Short Guideline:

1. The abstract must be structured (i.e., Introduction, Methods, Results, and Conclusion).

2. The image for the graphical abstract should be 900 pixels in width and 500 pixels in height, with a short "mini-abstract" (30-40 words).

3. Highlights of the study should be included as a table with (a) What is the current knowledge? (b) What is new here?

4. "Acknowledgments", "Funding source", "Ethical statement", "Competing interests" and "Authors contribution" should be stated. In the Ethical Statement, all necessary statements, including ethical approval, biosafety, and biosecurity concerns, should be clarified. 

5. References should meet the format of the journal.

6. The maximum number of figures and tables in the papers submitted to the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine are 8 and 4, respectively. Further figures, tables, and other information should be submitted as "Supplementary Data".

7. Authors are encouraged to prepare the language of their manuscripts with the utmost care. The language editors will check the language and grammar of your submitted manuscript. Beware that manuscripts in poor English will not be sent for review. We recommend having your manuscript professionally edited by a qualified English-speaking researcher in your field prior to submission, or the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine will ask for language editing and a certificate for editing at any step of the paper process, before or even after acceptance. Please note that providing a certificate will not necessitate or guarantee the acceptance of the paper.

NOTE: Papers preprinted in preprint servers such as ResearchSquare, arXiv, and so on are not accepted in the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine. Hence, the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine can reject preprinted papers in each step of submission, review, revision, and so on.

Authors' Guideline

General Information

Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine is a peer-reviewed, Open Access journal that publishes papers on all aspects of fundamental and applied chemistry and phytomedicine, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and toxicology.

 Main Considerations

• Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine is a free open-access journal.
• Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine follows ICMJE's (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals as well as the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).
• Manuscripts should only be electronically submitted through the Online Submission System.
• A cover letter must be included when submitting a paper and must state the novelty of the paper.
• Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in its publications. However, the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine makes no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability of any purpose of the content and disclaims all such representations and warranties whether expressed or implied to the maximum extent permitted by law.
• Any views expressed in this publication are the views of the authors and are not the views of the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine.

Structure and Preparation of Manuscripts

Types of Articles

Prepared Manuscripts should be presented in one of the following formats:

Full Original Researches

A full-length original research article [up to ~8000 words (without references), including tables (up to 3), figures (up to 8), and references] presents novel findings relevant to the Aims and Scope of the Journal. The manuscript should include "Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion", as well as ("Acknowledgments", "Funding source", "Ethical statement", "Competing interests" and "Authors contribution").

Reviews

While the editorial team of the journal welcomes and handles any submitted cutting-edge comprehensive in-depth reviews without solicitation, the review articles are primarily invited by the editorial office of the journal on the basis of scientific reputation and field of activity. Authors who are interested in publishing their review papers should contact directly to the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) to send their proposal (~500 words) and then EIC may refer the authors to one of the associate editors. A full-length critical review [10000-15000 words, including tables (up to 3), figures (up to 8), and references (100-200)] provides a summary and discussion of the relevant literature about any topic covered within the Aims and Scope of the Journal. Authors should refer to at least five papers/works of themselves on the subject that they write a review. Further, the mechanistic aspects with deep information should be delineated. The policy of the journal is to

Systematic Reviews

These types of publications should report a clear narrow research question and a reproducible methodology, including a replicable comprehensive search protocol to capture published and unpublished research, a screening process based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, PRISMA follow diagram, a quality assessment process of studies, and assessment of the risk of bias, unbiased reasons for exclusion of studies, verified quality assessment tools used in the review, data extraction tools, and qualitative and quantitative analysis (meta-analysis) methods.

In Focus Reviews

The “In Focus Reviews” (up to ~8000 words, including tables, figures, and references) present a collection of full papers and/or other article types by different research groups as well as their own opinion as “Expert Opinion” on a theme of interest to the Journal's readership within a special/theme issue.

Minireviews

Minireviews are sharply focused, well-documented examinations of timely related issues (up to ~4000 words, including tables, figures, and references (50-80)). The issues may be of a controversial nature or may address a more narrowly focused area than those typically covered in a review.

Short Communications

Communications are preliminary reports (up to ~2000 words, including tables, figures, and references).

Spotlights

A Spotlight is a brief, lightly referenced article (up to ~1500 words, including tables, figures, and references) about an outstanding area, newsworthy advance, or event showing the biological impacts and consequences.

Perspectives

A Perspective is a lightly referenced scholarly opinion-based article (up to ~1500 words, including tables, figures, and references) about current or future directions in a field, which may impose great impacts.

