Journal of Cellular Biotechnology

Author Guidelines

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPT

By submitting my article to this journal, I agree to the Author Copyright Agreement, the IOS Press Ethics Policy, and the IOS Press Privacy Policy.

Authors are requested to submit their manuscript electronically to the journal’s editorial management system.

Note that the manuscript should be uploaded as one file with tables and figures included. This file can be a Word document, a PDF, or a zip file.

Publication fee
The Journal of Cellular Biotechnology does not charge a publication fee.

Required files for final submissions
After the article has been accepted, the authors should submit the final version as source files, including a word processor file of the text, such as Word or LateX (If using LaTeX, please use the standard article.sty as a style file and also send a PDF version of the LaTeX file).

TYPES OF CONTRIBUTIONS

Four categories of scientific contributions are accepted for publication:
1) Research Articles
2) Reviews (Mini-Reviews)
3) Short Communications
4) Technical Reports
5) Images in Biotechnology

1) “Research Articles” should have a maximum of 10.000 words, up to 8 display elements (figures/tables), describing the complete study. Longer manuscripts will be considered only if the increased length is warranted by the amount of data presented.

2) “Reviews” should have a maximum 8000 words, up to 5 display elements (figures/tables).

“Mini-Reviews” should have a maximum of 4000 words, up to 2 display elements (figures/tables) and will usually be invited by the Editors. Authors wishing to submit a review article should send a brief outline of its contents to the Editor-in-Chief before submitting the manuscript.

3) “Short Communications” should have a maximum of 3000 words, 3 display elements (figures/tables), describing results that are brief, timely, and/or of such importance that rapid publication is warranted. These manuscripts should bear the words “Short Communication” immediately above the title on the first page. They should not be subdivided into titled sections but be written in a continuous style.

4) “Technical Reports” should have a maximum of 3000 words, 3 display elements (figures/tables), and describe the development of a novel method or an improvement or noteworthy modification of an already existing technique or platform used in biotechnology. These manuscripts should bear the words “Technical Report” immediately above the title on the first page.

5) The “Images in Biotechnology” article type is not intended for short reports. It should not exceed one page. Up to two authors may be credited with each image. The title of the submission should not comprise more than eight words in total. A separate word file should contain the description of the image (not more than 250 words; not more than 3 references). Asterisks or arrows should hint to details described in the legend.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Organization of the paper and style of presentation
Manuscripts must be written in English. Authors whose native language is not English are advised to consult a professional English language editing service or a native English speaker prior to submission.

Manuscripts should be prepared with wide margins and double spacing throughout, including the abstract, footnotes and references. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables, etc., should be numbered.
Headings and subheadings should be numbered and typed on a separate line, without indentation.

Title page
The title page should provide the following information:

• Title (should be clear, descriptive and concise)
• Full name(s) of author(s); please indicate who is the corresponding author
• Full affiliation(s) of all authors.
• Present address of author(s), if different from affiliation.
• Running title (45 characters or less, including spaces).
• Complete correspondence address, including telephone number, fax number and e-mail address.

Leave the author information blank if double-blind peer review is wished for, but do include the information in the Submission letter to the editor.

Abstract
The abstract should be clear, descriptive, self-explanatory and not longer than 200 words, it should also be suitable for publication in abstracting services. The abstract for research papers should follow the “structured abstract” format. Section labels should be in bold uppercase letters followed by a colon, and each section will begin on a new line.
BACKGROUND:
OBJECTIVE:
METHODS:
RESULTS:
CONCLUSIONS:

Keywords
Include a list of 4-10 keywords. These keywords should be terms from the MeSH database.

Footnotes
Footnotes should only be used if absolutely essential. If used, they should be numbered in the text, indicated by superscript numbers and kept as short as possible.

Introduction
This should outline the context for and purpose of the study.

