PLOS Biology in the context of Editor-in-chief

Periodical literature (singularly called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) consists of published works that appear in new releases on a regular schedule (issues or numbers, often numerically divided into annual volumes). The most familiar example of periodical literature is the newspaper, but the magazine and the academic journal are also periodicals, as are some modern websites, e-journals, and other electronic-only publications produced recurrently on a schedule. Periodical publications cover a wide variety of topics, from academic, technical, and trade, to general-interest subjects such as leisure and entertainment.

Articles within a periodical are usually organized around a single main subject or theme and include a title, date of publication, author(s), and brief summary of the article. A periodical typically contains an editorial section that comments on subjects of interest to its readers. Other common features are reviews of recently published books and films, columns that express the authors' opinions about various topics, and advertisements.

PLOS (for Public Library of Science; PLoS until 2012) is a nonprofit publisher of open-access journals in science, technology, and medicine and other scientific literature, under an open-content license. It was founded in 2000 and launched its first journal, PLOS Biology, in October 2003.

As of 2024, PLOS publishes 14 academic journals, including 7 journals indexed within the Science Citation Index Expanded, and consequently 7 journals ranked with an impact factor.