Blood Science Instructions for Authors

The Editorial Office is pleased to answer any questions you may have about preparing your manuscript in accordance with our guidelines.

Email: xcwang@ihcams.ac.cn

AIMS AND SCOPE

Blood Science is an international single blind, peer-reviewed, open access journal that publishes original research, reviews and news in the field of clinical and experimental hematology, covers the topics on molecular biology, physiology, pathophysiology and clinical applications of blood cells or non-cellular blood components. The central goal of this journal is to provide a platform for researchers to present their high impact discoveries, and to be a forum for the discussion on the important issues in the field.

Blood Science is affiliated with Chinese Association for Blood Science (CABS).

ONLINE SUBMISSION

Currently the online editorial manager submission system of the journal is under construction and will be ready soon.

Now please send the manuscripts to (Email address: xcwang@ihcams.ac.cn) .

JOURNAL POLICIES

DUPLICATE PUBLICATION

Manuscripts are reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that they are being submitted only to Blood Science and have not been published, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere. The Editorial team may subject any manuscript submitted for consideration of publication in Blood Science to plagiarism-detection software.

This does not preclude consideration of a manuscript that has been rejected by another journal or a complete report that follows publication of preliminary findings elsewhere, usually in the form of an abstract. Copies of any possibly duplicate published material should be submitted with the manuscript under consideration, with a statement in the cover letter as to why the manuscript currently being submitted is not a duplicate publication.

DISCLOSURE OF CONFLICTS 

Authors must state all possible conflicts of interest in the manuscript, including financial, consultant, institutional and other relationships that might lead to bias or a conflict of interest. If there is no conflict of interest, this should also be explicitly stated as none declared. All sources of funding should be acknowledged in the manuscript. All relevant conflicts of interest and sources of funding should be included on the title page of the manuscript with the heading "Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding:" For example: “Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding: A has received honoraria from Company Z. B is currently receiving a grant (#12345) from Organization Y, and is on the speaker's bureau for Organization X - the CME organizers for Company A. For the remaining authors, no relevant conflicts of interest were declared.”

AUTHORSHIP

Blood Science expects that each person listed as an author has participated sufficiently in the intellectual content, the analysis of data, and/or the writing of the manuscript to take public responsibility for it. Each author must have reviewed the manuscript, believes it represents valid work, and approves it for submission.

Moreover, should the Editorial team request the data upon which the manuscript is based, the authors shall provide the data. Each author’s specific contributions to the work should be indicated; this information will be published as a footnote to the paper. For example, the areas of participation might include:

· Participated in research design

· Participated in the writing of the paper

· Participated in the performance of the research

· Contributed new reagents or analytic tools

· Participated in data analysis

An author may list more than one contribution, and more than one author may have contributed to the same aspect of the work. Any change in authorship/contributions after submission must be approved in writing by all authors and submitted to the Editorial Office for final consideration.

Reporting of Randomized Clinical Trials

Registration of Clinical Trials is an essential requirement for publication of clinical trials in Blood Science. On the title page of your manuscript, provide the name of the trial registry and the registration number/identifier of the trial.

Acceptable web-based clinical trial registries include the following:

· EudraCT for EU trials

· Clinical Trials for US trials

· Current Controlled Trials

· WHO International Trial Registry Network

· Australian & New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry

· And any publicly available primary registry of clinical trials

Reports of randomized clinical trials should follow the recommendations given in the Consolidated Standards of Reported Trials (CONSORT) statement. In brief, this statement comprises a checklist and flow diagram to help improve the quality of reports of randomized controlled trials and offers a standard way for researchers to report trials.

Optional Reporting Guidelines

The following resources may be helpful to authors:

· PRISMA –Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses

· STROBE - Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology

· STEGA - Strengthening the Reporting of Genetic Associations

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research provides in-depth insights on people’s values, attitudes, beliefs, and experiences. Qualitative methodology informs approaches to data collection and analysis, and includes grounded theory, ethnography, and phenomenology. Open-ended interviews and focus groups are commonly used to collect data. Authors are advised to follow the COREQ guidelines for reporting primary qualitative research.