Materials and Methods
There is no word limit to the materials and methods section, as the journal’s policy is that methodological rigor and reproducibility is of great importance. This section should aim to be sufficiently detailed to enable others with access to the data to reproduce the results.

Use of Experimental Subjects Policy
IOS Press has adopted Sage’s Publication ethics policies.  Please go to:  
Publication ethics and research integrity: policy guidelines for authors | SAGE Publications Ltd for details.

Results
These should be presented in a logical order and summarize the salient findings.

Discussion
This should link the conclusions with the aims of the study but avoid conclusions not adequately supported by the data.

Acknowledgments
If there are none, do still include this section and insert "The authors have no acknowledgments".

Conflicts of Interest
IOS Press has adopted Sage’s Publication ethics policies.  Please go to:  
Publication ethics and research integrity: policy guidelines for authors | SAGE Publications Ltd for details.

Funding
Specify sources of funding.
If there are none, do still include this section and insert "The authors report no funding".

Author Contributions
We ask that for every author, his or her contribution to the manuscript is given, for instance: conception, performance or interpretation of data.

Conflicts of Interest
Please see the section Policy on Conflicts of Interest listed below.

REFERENCES

Authors are requested to use the Vancouver citation style. Place citations as numbers in square brackets in the text. All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references at the end of the manuscript. List the references in the order in which they appear in the text. Only articles published or accepted for publication should be listed in the reference list. Submitted articles can be listed as (author(s), unpublished data). If an article has a DOI, this should be provided after the page number details. Manuscripts will not be considered if they do not conform to the Vancouver citation guidelines.

References must be listed in Vancouver style:

[1] Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res. 2002;935(1-2):40-6.
[2] Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.
[3] Berkow R, Fletcher AJ, editors. The Merck manual of diagnosis and therapy. 16th ed. Rahway (NJ): Merck Research Laboratories; 1992.
[4] Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGrawHill; 2002. p. 93-113.
[5] Canadian Cancer Society [homepage on the Internet]. Toronto: The Society; 2006 [updated 2006 May 12; cited 2006 Oct 17]. Available from: www.cancer.ca/.
[6] Tian D, Araki H, Stahl E, Bergelson J, Kreitman M. Signature of balancing selection in Arabidopsis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. In press 2002.
[7] Fletcher D, Wagstaff CRD. Organisational psychology in elite sport: its emergence, application and future. Psychol Sport Exerc. 2009;10(4):427-34. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2009.03.009.

Figures
Number figures according to their sequence in the text. The text should include references to all figures.
Each figure should have a self-explanatory caption.
Colour figures can be included, provided the cost of their reproduction is paid for by the author.Color figures are free in the electronic version of the journal.

For the file formats of the figures please take the following into account:

• Line art should be have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi, save as EPS or TIFF
• Grayscales (incl photos) should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (no lettering), or 500 dpi (when there is lettering); save as tiff
• Do not save figures as JPEG, this format may lose information in the process
• Do not use figures taken from the Internet, the resolution will be too low for printing
• Do not use colour in your figures if they are to be printed in black & white, as this will reduce the print quality (note that in software often the default is colour, you should change the settings)
• For figures that should be printed in colour, please send a CMYK encoded EPS or TIFF
• Figures should be designed with the format of the page of the journal in mind. They should be of such a size as to allow a reduction of 50%.
• On maps and other figures where a scale is needed, use bar scales rather than numerical ones, i.e., do not use scales of the type 1:10,000. This avoids problems if the figures need to be reduced.

Tables
Number tables according to their sequence in the text. The text should include references to all tables.

• Each table should have a brief and self-explanatory title.
• Column headings should be brief, but sufficiently explanatory.
• Standard abbreviations of units of measurement should be added between parentheses.
• Vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Leave some extra space between the columns instead.
• Any explanations essential to the understanding of the table should be given in footnotes at the bottom of the table.