Commentaries or Notes

Commentaries/Notes (up to ~1500 words, including tables, figures, and references) are the explanatory discussions of a previously published article. These types of publications support, discuss, or dispute previously published articles. If such a Commentary/Note criticizes an article already published in Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine, then the authors of the original article will be given a chance to respond to the same issue in which the Commentary is published. Lessons Learned Lessons Learned are short articles (up to ~800 words, limited to one figure/table with four key references), which provide authors with a means of informing other scientists about critical issues, experiences, and observations (e.g., key insights into an unanticipated manufacturing problem or biological impacts from a preliminary study), the descriptions of which would not be appropriate for any other types of articles. Such an article will be reviewed directly by one of the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine’s Editors who is an expert in such a scientific field.

General Considerations

• There are no page charges for publication in the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine.
• The manuscript should be written in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these).
• In general, the main sections in the manuscript must be bolded. The first subsections should be bolded and italicized, the second subsection should be only italicized and successive subsections should be written with 2 fonts smaller than the font of other sections. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
• All manuscripts must be typed double-spaced, single column, in size 12 font and adequate margins should be left.
• No manuscripts submitted to the Journal can exceed 8000 words.
• Submitted manuscripts to the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
• Review and Minireview articles should be finalized with the last section as “Concluding Remarks”.
• Focus Reviews are written by invitation only. Authors will be invited by the Editor-in-Chief or a “Guest Editor” to contribute to a thematic special issue. These articles should be finalized with the last section of “Expert Opinion and Final Remarks”.

Full Original Research Articles

Full research papers present original high-quality primary research that has not been previously published elsewhere.

Title Page

• Title - A concise and informative title directed at the general reader. Lengthy systematic names and complicated/numerous chemical formulas should, therefore, be avoided where possible.
• Authors’ names - Full names (First, Middle, and Last) for all the authors of an article should be provided and specified with the superscript number(s) for the affiliation(s) (e.g., Mark Junior Smiths¹). The name of the corresponding author(s) should be specified with an asterisk after the name (e.g., Mark Junior Smiths^1*). Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly.
• Affiliation - Affiliation of all the authors should be given and specified with the superscripted number before the address (e.g., ¹ Faculty of …..). Email addresses of all the authors should be mentioned on the title page as well as Online Submission System.
• Running title - A very short running title should be provided on the title page.
• Corresponding author - Full address, telephone, and fax numbers (with country and area code), and email of the corresponding author(s) should be stated.

Main Document

The main document of the manuscript should include the "title" not the "title page" at the top. The author is responsible for the anonymity of the article. Therefore, the authors' names should not be provided in the main document.

Graphical abstract

A graphical abstract must be included with the manuscript for display in the abstract. This graphic should be attractive to the reader and relevant to the manuscript title. Further, it should give the reader a prompt visual impression of the necessity of the manuscript with no specific results.

• It should be simple yet informative
• Colorful graphics are preferred
• The originality of graphics is required
• Use of graphics implying any bias to/against organizations or individuals should be avoided
• Graphics should be clear enough and the labels used inside it should be readable even in a very small font
• The graphical abstract file should be saved in TIFF with 300 dpi and 1200 dpi for respective color and black & white images

Abstract Page

• Abstract - A factual concise and informative abstract (up to 250 words) is required for every manuscript. The abstract should briefly state the Introduction and Methods of the research, the Results, and the Conclusion. References should be avoided, but if necessary, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, however, if necessary, they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
• Keywords - Immediately after the abstract, 3-6 relevant keywords should be included using American spelling and avoid general and plural terms and multiple concepts. Notice: Readers increasingly use search engines to find literature using keywords; thus recognizable and searchable keywords should be provided to maximize the visibility of the article.
• "Abstract" and following "keywords" should be placed at the top of the "main document" after the "title".

Introduction

This section should clearly and briefly (up to 600 words) provide an adequate background with relevant references, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results. The last paragraph should address the main objectives of the work.

Materials and Methods

This section should provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced, with details of the supplier (i.e., company’s name, city, country) and catalog number when appropriate. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described. The company’s name, city, and country of the manufacturer of the major equipment should be given. Unexpected hazards encountered during the experimental work should be noted. Any unusual hazards inherent in the use of chemicals, procedures, or equipment in the investigation should be clearly identified. In cases where a study involves the use of live animals or human subjects, the author should include a statement that all experiments were performed in compliance with the relevant laws and institutional guidelines, and also state the institutional committee(s) that has approved the experiments. They should also include a statement that informed consent was obtained for any experimentation with human subjects. As the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine follows ICMJE, please consider their Guideline for more information.

Results

Results should be clear, descriptive, and concise. Attention should be paid to the matter of significant figures and tables.

