Journal of Clinical Investigation

The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI or J Clin Invest) is a leading biomedical journal, which is radically different from many of its peers in having a high impact factor (in 2006, 15.754) and offering all its contents entirely free. It is also one of those rare journals whose entire archives, from 1924, are available online.

The website of the journal describes it as "a premier venue for critical advances in biomedical research, authoritative reviews, and commentaries that place research articles in context." The first issue of the journal appeared in 1924, and within a few decades, it had established itself as a reputed journal for primary clinical research.

The JCI's Editorial Board is unique in that its members are located chiefly at a singular academic medical center and are predominantly members of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. The leadership of the Editorial Board changes every five years: As of March 2007, the Editorial Board is located at the University of Pennsylvania under the leadership of Laurence A. Turka, M.D. From March 2002 to March 2007, the Editorial Board was located at Columbia University under the leadership of Andrew Marks, M.D. Ushma S. Neill, formerly with Nature Medicine, is the journal's Executive Editor.

This monthly journal publishes much original research, and one review article per issue, often ranked in par with the sophisticated and widely-cited reviews found in Physiological Reviews. A series of review articles (under the term "Review Series") focussing on an important biomedical topic is also regularly published, which has proved to be a positive addition to the journal's reputation.