REMEMBER TO INCLUDE

In the cover letter:

• Name, postal address, phone number, fax number and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
• Statement that all authors have contributed to the work, agree with the presented findings, and that the work has not been published before nor is being considered for publication in another journal.
• Statement that procedures involving experiments on human subjects are done in accord with the ethical standards of the Committee on Human Experimentation of the institution in which the experiments were done or in accord with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975.
• Statement that procedures involving experimentation on animal subjects are done in accord with either the guide of the institution in which the experiments were done, or with the National Research Council's guide for the care and use of laboratory animals.
• Full disclosure of conflicts of interest, according to our Policy on Conflicts of Interest (listed below).

In the manuscript:

• Compliance with guidelines on human experimentation as well as protocol approval by a local Institutional Review Board should be specified.
• Compliance with guidelines of animal experimentation as well as protocol approval by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee should be specified.
• Statement of all financial and material support for this research and any potential conflicts should also be clearly identified in the Acknowledgment and Conflict of Interest sections. If there is no Conflict-of-Interest then still add this statement.
• Full disclosure of conflicts of interest, according to our Policy on Conflicts of Interest (listed below).

COPYRIGHT

Copyright of your article
Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that they have read and agreed to the terms of the IOS Press Author Copyright Agreement.

Article sharing
IOS Press adopted Sage’s Article Sharing Policy from 8^th of July 2024. 
Please go to:  Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines | SAGE Publications Ltd for details. If your manuscript was submitted prior to 8^th of July 2024, please contact editorial@iospress.nl with details of your enquiry.

PROOFS AND PRE-PRESS

The corresponding author will receive a PDF proof and is asked to check this proof carefully (the publisher will execute a cursory check only). Corrections other than printer's errors, however, should be avoided. Costs arising from such corrections will be charged to the authors.

The corrected proof is published online in the journal’s pre-press module shortly after the proof is created and author corrections are implemented. This is not the final version. As soon as the article is assigned to an issue, the final bibliographic information will be added and the pre-press file will be replaced by the updated, final version. Pre-press articles are fully citable by using their DOI number.

How to order reprints, a PDF file, journals, or IOS Press books
The corresponding author of a contribution to the journal will receive a complimentary PDF Author’s Copy of the article, unless otherwise stated. This PDF copy is watermarked and for personal use only. A free PDF copy will not be provided for conference proceedings and abstract issues. An order form for a PDF file without watermark, reprints or additional journal copies will be provided along with the PDF proof.

If you wish to order reprints of an earlier published article, please contact the publisher for a quotation. IOS Press, Fax: +31 20 687 0019. Email: editorial@iospress.nl.

An author is entitled to 25% discount on IOS Press books. See Author's discount (25%) on all IOS Press book publications.

Kudos

Authors of published articles (non-prepress, final articles) will be contacted by Kudos. Kudos is a service that helps researchers maximize the impact and visibility of their research. It allows authors to enrich their articles with lay metadata, add links to related materials and promote their articles through the Kudos system to a wider public. Authors will receive no more than three emails: one invitation and a maximum of two reminders to register for the service and link the published article to their profile. Using and registering for Kudos remains entirely optional. For more information, please have a look at our authors section.

How to promote your work
Would you like some pointers on how to help your research achieve a wider reach and greater impact? Please consult our Promotional Toolkit for Authors for tips.

Open access mandates 
A growing number of funding agencies now require that research articles they have funded must be made Open Access. This may be either by mandating deposit in repositories after an embargo period or by stipulating that research is published as Open Access. Publishing in the Journal of Cellular Biotechnology complies with all major funding agency requirements.

Green Open Access Publishing in the Journal of Cellular Biotechnology (Self-Archiving)
Authors may self-archive and post the final manuscript version on their own institution, company or funding agency repositories immediately upon acceptance. Alternatively, the author can submit the final published PDF version of the article, which can be ordered from IOS Press. Ordered PDFs will be sent to the author after final publication of the article in an issue. IOS Press holds to no embargo period after final publication.