• The same data should not be presented in more than one figure or in both a figure and a table.
• Basically, as a rule, interpretation of the results should be reserved for the discussion section of a Full Original Research Article.
• If necessary, results and discussion sections can be combined in a single section in the 'Short Communication' type of article.

Discussion

The discussion should explore the significance of the results of the work (without repeating them) in comparison with other similar reports.

• A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate for 'Short Communications'.
• Extensive citations and discussion of published literature should be avoided.

Conclusion

The main question of the work should be very concisely stated and the final conclusions of the study may be presented in a short “Conclusions” section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or ‘Results and Discussion section(s).

Acknowledgments

The authors should acknowledge any scientific, technical, statistical, and financial support. Contributors other than coauthors may be very briefly acknowledged in a separate paragraph at the end of the paper. All sources of funding should be declared. Also, authors could mention any extra notes pertaining to the paper including notes on the presentation of the paper in poster or oral format in conferences.

Funding sources

Funding sources (including "grant ID", the name of the grant-receiving researcher, and the grant provider) should be clearly stated.

Ethical statement

Ethical Issues is an obligatory section in all types of articles. If there is no ethical issue to be considered, please declare it as “not applicable” or “None to be declared”. Every experimental or clinical study may raise controversial ethical issues (e.g., Institutional Ethical Approval for working with animal or human subjects). Thus, the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine expects all authors, reviewers, and editors to consider COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), ICMJE, and Equator Network’s reporting guidelines in medical ethics plus scientific writing. If any, authors should state related declaration(s), unless otherwise the following sentence should be given “None to be declared”.
Please take a look at the following guidelines provided by COPE for editors and reviewers that may be helpful for authors, too:

• Flowcharts show how we behave with unethical papers
• Redundant (duplicate) publication in submitted manuscript and published article
• Suspected plagiarism in submitted manuscript and published article
• Suspected fabricated data in submitted manuscript and published article

Competing Interests

Editors and reviewers of the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine declared no conflict of interest and authors must declare any conflict of interest of contributed authors very briefly in a separate paragraph at the end of the paper.

All sources of funding should be declared; unless otherwise the following sentence should be given “Authors declare no conflict of interests”.

Example from: Shokraneh F, Ilghami R, Masoomi R, Amanollahi A. How to Select a Journal to Submit and Publish Your Biomedical Paper? BioImpacts 2012; 2(1): 61-68.

“Farhad Shokraneh and Roghayeh Ilghami are paid as editors in the editorial office of the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine.

Also, Alireza Amanollahi is one of the honored editors of the Journal of Health Administration. Authors declared that their affiliations may affect the content of this paper but this paper does not reflect thoughts of their affiliated journals.”

Authors Contribution

The contributions of all authors must be clearly described. Each author’s individual contribution(s) to the study must be stated based on COPE authorship guidelines (e.g., conceptualization, data handling, experiments design, data analysis, provision of study materials and equipment, study validation, supervision, data presentation, draft preparation, study consultation, writing and reviewing, project administration).

References

Arrange references as a simple list at the end of your manuscript based on our Endnote style which is downloadable through (the Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine EndNote Style). After downloading the style as a "*.ens " file, copy the " Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine-Endnote.ens" and paste it to C:/program files/Endnote/Styles. In reference, the journal titles should be abbreviated according to MEDLINE journal abbreviations. Check journal abbreviations using PubMed. If the journal is not listed in PubMed, then it should be written out in full.

• Authors are responsible for the accuracy of cited references and these should be checked before the manuscript is submitted.
• Only one publication can be listed for each number.
• Published conference abstracts, numbered patents, and preprints on recognized servers may be included in reference lists, but text, grant details, and acknowledgments may not.

Citing in the text

• Cite references in the text sequentially in the Vancouver numbering style, as a superscripted number after the nearest punctuation mark without parentheses or brackets. For example, …as reported by Saito and colleagues.¹³
• Two references are cited with a comma and no space. Three or more consecutive references are cited in a range with dashes.
• References in tables, figures, and panels should be in numerical order according to where the item is cited in the text.
• Reference numbers should NOT be cited in parentheses.
• Please note that if references are not cited in order, the manuscript may be returned for amendment before it is passed on to the Editor for assessment.
• Only papers published or in press should be included in the reference list. Personal communications or unpublished data must be cited in parentheses in the text with the name(s) of the source(s) and the year. Authors should request permission from the source to cite unpublished data.

In reference list

List the surnames and initials of first names of all authors if there are 6 or fewer; otherwise, list the first 6 and add ‘et al.’ Use one space only between words up to the year and then no spaces. The journal title should be in italic and abbreviated according to the style of PubMed. If the journal is not listed in PubMed, then it should be written out in full. Check journal abbreviations using PubMed.

