Is there any risk of having my research scooped after posting my manuscript onto bioRxiv? I want to post my manuscript to bioRxiv before submitting onto formal journals, but I still have several concerns:


Can I claim I am the first for the discovery by posting my findings on bioRxiv ?
Similarly, is it a feasible way to prevent others from publishing ealier than me on the same topic ?
Are there any risks of having my research scooped after posting my manuscript on bioRxiv ?


Thanks and Best regards,

Michael
In fields that use arXiv, publication in arXiv does establish a definitive date-stamp on the work (and an accompanying archival DOI) that is generally understood and respected by practitioners in the field. Nobody could reasonable "scoop" a work published there without being called on it by their peers.

bioRxiv is intended to provide the same for biology-related fields and technically does so. The culture of those fields, however, is often not yet as accepting of the idea of pre-publication and incrementally evolving works. Hence, for example, the much greater concern with the ideas of "priority" and "scoop" to begin with.  A few journals still even consider sharing a pre-print in bioRxiv to be a sort of "self-scoop" that prevents you from submitting for peer review in that journal!

Still, the only way to change this culture is to embrace more open and sharing practices. I would advise checking whether others in your sub-field use bioRxiv, checking the publication policy of your target journal in SHERPA/RoMEO, and checking if your co-authors are amenable to pre-print sharing. If you see others in your subfield sharing, and if there is no veto from the journal or co-authors, then go ahead!