Notes to Contributors

Note

These instructions comply with those formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). For further details, authors should consult the following article: International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” New Engl J Med 1997, 336:309–315. The complete document appears at www.icmje.org.

Scope

Biotechnological Research aims to encompass the diverse studies in the field of biology, biotechnology, biomedicine and medicine and to serve the wider community working in that field. It also aims to meet the needs of continuing biology, biotechnology, biomedicine, and medicine education of the national and international communities, thus upholding the standard of the profession. Articles published in this journal include: Original articles; Case reports; Methods, and Review articles, and Letters to the Editor may also be published.

Redundant or duplicate publication

We ask you to confirm that your paper has not been published in its current form or a substantially similar form (in print or electronically, including on a web site), that it has not been accepted for publication elsewhere, and that it is not under consideration by another publication. The ICMJE has provided details of what is and what is not duplicate or redundant publication. If you are in doubt (particularly in the case of material that you have posted on a web site), we ask you to proceed with your submission but to include a copy of the relevant previously published work or work under consideration by other journals. In your covering letter to the editors, draw attention to any published work that concerns the same patients or subjects as the present paper.

Conflicts of interest

Biotechnological Research requires authors to state all possible conflicts of interest, including financial and other relationships on a separate line in the Acknowledgements section of the paper. If you are sure that there is no conflict of interest, please state so. The ICMJE provides further information on conflicts of interest. Remember that sources of funding should also be acknowledged in your paper on a separate line in the Acknowledgements section.

Permissions to reproduce previously published material

Biotechnological Research requires you to send us copies of permission to reproduce material (such as illustrations) from the copyright holder of the previously published material. Articles cannot be published without these permissions.

Patient consent forms

The protection of a patient's right to privacy is essential. Please send copies of patients’ consent forms on which patients or other subjects of your experiments clearly grant permission for the publication of photographs or other material that might identify them. If the consent form for your research did not specifically include this, please obtain it or remove the identifying material. A statement to the effect that such consent had been obtained should be included in the ‘Methods’ section of your paper.

Ethics committee approval

Submission of a manuscript to Biotechnological Research implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content and that any experimental research that is reported in the manuscript has been performed with the approval of an appropriate ethics committee. Research carried out on humans must be in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration. A statement to this effect should appear in the Methods section, including the name of the body which gave approval. Informed consent should also be documented. Similarly, for experiments involving animals you must state the care of animal and licensing guidelines under which the study was performed. If ethics clearance was not necessary, or if there was any deviation from these standard ethical requests, please state why it was not required. Please note that the editors may ask you to provide evidence of ethical approval. If you have approval from a National Drug Agency (or similar) please state this and provide details, this can be particularly useful when discussing the use of unlicensed drugs. Manuscripts may be rejected if the editorial office considers that the research has not been carried out within an ethical framework.

Authorship

We ask all authors to confirm that they have read and approved the paper. Second, we ask all authors to confirm that they have met the criteria for authorship as established by the ICMJE, believe that the paper represents honest work, and are able to verify the validity of the results reported.

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship and all those who qualify should be listed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article. Authorship credit should be based only on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) final approval of the version to be published. Conditions 1, 2 and 3 must all be met. Acquisition of funding, the collection of data or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship. All others who contributed to the work who are not authors should be named in the Acknowledgements section.

Peer review policy

The decision to publish a manuscript is based on the opinion of the editor and at least two other reviewers. Articles containing statistical analysis will also receive a statistical review. Reviewers’ names will not be revealed to the author, nor will authors’ names be revealed to editors. Manuscripts are accepted for publication on the understanding that they have not been submitted simultaneously to another journal and that the work was not previously published. Prior publication of abstracts will not prejudice publishing of the complete study. The editors reserve the right to make editorial and grammatical corrections. The editors cannot be considered responsible for damage or loss of typescripts, illustrations or photographs. Statements and opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and the editors disclaim any responsibility or liability for this material.

Manuscript preparation:

Please read details at here.