Instruction for Authors 

Editorial Procedure
The manuscripts must be written in English and accompanied by a Cover Letter.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors -> Policy screening plagiarsm
This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.

Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining the integrity of the research and its presentation is helped by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include*:

• The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
• The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work. (Please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the concerns about text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’).
• A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (i.e. ‘salami-slicing/publishing’).
• The concurrent or secondary publication is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. Examples include translations or a manuscript that is intended for a different group of readers.
• Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image-based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiring, selecting and processing data.
• No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks (to indicate words taken from another source) are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.

Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.

• Authors should make sure they have permissions for the use of software, questionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate).
• Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Opinion, Review, and Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged.
• Authors should avoid untrue statements about an entity (who can be an individual person or a company) or descriptions of their behaviour or actions that could potentially be seen as personal attacks or allegations about that person.
• Research that may be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security should be clearly identified in the manuscript (e.g. dual use of research). Examples include the creation of harmful consequences of biological agents or toxins, disruption of immunity of vaccines, unusual hazards in the use of chemicals, the weaponization of research/technology (amongst others).
• Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors are all correct at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages is generally not permitted, but in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.

*All of the above are guidelines and authors need to make sure to respect third parties rights such as copyright and/or moral rights.

Upon request, authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results presented. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.

If there is suspicion of misbehaviour or alleged fraud the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

• If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
• If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction:

- an erratum/correction may be placed with the article
- an expression of concern may be placed with the article
- or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur.

The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, expression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform, watermarked “retracted” and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.

• The author’s institution may be informed
• A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.

Fundamental errors

Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article. The author(s) is/are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or a retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which parts of the article are impacted by the error.

Suggesting/excluding reviewers

Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, authors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer, or, if this is not possible to include other means of verifying the identity such as a link to a personal homepage, a link to the publication record or a researcher or author ID in the submission letter. Please note that the Journal may not use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process. 

Compliance with Ethical Standards

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on the welfare of animals if the research involving animals.

Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:

• Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
• Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals
• Informed consent

Please note that standards could vary slightly per journal dependent on their peer review policies (i.e. single or double-blind peer review) as well as per journal subject discipline. Before submitting your article check the instructions following this section carefully.

The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during peer review or after publication.

The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfil the above-mentioned guidelines.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could have direct or potential influence or impart bias on the work. Although an author may not feel there is any conflict, disclosure of relationships and interests provides a more complete and transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Awareness of real or perceived conflicts of interest is a perspective to which the readers are entitled. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate. Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following:

• Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number)
• Honoraria for speaking at symposia
• Financial support for attending symposia
• Financial support for educational programs
• Employment or consultation
• Support from a project sponsor
• Position on advisory board or board of directors or another type of management relationships
• Multiple affiliations
• Financial relationships, for example, equity ownership or investment interest
• Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights)
• Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have a financial interest in the work

In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.

The corresponding author collects the conflict of interest disclosure forms from all authors. In author collaborations where formal agreements for representation allow it, it is sufficient for the corresponding author to sign the disclosure form on behalf of all authors.

The corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list, that reflects what is recorded in the potential conflict of interest disclosure form(s).

See below examples of disclosures:

Funding: This study was funded by X (grant number X).

Conflict of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z. If no conflict exists, the authors should state: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. 

Types of Papers

Research articles: Research articles describe a highly significant advancement in any area of a cell, molecular biology and biomedical research. All papers are judged according to originality, novelty, quality of scientific content and contribution to existing knowledge. There is no strict page limit, but we advise a maximum length of up to 12 printed pages (approx. 8000 words including references). Most importantly, paper length and content must be appropriate. Extensive tables, procedures, computer programs or animated graphics should be presented in the form of Electronic Supplementary Material.

Reviews (up to 20 printed pages, approx. 12000 words including references) should address issues relevant to a wide readership and intelligible to non-specialists. 

Manuscript Submission

Manuscript Submission

Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Permissions
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

Online Submission

Please follow the hyperlink “Submit online” on the right and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.

Please ensure you provide all relevant editable source files. Failing to submit these source files might cause unnecessary delays in the review and production process.

The Editorial Office is automatically alerted by the system immediately after your manuscript has been received.

If you face any problems using the electronic submission procedures or have any questions regarding the submission of your manuscript, please contact the Editorial: (EMAIL).

