Cell Chemical Biology is a Cell Press journal publishing research and review content of exceptional interest for the chemical biology community. Launched in 1994 under the title Chemistry & Biology, the journal was the first to recognize the growing importance of investigations done at the interface of chemistry and biology, and its mission has always been to support and promote chemical biology and conversation and collaboration between chemical and life sciences.

Cell Chemical Biology strongly encourages submission of articles that provide significant conceptual advancement of broad general interest to both chemists and biologists. We are especially interested in papers that combine the use of chemical tools to perturb, visualize, and measure biological systems and properties and offer unique insights into molecular mechanism or physiology. We also encourage submissions that are focused on method development for basic life sciences or that have practical impact of either clinical or biotechnological nature. Some additional types of research that we consider within our scope are studies of metabolism and physiology; enzyme mechanism and natural product biosynthesis; generation, distribution, and function of small molecule-protein conjugates such as post-translational modifications; mechanism of resistance to small molecules by viruses/bacteria/cancer cells/organisms; intra- and intercellular and intra- and interspecies communication mediated by small molecules; and chemical biology of lipids, sugars, and nucleic acids. Finally, large-scale studies enabled by the use of chemistry-based technology, such as proteomics, lipidomics, metabolomics, and glycomics, are also within our scope, as well as synthetic and systems biology work when inspired and supported by chemical tools or aimed at engineering biological systems to perform a new type of chemical transformation.