Journal article:

Siminzar P, Omidi Y, Golchin A, Aghanejad A, Barar J. Targeted delivery of doxorubicin by magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles armed with mucin-1 aptamer. J Drug Target 2020; 28:92-101. doi: 10.1080/1061186X.2019.1616745

Tables

• Tables should be inserted into the main text with the relevant caption, immediately after their mention in the manuscript. Meanwhile, remember that captions should not be a row/column of the table.
• Be prepared with real rows and columns and not aligned with tabs, returns, or spaces.
• Multi-part tables with varying numbers of columns or multiple footnotes should be organized as separate tables.
• Be plain with NO colors, shading, or graphics.
• Should not contain inserted text boxes, tables within tables, or cells within cells.
• Should be cited in numerical order upon their first mention.
• Symbols and abbreviations should be defined immediately below the table, followed by an essential brief description.

Figures

• Figures/illustrations must be cited within the main text in numerical order and legends should be provided at the end of the manuscript and not appear on the figures.
• Figures must be prepared in one of the following formats: Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF or TIFF) for photography or microscopy, Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) for illustrations or diagrams, enhanced metafile (emf) for Chembioffice files, PDf for Matlab, windows metafile (wmf) for MathType software. Excel charts should be submitted in their original format, i.e., editable files in Word, not in a graphical format. The editors may request to see these data (e.g., Office, SPSS, and other line art images).
• All digitized images submitted with the manuscript must be of high quality; that is, resolutions of at least 300 dpi for color figures, 600 dpi for greyscales, and 1200 dpi for line arts.
• Histograms should be prepared in a simple, two-dimensional format, with no background grid.
• Make sure that any specific patient/hospital details are removed or blacked out (e.g., X-rays, MRI scans, etc).
• If photographs of patients are used, they should not be identifiable. However, do not use a black bar to obscure a patient’s identity.
• Lettering in figures (e.g., labeling of axes) should be in lower-case type, with the first letter capitalized and no full stop. All text should be in a sans-serif typeface, preferably Arial.
• Submit multi-panel figures (with labeled parts as a,b,c,d,..) as a grouped file.

Acceptable digital formats

• Corel Draw
• Adobe Illustrator
• Unlocked PDFs created from a vector program
• Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word as long as graphs are not placed into these programs as rasterized (pixel-based) images.

Not acceptable file formats

Canvas, DeltaGraph, Tex, SigmaPlot. Convert these files to PDF, EPS, or postscript formats before submission.

Formula

• Equations should be typed only in MathType ( Click to download the software from http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/).
• Graphical objects should not be used.
• Make sure that your equations are editable.
• If you have already composed your paper in Microsoft Word and used its built-in equation editing tool, the equations will become unusable during the typesetting process. To resolve this problem, re-key your equations using MathType.
• Long equations should be set off from the text and numbered sequentially. You may refer to the equations in the next references by their number (e.g., "Eq. 1," "Eqs. 2 and 3").

Media files

All authors are welcome to include in their article any podcast, animation, or movie that they think would be of help in clarifying the subject to the readers. This accompanying file should be submitted as supplementary while submission, and in the case of article acceptance, it will be made online as a supplementary file.

Submission

Authors should ensure that papers conform to the scientific instructions and style aforementioned. In order to accelerate the publication process, the Journal requires that manuscripts be submitted online using the Online Submission System.

Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine offers a completely digital submission, review, and production process. At the time of submission of a manuscript, thus, it is advised to prepare production-quality files beforehand to speed up the process. It is advised that authors follow the given guidelines above; unless otherwise, the submission will be returned to the authors for additional revision which may decelerate the manuscript evaluation process and hence delay publication. Thus careful attention is fully applied by the editorial members of the journal.

Authors are required to register to create an account for submission at the Online Submission System. They can also follow on-screen instructions and the system will provide an essential guide through the submission process.

After the creation of an account, authors are able to exit/re-enter the account at any stage.
All submissions are kept strictly confidential.

Common reasons for the rejection

The common reasons for the rejection of a manuscript are:

• Being out of scope, the manuscript does not meet the scope of the journal regarding research related to the treatment of human diseases.
• Being too preliminary data, the manuscript represents an insignificant amount of experimental data.
• Lack of novelty, the manuscript does not deliver novel findings.
• Lack of compelling data, the manuscript does not contain compelling data.
  
  

Cover Image Competition

Journal of Biochemicals and Phytomedicine also offers a competition for the cover image of each issue.

Contact Us

If you have any questions/problems/concerns regarding the submission of your manuscript, feel free to contact the Managing Editor (journal@jbcpm.com)