or bettering its use either in research or industry. Microbial biotechnology including studies on bacteria and yeasts: genetic manipulation, bioproduction, fermentation, metabolic engineering and downstream processing, bioremediation and biodegradation, fermentation, metabolic engineering, biocatalysis and biofilms, and also in environmental applications among other uses and appl
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Monoclonal and Polyclonal Antibodies ResearchMedicine6.9%
- Viral Infectious Diseases and Gene Expression in InsectsBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology6.2%
- Virus-based gene therapy researchBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology6.1%
- CRISPR and Genetic EngineeringBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology5.9%
- Transgenic Plants and ApplicationsBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology5.5%
- Animal Genetics and ReproductionBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology5.5%
- Enzyme Catalysis and ImmobilizationBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology5.3%
- Microbial Metabolic Engineering and BioproductionBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology5.1%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Biology Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Biology | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology | Zone 2 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Biology Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Biology | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Biology Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Biology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SCIEScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
EI CompendexMEDLINEINSPECEmbaseCASCAB AbstractsPublisher website
Other: Google Scholar, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, Baidu, AGRICOLA, Naver, OCLC, Portico, CLOCKSS, Semantic Scholar
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 4.81LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 4.8Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 4.7Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 5LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.88LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.05LetPub ·
- h-index
- 71LetPub ·
- h-index
- 119OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 1,502OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 5.07OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 2.1%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 150LetPub ·
- Downloads per year (publisher) 2025
- 1,900,000Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 2,131 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 136 | 136 | 69 |
| 2025 | 158 | 158 | 763 |
| 2024 | 108 | 108 | 1,206 |
| 2023 | 58 | 58 | 795 |
| 2022 | 39 | 39 | 628 |
| 2021 | 72 | 72 | 1,771 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with Crossref · to
103 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 75 days – 148 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 13 days (98 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 121 days
- Sample
- 98 articles with submission and acceptance dates (334 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 2 monthsLetPub ·
- Average acceptance (community reports)
- Fairly easyLetPub ·
- Submission to first decision
- 7 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 20 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Single anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | EUR 2,690 / USD 3,090 / GBP 2,390 | Yes | CC BY, CC BY-NC-ND | |
| OpenAlex | USD 2,990 / EUR 2,590 / GBP 2,290 | — | — | |
| LetPub | GBP 2,190 / USD 2,890 / EUR 2,490 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | GBP 2,390 / USD 3,090 / EUR 2,690 | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
Open calls for papers2, by deadline
Publisher websiteWhat to prepare2 items from the author guidelines
- Reference style
- Vancouver
- Templates
- LaTeX and Word
Article types accepted6
- commentCommentLength not stated
- database articleDatabase articleLength not stated
- matters arisingMatters ArisingLength not stated
- research articleResearch articleLength not stated
- reviewReviewLength not stated
- software articleSoftware articleLength not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteData availability, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review
- Data availability Formatting the 'Availability of data and materials' section of your manuscript
Data sharing strongly encouraged or required Model summary
The following format for the 'Availability of data and materials section of your manuscript should be used:
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Licensing and copyright
CC BY-NC-ND or CC BY licence Model summary
Creative Commons licences Open access articles in Springer Nature journals are published under Creative Commons licences. These provide an industry-standard framework to support easy re-use of open access material. Under Creative Commons licences, authors retain copyright of their articles. BMC Biotechnology articles are published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND (Creative Commons Attribution Non-C…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Benefits of open access
Publishing open access (OA) offers a number of benefits, including greater reach and readership for your work: Cited more 1.6x more citations of OA articles than non-OA articles across all subjects Downloaded more 4x more downloads of OA articles than non-OA articles Greater impact 2.5x more Altmetric attention. OA articles attracted 1.9x more news mentions and 1.2x more policy mentions Open acces…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
Peer review is the process used to evaluate the quality of a manuscript before publication. Independent researchers in the relevant field assess submitted manuscripts to check their validity and robustness. Their feedback guides editors in making publication decisions. Typically, two or more experts evaluate each manuscript based on three main criteria: scientific robustness: is the research metho…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- BioMed Central
- Country or region
- ENGLAND
- Language
- English
- Frequency
- Monthly
- Founded
- 2001
- ISSN
- 1472-6750
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
- Submission system ↗LetPub
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about BMC Biotechnology
What CAS zone is BMC Biotechnology in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, BMC Biotechnology is in Zone 2 of Biology, and in Zone 2 of the minor category Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 2 of Biology. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of BMC Biotechnology?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 4.81; CiteScore 5, h-index 119.
How long does peer review take at BMC Biotechnology?
Based on the dates recorded on 98 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 103 days (interquartile range 75–148 days); authors report an average review time of about 2 months; the community-reported acceptance is “Fairly easy”. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of BMC Biotechnology?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Reference style: Vancouver; Templates: LaTeX and Word. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Which databases index BMC Biotechnology?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, BMC Biotechnology is indexed in SCIE, Scopus and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists EI Compendex, MEDLINE, INSPEC, Embase, CAS and CAB Abstracts; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is BMC Biotechnology open access, and what is the APC?
BMC Biotechnology is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 3,090.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, DOAJ, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-25). Last updated: .