History
Folia Biologica
- 1954 established at the Institute of Molecular genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
- 1961 indexed in PubMed
- 2006 published by First Faculty of Medicine
- 2024 70th anniversary issue published
In 2024, Folia Biologica has celebrated 70 years of continuous publication of research papers. The first volume was published in Prague in 1954 on behalf of the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (since 1990 the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) under the subtitle “International edition of the journal Czechoslovakian Biology”. Born in the dark days of the Cold War, Folia Biologica provided a thin but important link between the politically controlled science behind the Iron Curtain in the former Czechoslovakia and that of the free Western world.
Initially, the journal focused on research papers in the fields of experimental medicine, immunology, virology, and experimental zoology. Since 1961 (Volume 7), Folia Biologica has been indexed in the Web of Science database. The first issue of Volume 7 was introduced by a review article by Peter Brian Medawar (1915-1987), winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance. In the late 1960s, during the political relaxation that culminated in the Prague Spring, cooperation with free Western science intensified and enabled a lively scientific dialogue between Czechoslovak and foreign biological scientists, namely immunologists, molecular biologists, and virologists, as illustrated by a series of original research articles from Folia Biologica by Georg Davis Snell (1903-1996) and Jean Dausset (1916-2009) who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1980 “for their discoveries concerning genetically determined structures on the cell surface that regulate immunological reactions”, which led to the discovery of the major histocompatibility system (MHC). Another powerful example is an article in Folia Biologica by François Jacob (1920-2013), who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965 for discoveries that helped elucidate the transcriptional control of enzyme levels. Despite the years of political repression during the “normalization” period following the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968, the scientists and editors of Folia Biologica from the Academy of Sciences were able to maintain vibrant contacts with the world’s leading scientists. In 1981, the journal changed its subtitle to “Journal of Cellular and Molecular Biology”. In 1983, Folia Biologica published the article by Renato Dulbecco (1914-2012), who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1975 for “discoveries concerning the interaction between tumor viruses and the genetic material of the cell. With further orientation towards human molecular medicine, the journal entered the era after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, which represented the desired end of political control over national science. Since volume 63 (January 2006), Folia Biologica has been published by the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague, in a fully open access model. With the new decade the journal has undergone a series of improvements, including the strengthening of the editorial board, the assignment of a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) number to each article, the improvement of the cover layout and graphics, the innovation of the website, and a more precise definition of the journal’s aim. Folia Biologica now publishes articles describing original research aimed at elucidating a wide range of issues in biomedicine, especially in oncology and human molecular genetics. In addition, the journal focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of disease and provides studies on all organisms, cells and tissues that serve as biological and disease models, as well as clinical and translational research studies. Further improvements towards sustainable and rapid publication will be accomplished by introducing an online-only publication model planned for 2025.
We wish our journal many more decades of scientifically interesting articles, publishing open-minded science by excellent authors for the pleasure of satisfied readers!