Systematic review and/or synthesis of primary qualitative studies can provide a broader understanding of people’s perspectives across different healthcare contexts. Methodologies for synthesis of qualitative research include thematic synthesis, meta-ethnography and critical interpretive synthesis. Authors can refer to the ENTREQ statement. 

Financial Support and Competing Interests

A financial disclosure section is part of the submission process and must be completed by each author at submission. This information is for review by the Editors but will be published if relevant to the content of the accepted manuscript.

The primary purpose of the disclosure section is to determine whether authors have received any commercial financial support that could create a conflict of interest. In addition to monetary interests, a potential for conflict of interest can exist whether or not an individual believes that a relationship (such as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties) affects his or her scientific judgment. Please review ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts

Peer Review

All articles published in Blood Science are subject to single-blind peer review. Authors submitting manuscripts to Blood Science may propose suitable reviewers or oppose reviewers who may have competing interests. Manuscripts are accepted on the basis of quality, originality, significance, novelty and importance for the field.

Manuscripts received from Editorial Board Members will be screened by the Editor-in-Chief and sent to external peer reviewers. The Editorial Board Members, who are authors, will be excluded from publication decisions.

Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or whoever relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to the journal's standard procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups.

Types of Manuscripts Published

Type	Text* Word count	Abstract Word count	Figures/Tables	References	Supplement possible
Research Article	5000	250	10	50	Yes
Review Article	5000	250	10	100	No
Comment	1000	No abstract	1	10	No
Editorial	1500	No abstract	1	10	No
Mini-review	3500	250	10	100	No
Letter	1500	No abstract	2	25	No

*Text word count excludes abstract, figure legends, and references. Please ensure that the text word count is included on the Title page of the manuscript.

Articles are full-length reports of completed basic, translational, or clinical research. Articles should report important, novel and fully completed studies with strong conclusions. There is a maximum length of 5000 words, but shorter articles can also be considered, as long as these are fully completed studies. Preliminary reports cannot be accepted. Articles have an unstructured abstract of maximum 250 words.

Review Articles are invited articles. Suggestions can be sent to the editors using the editorial office’s email: xcwang@ihcams.ac.cn. Review Articles have an abstract of maximum 250 words and a word count of approximately 5000 words. Review articles should not simply summarize information, but also discuss the importance and impact of the data providing a clear view on how these insights have transformed or will transform the field. Authors of review articles are encouraged to include several figures and tables to summarize and visualize data. 

Comments are short discussions to be used to describe an own opinion on recently published data in Blood Science. The authors of the original publication will be contacted for a response, which if accepted, will be published in the same issue as the ‘Comment’. Comments have no abstract and should cite the article under discussion.

Editorials are invited articles to explain the importance of specific articles or to provide opinions on general concepts in practice, research or policy. Editorials have no abstract and are typically 1000 to 1500 words long. Editorials who discuss a recently published article should cite that article as the first reference.

Letters are original communications that report primary investigations that provide novel and important insights into hematologic biology or pathobiology, or the therapy of hematologic disease. Submissions are not intended to allow publication of incomplete or preliminary findings. Letters have no abstract and are typically no more than 1500 words of text, 25 references and 2 figures or tables.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION AND FORMATTING INSTRUCTIONS

Manuscripts must be written in clear, grammatical English (see English Language Assistance above). Manuscripts not conforming to Journal format will be returned to authors for modification. Please double space the entire main body document and number each page. Do not add line numbers as the system will generate those when the PDF is built.

Footnotes, abbreviations, and abstract pages must be included in the main body file. Please do not upload separate copies of these documents, only the Title page must be a separate file and uploaded separately to the main body file.

Acceptable document file types for text and tables include .DOC and .DOCX; do not submit a PDF.

Title Page.

The following elements are required for every submission:

Title. Include a descriptive title of the work; the title should not be a sentence. No proprietary or brand names for drugs or agents may be used in article titles.

Authors. The full first name, middle initials, and family name of each author, as well as the name(s) of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed.

Address for Correspondence. A current email and full mailing address for the corresponding author must be provided.

Funding. Include disclosure of funding received for this work, especially details of funding from any of the following organizations: National Institutes of Health (NIH); Wellcome Trust; and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

Disclosure. If the author(s) have no funding to disclose, please include the phrase, “The authors declare no conflicts of interest.”

