[9] The journal was established in 1905 by John Jacob Abel and Christian Archibald Herter, who also served as the first editors; the first issue appeared in October 1905.

[11] As of 2017[update] the journal is published by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

The most cited paper of all time[12][13][14] was published in the journal by Oliver H. Lowry on Protein measurement with the Folin phenol reagent[15] and describes the Lowry protein assay, and has been cited well-over 300,000 times.

[12] In 1990, librarian Eugene Garfield wrote that the "Journal of Biological Chemistry lead the list of journals ranked by the number of SCI Top papers published", with 17 of the top 100 most cited papers published.

The event takes place on Twitter and lets users vote for their favorite biochemistry or molecular biology methods.