Authors using the system for the first time should follow the online instructions for setting up an author account. An ID and password will be e-mailed to new users. Co-authors should note that they have the responsibility to read and edit manuscripts bearing their name. After logging in, authors may submit a new manuscript, check the status of a manuscript under review or submit a revised version of their manuscript.

Preparing the main manuscript text 

Quick points

• The manuscript should be typed, double line spacing on standard A4 sized paper (8.5” x 11”) with 1” margin on all sides. Times new roman font 12 pt should be used.

• The fonts used in the text, as well as graphics, should be restricted to Times New Roman, Symbol and Zapf Dingbats. 

• Include page numbering
• Use SI units: Please ensure that all special characters used are embedded in the text, otherwise, they will be lost during conversion to PDF
• Do not use page breaks in your manuscript

File formats

The Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX) file formats are acceptable for the main manuscript document:

Please note: editable files are required for processing in production. If your manuscript contains any non-editable files (such as PDFs) you will be required to resubmit an editable file when you submit your revised manuscript, or after editorial acceptance in case, no revision is necessary.

Style and language

For editors and reviewers to accurately assess the work presented in your manuscript you need to ensure the English language is of sufficient quality to be understood. If you need help with writing in English you should consider:

- Visiting the English language tutorial which covers the common mistakes when writing in English.
- Asking a colleague who is a native English speaker to review your manuscript for clarity.
- Using a professional language editing service where editors will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review.

Please note that the use of a language editing service is not a requirement for publication in the journal and does not imply or guarantee that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted.

Prepare supporting information

Please make sure you have the following information available before you submit your manuscript:

Author information

Full names and email addresses of all co-authors on your manuscript.

Cover letter

A cover letter that includes the following information, as well as any additional information requested in the instructions for your specific article type:

• An explanation of why your manuscript should be published in International Journal of Cell and Biomedical Science
• An explanation of any issues relating to journal policies
• A declaration of any potential competing interests
• Confirmation that all authors have approved the manuscript for submission
• Confirmation that the content of the manuscript has not been published, or submitted for publication elsewhere
• If you are submitting a manuscript to a particular special issue, please refer to its specific name in your covering letter

Peer reviewers

You may suggest potential peer reviewers for your manuscript. If you wish to do so, please provide institutional email addresses where possible or information which will help the Editor to verify the identity of the reviewer (for example an ORCID or Scopus ID). Intentionally falsifying information, for example, suggesting reviewers with a false name or email address, will result in rejection of your manuscript and may lead to further investigation in line with our misconduct policy.

Excluding peer reviewers

During submission, you may enter details of anyone who you would prefer not to review your manuscript. 

Title page

Please use this template title page for providing the following information.

The title page should include:

• The name(s) of the author(s)
• A concise and informative title
• The affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, (department), city, (state), country
• A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author
• If available, the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s)

If the address information is provided with the affiliation(s) it will also be published.

For authors that are (temporarily) unaffiliated we will only capture their city and country of residence, not their e-mail address unless specifically requested. 

Abstract

The Abstract should not exceed 300 words. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract. The abstract must include the following separate sections:

• Background: the context and purpose of the study
• Methods: how the study was performed and statistical tests used
• Results: the main findings
• Conclusions: brief summary and potential implications

Keywords

Please provide 5 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes. 

Introduction

The Introduction section should explain the background to the study, its aims, a summary of the existing literature and why this study was necessary or its contribution to the field. 

Material and Methods

The methods section should include:

• the aim, design and setting of the study
• Please provide participants or description of materials and the analytical, statistical, and experimental procedures used.
• a clear description of all processes, interventions and comparisons. Generic drug names should generally be used. When proprietary brands are used in research, include the brand names in parentheses
• the type of statistical analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate 

Results

This should include the findings of the study including, if appropriate, results of statistical analysis which must be included either in the text or as tables and figures. 

Discussion

This section should discuss the implications of the findings in the context of existing research and highlight the limitations of the study.

Conclusions

This should state clearly the main conclusions and provide an explanation of the importance and relevance of the study reported. 

Acknowledgements and Funding Information: The names of funding organizations should be written in full. In addition, please provide the funding information in a separate step of the submission process in the peer review system. Funder names should preferably be selected from the standardized list you will see during submission. If the funding institution you need is not listed, it can be entered as free text. Funding information will be published as searchable metadata for the accepted article, whereas acknowledgements are published within the paper.

Authors' contributions

The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section.

Please use initials to refer to each author's contribution in this section, for example: "FC analyzed and interpreted the patient data regarding the haematological disease and the transplant. RH performed the histological examination of the kidney and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript." 