Author contributions and potential conflicts of interest: List each author’s specific contributions to the work (see details above, under (Authorship) and list all forms of support received by each author for this study; list any potential conflict of interest for each author, or make a declaration of no conflict of interest.

Following pages.

Abstract. Where required, abstracts are limited to 250 words, which is excluded from the overall manuscript word count. The abstract is unstructured and should briefly describe: (1) the problem being addressed in the study, (2) how the study was performed, (3) the salient results, and (4) what the authors conclude from the results.

Introduction. The introduction contains a statement of the purpose of the work, the problem that stimulated it, and a brief summary of relevant published investigations.

Results. The results should be concise, avoiding redundant tables and figures illustrating the same data.

Discussion. This section should follow the results and is used to interpret results, with minimal recapitulation of findings.

Materials and Methods. Avoid detailed description of previously published methods and cite the appropriate reference. Detailed methods may be provided as Supplementary information.

Acknowledgments. This section normally includes sources of research funds, the names of collaborators who are not listed as coauthors, or of any others who contributed to the manuscript. Where a medical writer or editorial assistant has been used to write or edit the article, the writer must be identified and named, together with the source of funding.

References. The journal uses American Medical Association (AMA) style. References should begin on a separate page and numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text, where they are designated by superscript numbers placed outside periods and commas, and inside colons and semicolons. Only published works and manuscripts that have been accepted for publication should be listed in the References. Manuscripts in preparation, unpublished observations, and personal communications should be referred to in parentheses in the text. Completed manuscripts submitted for publication may be cited as footnotes to the text (see above, Footnotes). If these are subsequently accepted, the author may transfer them to the reference section in galley proof.

References Format. No more than six authors should be listed. If there are seven or more, only the first three followed by ‘‘et al.’’ should be included. Titles of journal articles must be included, and abbreviation of journal names should conform to Index Medicus style.

For information on AMA style

Two authors:

Ahmed KA, Xiang J. Mechanisms of cellular communication through intercellular protein transfer. J Cell Mol Med. 2011; 15(7): 1458.

More than seven authors:

Ali JM, Bolton EM, Bradley JA, et al. Allorecognition pathways in transplant rejection and tolerance. Transplantation 2013; 96(8): 681.

Organization as author:

CDC. Prevention of herpes zoster: recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). MMWR Recomm Rep 2008; 57: 1.

Donation after Circulatory Death. British Transplant Society Accessed August 1, 2013.

Tables. Photographs of tables are not acceptable. Type each table, 1.5 spacing throughout (including column headings, footnotes, and data), on a separate page. Tables may be included as part of the Main Body file and placed after the References section. Number the tables in sequence in Arabic numerals and supply a concise, informative title for each one. Each column in the tables should carry a concise heading describing the data in the column. Use lowercase superscript letters to designate footnotes, and type the footnotes below the tables to which they refer. Tables are cited in the text in numerical order. Each table should be able to be understood without consulting the text.

Like text, tables should be prepared using a standard word-processing program and may be included within the main body text document, or uploaded separately. Do not upload table files more than once (that is, in the main document and in separate files). Acceptable document file types for tables include .DOC and .DOCX; do not submit PDF, XLS or XLSX type files.

Figures and Legends. Figures should be uploaded in the highest resolution available. Legends should be supplied for all figures. They are numbered to correspond with the figures and typed double-spaced on a separate page. Figure legends for any supplemental figures being submitted are to be provided separately; see section, Supplemental Digital Content (SDC).

Acceptable figure file formats

· Do not embed figures into the main body file

· All final digital figures for accepted manuscripts must be submitted in EPS, TIFF, JPG.

· Each figure must be uploaded as a separate file.

· Histology figures must be in color.

· Monochrome images (such as line graphs) should be prepared at a resolution of 1200 DPI.

· Halftones images (black/white or color) should be prepared at a resolution of 300 DPI.

· Combination halftones (images containing both pictures and text labeling) should be prepared at 600 DPI.

· Color images must be saved as ‘‘CMYK’’. Images saved as ‘‘RGB’’ are not acceptable for printing.

· Your manuscript may be returned to you for correction if the images are of insufficient quality.

· Artwork submitted to the Journal will be checked for quality. Authors submitting a revised paper will have the opportunity to check the quality of their images and make the necessary changes. This step is required for all revisions.

Supplemental Digital Content (SDC): Authors may submit Supplemental Digital Content to supplement the information provided in the manuscript. It is preferable to include all significant figures and tables in the manuscript, since there is not a limit on the number of items in this online journal. Nonetheless, SDC may include the following types of content: text, tables, figures, references peripheral to information provided as SDC, audio, and video. SDC should be consecutively cited in the Main Body text of the submitted manuscript. SDC files will be available via url(/s) placed at the citation points within the article and are not copyedited by the publisher. Note that Journal policies for manuscript submission relating to peer review, patient anonymity, ethics, financial disclosure, copyright, and permissions also apply to SDC. Authors should mask patients’ eyes and remove patients’ names from supplemental digital content unless they obtain written consent from the patients and submit them as supplemental files at the time of the manuscript submission.

Format, File Type and Size Requirements: SDC must be provided in one Word or PowerPoint file. Each SDC in the file should have a visual header in the following name format (e.g., ‘‘SDC, Figure 1’’; ‘‘SDC, Materials and Methods’’) and a corresponding citation must appear in the Main Body text. Note that SDC is numbered separately from non-SDC material. If providing SDC figure(s), a figure legend should be included on the figure itself. When uploading SDC select ‘‘Supplemental Digital Content’’ as the file designation. For audio and video files, also include the author name, videographer, participants, length (minutes), and size (MB). Video files should be formatted with a 320x240 pixel minimum screen size. For each submission, the SDC file cannot exceed a total size of 10 MB.

Ethics 

When reporting studies on human beings, author should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). For prospective studies involving human participants, authors are expected to mention about approval of regional/national/institutional or independent ethics committee or review board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants and obtaining assent for children aged over 7 years participating in the trial. The age beyond which assent would be required could vary as per regional and/or national guidelines. Ensure confidentiality of subjects by desisting from mentioning participants’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed. 

Evidence for approval by a local ethics committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. Animal experimental procedures should be as humane as possible, and the details of anesthetics and analgesics used should be clearly stated. The ethical standards of experiments must be in accordance with the guidelines provided by the CPCSEA and World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Humans for studies involving experimental animals and human beings, respectively. The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the “Methods” section. 

Protection of Patients’ Rights to Privacy  

 Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, sonograms, CT scans, etc., and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian, wherever applicable) gives written informed consent for publication. Authors should remove patients’ names from figures unless they have obtained written informed consent from the patients. The journal abides by ICMJE guidelines: (1) Authors, not the journals nor the publisher, need to have the patient consent form before the publication related to patient privacy and have the form properly archived by the author. (2) If the publication includes some facial images that make the patients identifiable, a statement about the patient’s consent needs to be present in the manuscript. 

POST ACCEPTANCE

Page Proofs

The publisher’s Journal Production Editor will contact you when page proofs are ready for your review. The figures included on author’s proofs are high resolution. Please inform the Journal Production Editor immediately if you have any questions concerning the quality of the figures on the proofs. For information regarding proofs, or the status of publication of your accepted manuscript, please contact (Email: xcwang@ihcams.ac.cn).

Changes at Proofs

It is expected that the final manuscript sent to the Editor is indeed the final version, so few changes should be required at proof stage.

Open Access

Every peer-reviewed research article appearing in this journal will be published open access. This means that the article is universally and freely accessible via the internet in perpetuity, in an easily readable format immediately after publication. The journal does not charge for submission, processing, or publication of manuscripts. The Chinese Association for Blood Sciences will pay to make the article open access.

A CC user license manages the reuse of the article (see http://www.wkopenhealth.com/openaccessfaq.php). All articles will be published under the following license:

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)

For non-commercial purposes, lets others distribute and copy the article, and to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), as long as they credit the author(s) and provided they do not alter or modify the article.

License to Publish

Editorial Office Contacts

The Editorial Office is pleased to answer any questions you may have about preparing your manuscript in accordance with our guidelines.

Email: xcwang@ihcams.ac.cn