Authors that are funded by the NIH, Research Councils UK (RCUK) and Wellcome Trust are welcome to deposit their final manuscript version to PubMed Central and Europe PubMed Central immediately upon acceptance. In all cases, a publication reference and URL to the journal’s website must be provided on the first page of the manuscript.

Gold Open Access Publishing in the Journal of Cellular Biotechnology (Open Access Option)
The Open Access option helps authors to comply with major funder mandates. This option allows authors the choice of paying a fee to make their article publicly available on the journal’s website immediately upon publication. By default, all Open Access articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (CC BY-NC 4.0). If the article is funded by an organization that mandates CC BY, the authors can request to have their Open Access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0).

Policy on Ethics

Please go to: Ethics & Responsibility | SAGE Publications Ltd for details. 

Policy on Experimental Subjects

Please go to: Publication ethics and research integrity: policy guidelines for authors | SAGE Publications Ltd for details.

Policy on Conflicts of Interest

For Authors
Journal of Cellular Biotechnology requires authors to declare all conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, independent of relevance to the particular manuscript. All authors must submit a conflicts of interest statement. If there is no conflict of interest to declare, include this section with the statement “The authors have no conflict of interest to report”. Conflicts of interest are herein defined as factors or relationships that could be seen to compromise (or impact) the impartiality of the authors of an article.

For Referees
Journal of Cellular Biotechnology requests that referees with conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, declare them when submitting their report and recuse themselves when there is a conflict that may impact a fair and impartial review.

Examples
Financial conflicts of interest:
These can include any financial relationship between the authors and any organization that may have a financial interest in their research or financial interests on the part of the authors themselves. This can include, but is not limited to, employment, stocks or shares, patents, research funding, travel or other expenses, lecture fees, or goods or services. Authors should disclose any such relationships: past 2 years, present or anticipated along with any role these organizations may have had in the design, execution or presentation of the study. These can also include financial interests on the part of the authors themselves, such as stocks or shares, patents, or other forms of financial gain.

Non-financial conflicts of interest:
These can include any relationship between the authors and any person or organization that could reasonably be seen to compromise (or impact) the impartiality of the authors of an article. This can include, but is not limited to benefits to relatives, close friends or associates, or organizations that the author has an unpaid relationship with (such as consulting or advisory roles, or providing administrative assistance).

Peer Review Process and Process for Appeals
Journal of Cellular Biotechnology operates a rigorous, timely, blinded peer review process (with an option for double-blinded) by experts in the field. Manuscripts submitted to Journal of Cellular Biotechnology will be assessed for suitability for publication in the journal by the Editors-in-Chief. Manuscripts that are deemed unsuitable may be rejected without peer review by the Editors-in-Chief and/or the Associate Editors and the author will be informed as soon as possible. Manuscripts that are deemed suitable for peer review are forwarded to an Associate Editor with expertise in that area who then recruits appropriate referees (a minimum of two, and usually three or more) for confidential review (identity of referees not revealed to authors). Referee reports are then assessed by the Associate Editor, who makes a decision which is then subject to approval of the Editors-in-Chief. Once approved this decision is then conveyed to the author along with the referee’s reports, but not revealing the identity of the referees.

The initial decision will be one of the following: rejection, acceptance without revision, or potentially acceptable after minor or major revisions. Revised manuscripts will then be appraised by the Associate Editor, who may seek the opinion of referees (prior or new) before making a decision, which again is subject to approval of the Editors-in-Chief. Once approved this decision is then conveyed to the author along with the referee’s reports. Once accepted manuscripts are normally published online without delay as pre-press (Epub Ahead Of Print, with the date of publication indicated) and appear in the next available print issue.

The Editors-in-Chief has ultimate responsibility for what is published in the journal. Authors may appeal decisions by contacting the Editors-in-Chief. Authors will be informed in writing of the result of their appeal.

Please visit the IOS Press Authors page for further information.