References

Reference should be cited in the text by the author’s last name & year.

Single author: the author's name (without initials) and the year of publication eg. (Martin, 2009). Two authors: The last name of both the authors and year of publication should be used i.e. (Mishra and Ahmed, 2010). Three or more authors: first author's name followed by et al and year of publication i.e. (Das et al., 2012). 

The list of references should only include articles that have been published or are in press. Personal communications should be documented by a letter of permission. A paper published online but not (yet) in print can be cited using the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). The DOI should be added at the end of the reference in question. The entries should be listed in alphabetical order and include all authors (do not use et al.) followed by a year of publication in brackets. The title is in lower case letters, not italicized and should be followed by the journal name and volume number with inclusive page numbers, no issue numbers; no full stop at the end of a reference.

Please use the following style:

Article published in a journal

Subramaniam S, Strelau J, Unsicker K (2003) Growth differentiation factor-15 prevents low potassium-induced cell death of cerebellar granule neurons by differential regulation of Akt and ERK pathways. J Biol Chem 278:8904–8912

An entire book

Furness JB, Costa M (1987) The enteric nervous system. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh

Article published in a book

Unsicker K, Suter-Crazzolara C, Krieglstein K (1999) Neurotrophic roles of GDNF and related factors. In: Hefti F (ed) Handbook of experimental pharmacology, vol 134. Neurotrophic factors. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York, pp 189–224

Article published online

Corley M, Kroll KL (2014) The roles and regulation of Polycomb complexes in neural development. Cell Tissue Res. DOI: 10.1007/s00441-014-2011-9

Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see ISSN.org LTWA

If you are unsure, please use the full journal-title.

A paper published online but not (yet) in print can be cited using the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). The DOI should be added at the end of the reference in question.

The entries should be listed in alphabetical order and include all authors (do not use et al.) followed by a year of publication in brackets. The title is in lower case letters, not italicized and should be followed by the journal name and volume number with inclusive page numbers, no issue numbers; no full stop at the end of a reference. 

List of abbreviations

If abbreviations are used in the text they should be defined in the text at first use, and a list of abbreviations should be provided.

Tables & Figures

Tables and figures should not be embedded in the text but should be included at the end of the manuscript on separate pages.

Tables

• All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
• Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
• Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

Electronic Figure Submission

• Supply all figures electronically.
• Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.
• For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MS Office files are also acceptable.
• Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
• Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.

Figure Lettering

• To add lettering, it is best to use times new roman
• Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
• A variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
• Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
• Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.

Figure Numbering

• All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
• If an appendix appears in your article and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures, "A1, A2, A3, etc." Figures in online appendices (Electronic Supplementary Material) should, however, be numbered separately.

Figure Captions

• Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
• Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
• No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
• Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.
• Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.

Figure Placement and Size

• When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.
• The figures should be 84 mm (for double-column text areas), or 174 mm (for single-column text areas) wide and not higher than 234 mm. 

Electronic Supplementary Material

BCR Int accepts electronic multimedia files (animations, movies, audio, etc.) and other supplementary files to be published online along with an article or a book chapter. This feature can add dimension to the author's article, as certain information cannot be printed or is more convenient in electronic form.

Before submitting research datasets as electronic supplementary material, authors should read the journal’s Research data policy. We encourage research data to be archived in data repositories wherever possible.

Submission

• Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.
• Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
• To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.

Audio, Video, and Animations

• Aspect ratio: 16:9 or 4:3
• Maximum file size: 25 GB
• Minimum video duration: 1 sec
• Supported file formats: avi, wmv, mp4, mov, m2p, mp2, mpg, mpeg, flv, mxf, mts, m4v, 3gp

Text and Presentations

• Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.
• A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.

Spreadsheets

• Spreadsheets should be submitted as .csv or .xlsx files (MS Excel).

Specialized Formats

• Specialized format such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.

Collecting Multiple Files

• It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.

Numbering

• If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.
• Refer to the supplementary files as “Online Resource”, e.g., "... as shown in the animation (Online Resource 3)", “... additional data are given in Online Resource 4”.
• Name the files consecutively, e.g. “ESM_3.mpg”, “ESM_4.pdf”.

Captions

• For each supplementary material, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.

Processing of supplementary files

• Electronic supplementary material will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.

Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your supplementary files, please make sure that

• The manuscript contains a descriptive caption for each supplementary material
• Video files do not contain anything that flashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk)