Senior Executive Editors of Nucleic Acids Research
Julian Sale
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
Barry Stoddard
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA
Celebrating 50 years of NAR
Nucleic Acids Research is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. We owe our success to the incredible work of the three founding editors, Richard T. Walker and A. Stanley Jones at the University of Birmingham in the UK, and Dieter Söll at Yale University in the USA. Their vision and dedication have been carried forward by the editors who followed them, as well as our authors and reviewers. Today, NAR remains one of the leading journals in the biological sciences.
Read the 50th anniversary editorial from Senior Executives, Julian Sale and Barry Stoddard
Nobel Prize winning research from NAR authors
Congratulations to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman on being awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
Read the NAR article cited as a key publication in this research, 'Incorporation of pseudouridine into mRNA enhances translation by diminishing PKR activation'.
More from Nucleic Acids Research
Nucleic Acid Therapeutics
Nucleic Acids Research is dedicated to publishing the results of robust scientific studies that investigate the fundamental molecular mechanisms and biological roles of RNA and DNA. Because of this focus, NAR has always been a home for research that contributes to the basic and applied science underlying the development of nucleic acid therapeutics. In 2018 we published our first special collection of work in this area. Now, five years and almost a dozen approved drugs later, we publish our second special collection.
Breakthrough Articles
NAR's Breakthrough articles present high-impact studies answering long-standing questions in the field of nucleic acids research and/or open up new areas and mechanistic hypothesis for investigation.
2024 Database issue
The 2024 Nucleic Acids Research Database issue contains 180 papers, including 90 papers reporting on new databases and 83 updates from resources previously published in the issue. Seven additional manuscripts provide updates on databases most recently published elsewhere. The issue also includes a Breakthrough Article reporting on the Novel Metagenome Protein Families Database (NMPFamsDB).
2023 Web Server issue
The 2023 Nucleic Acids Research Web Server issue is the 21st in a series of annual issues dedicated to web-based software resources for analysis and visualization of molecular biology data. This issue includes 81 articles covering web servers that support research activities in a wide range of areas, ranging from software aimed at the wet lab through structural biology to computational methods.
Publishing with Nucleic Acids Research
Nucleic Acids Research: 50 years of research for scientists by scientists
NAR's 50 years of forming relationships with our author community has allowed the journal to continue paving the way with cutting-edge, reputable research in the nucleic acids and protein fields.
NAR was the first OUP journal to flip to fully open access
NAR embraces and endorses the principles of Open Science, a movement that promotes the unhindered access to scientific research. The benefits of publishing open access include:
- Greater visibility and impact of research
- Increased citation and usage
- Compliance with funder mandates
- Increased engagement with a more public audience
Promote your published work with NAR
As the author, you are the best advocate for your work and we encourage you to be involved in promoting your publication! Sharing your ideas and news about your publication with your colleagues and friends could take as little as 15 minutes and will make a real difference in raising the profile of your research.
View OUP's self-promotion guide & learn how OUP also works to promote your content
Read and publish agreements
Oxford University Press has Read and Publish agreements with over 25 institutions and consortia around the world allowing affiliated researchers at participating institutions to:
- publish accepted articles open access in OUP journal, with their institutions covering the open access publication charge
- read high quality, high impact research from OUP's prestigious journals
Article Types
Standard Research Articles
Standard research articles are published on a variety of subject categories including chemical biology and nucleic acid chemistry, computational biology, data resources and analyses, gene regulation, chromatin and epigenetics, molecular biology, RNA and RNA-protein complexes, structural biology and more.
Methods Articles
Nucleic Acids Research publishes methods manuscripts that detail methodological developments of highest originality and usefulness within NAR's core subject areas. Methods papers should report novel techniques, significant advances in existing techniques, and/or demonstration novel utility or advantage to an extended, rather than a specialist, audience.
Critical Reviews and Perspectives
Critical Reviews and Perspectives are dedicated to reviews relevant to the journal's core areas of interest in DNA/RNA function and the structure and interactions of proteins involved in nucleic acid interactions. These papers are by invitation only, but NAR welcomes unsolicited proposals.
Database & Web Server Articles
Nucleic Acids Research publishes two special online issues, a biological databases one in January of each year, and a web-based software resources of value to the biological community one in July of each year.
Database articles
Web Server articles
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
This journal is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
Information for referees
Upon receipt, manuscripts are assessed for their suitability for publication by the Senior Executive Editors and the editorial staff. Only the manuscripts meeting the journal's general criteria for consideration are sent out for review, saving time both for the Authors and the Referees. These manuscripts are assigned to Executive Editors who take overall responsibility for the peer-review process.
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NAR sister titles
In addition to Nucleic Acids Research, the following two journals are published under the NAR umbrella following the same commitment to open access, reputable, and cutting-edge research for scientists by scientists.
- NAR Genomics and Bioinformatics - focuses on genomics and bioinformatics large-scale data analysis
- NAR Cancer - focuses on research at the intersection of the nucleic acids research and cancer fields
- NAR Molecular Medicine - focuses on research at the intersection of nucleic acids research and molecular medicine