Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS) is an Indonesian, open access, peer-reviewed journal that supports all topics in Biology, Pathology, Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Histology and Biomedicine in the aspect of molecular and cellular.

MCBS is dedicated to publishing review and research articles. The editors will carefully select manuscript to be delivered for the peer-reviewing process. MCBS is an open journal for all countries and seeks to advance Indonesian research and publications.

Section Policies

Review Article

Review Article should consist of no more than 5,000 words, not including the words in abstract, references, table, figure, and figure legend. The manuscript should have no more than 6 figures and/or tables in total and no more than 200 references.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Research Article

Research Article should consist of no more than 3,500 words, not including the words in abstract, references, table, figure, and figure legend. The manuscript should have no more than 8 figures and/or tables in total and no more than 40 references.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts submitted to Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences will be selected and double-blind peer-reviewed by two or more reviewers to present valuable and authentic findings.

Author can suggest reviewer/s that not having publication together within five years and should not be member/s of the same research institution. However, reviewers will be selected independently by Section Editor based on their expertise, specialties, and independencies to fit the topic. Section Editor will ensure that the reviewers will be not from the same institution as the author. Manuscript will be reviewed comprehensively, including appropriate title; content reflecting abstract; concise writing; clear purpose, study method and figures and/or tables; and summary supported by content. The reviewing process will take 3-4 months depends on the sufficiency of the information provided.

Decisions are ultimately made by the Section Editor based on the peer-reviewing results. Therefore, Section Editor will consider thoroughly, if necessary Section Editor can invite another one or more reviewer/s to conclude the final decision.

Publication Frequency

Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences is published triannually (in March, July and November).

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

Content Licensing

All materials are free to be copied and redistributed in any medium or format. However, appropriate credit should be given. The material may not be used for commercial purposes. This content licensing is in accordance with a CC license: CC-BY-NC.

Article Processing Charge

There is no charge / author fee for submission and publication.

Role of Journal Editor

Editors of Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS) have responsibilities toward the authors who provide the content of the journals, the peer reviewers who comment on the suitability of manuscripts for publication, also toward the journal’s readers and the scientific community. Editors are responsible for monitoring and ensuring the fairness, timeliness, thoroughness, and civility of the peer-review and other editorial processes.

Peer review by external reviewers with the proper expertise is the most common method to ensure manuscript quality. However, our editors may sometimes reject manuscripts without external peer review to make the best use of their resources. Reasons for this practice are usually that the manuscript is outside the scope of MCBS, does not meet our quality standards or lacks originality or novel information.

Editor Responsibilities toward Authors

Providing guidelines to authors for preparing and submitting manuscripts
Providing a clear statement of the Journal’s policies on authorship criteria
Treating all authors with fairness, courtesy, objectivity, honesty, and transparency
Establishing and defining policies on conflicts of interest for all involved in the publication process, including editors, staff, authors, and reviewers
Protecting the confidentiality of every author’s work
Establishing a system for effective and rapid peer review
Making editorial decisions with reasonable speed and communicating them in a clear and constructive manner
Being vigilant in avoiding the possibility of editors and/or referees delaying a manuscript for suspect reasons
Establishing a procedure for reconsidering editorial decisions
Describing, implementing, and regularly reviewing policies for handling ethical issues and allegations or findings of misconduct by authors and anyone involved in the peer review process
Informing authors of solicited manuscripts that the submission will be evaluated according to the journal’s standard procedures or outlining the decision-making process if it differs from those procedures
Clearly communicating all other editorial policies and standards

Editor Responsibilities toward Reviewers

Assigning papers for review appropriate to each reviewer’s area of interest and expertise
Establishing a process for reviewers to ensure that they treat the manuscript as a confidential document and complete the review promptly
Informing reviewers that they are not allowed to make any use of the work described in the manuscript or to take advantage of the knowledge they gained by reviewing it before publication
Providing reviewers with written, explicit instructions on the journal’s expectations for the scope, content, quality, and timeliness of their reviews to promote thoughtful, fair, constructive, and informative critique of the submitted work
Requesting that reviewers identify any potential conflicts of interest and asking that they recuse themselves if they cannot provide an unbiased review
Allowing reviewers appropriate time to complete their reviews
Requesting reviews at a reasonable frequency that does not overtask any reviewer
Finding ways to recognize the contributions of reviewers, for example, by publicly thanking them in the journal; providing letters that might be used in applications for academic promotion; offering professional education credits; or inviting them to serve on the editorial board of the journal
Making a final decision regarding a submission status after receiving review result from reviewers

Editor Responsibilities toward Readers and the Scientific Community

Evaluating all manuscripts considered for publication to make certain that each provides the evidence readers need to evaluate the authors’ conclusions and that authors’ conclusions reflect the evidence provided in the manuscript
Providing literature references and author contact information so interested readers may pursue further discourse
Requiring the corresponding author to review and accept responsibility for the content of the final draft of each paper
Maintaining the journal’s internal integrity (e.g., correcting errors; clearly identifying and differentiating types of content, such as reports of original data, corrections/errata, retractions, supplemental data, and promotional material or advertising; and identifying published material with proper references)
Ensuring that all involved in the publication process understand that it is inappropriate to manipulate citations by, for example, demanding that authors cite papers in the journal
Disclosing all relevant potential conflicts of interest of those involved in considering a manuscript or affirming that none exist
Working with the publisher to attract the best manuscripts and research that will be of interest to readers

Authorship Criteria

Authorship provides credit for an author's contributions to a study and carries accountability. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, analysis and interpretation, as well as manuscript preparation and revision. Transparency about the contributions of authors is encouraged.

In order to qualify for authorship of the submitted manuscript, every of the listed authors should have made substantial intellectual contributions both to the research and to manuscript preparation. Especially regarding the latter, an author should be involved in activities related to the following categories:

substantial contribution to the conception, research, data acquisition and analysis/interpretation;
collaboration in the preparation/revision of the submitted manuscript;
participation in reaching the approval for the publishable manuscript version;
ensuring a proper explanation to possible questions that could be raised regarding accuracy and scientific integrity of the submitted manuscript.

Only one corresponding author per submission is allowed. Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS) do not require all authors of a research paper to sign the letter of submission; however, the corresponding author is responsible for having ensured that any information regarding the submitted manuscript has reached all authors and for managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors, before and after publication. Submission to MCBS is taken by the mean that all the listed authors have agreed of all the contents, including the author list and author contribution statements.

Following information shall help you to identify the proper term used for each contribution, based on the Authors Contribution Form.

Research Conception/Design : conceptualization, funding acquisition, methodology planning, supervision
Data Acquisition : data curation, resources collection, investigation
Data Analysis : technical analysis, validation, software use
Result Interpretation : formal and statistical analysis
Manuscript Preparation : original draft preparation,
Figure and/or Table Design : visualization, presentation of data
Critical Revision of Manuscript : manuscript editing and reviewing

Please download the Authors Contribution Form and fill the form according to suitable contribution that each author has been involved in. The Authors Contribution statement should be provided in the manuscript submission and shall appear after the acknowledgement section.

Consent to Publication

At submission, the corresponding author must include written permission from the authors of the work concerned for mention of any unpublished material cited in the manuscript (for example others' data and personal communications or work in preparation). The corresponding author also must clearly identify any material within the manuscript (such as figures or tables) that has been published previously elsewhere and provide written permission (copyright transfer agreement) from authors of the prior work and/or publishers, as appropriate, for the re-use of such material.

After acceptance, the corresponding author is required to check the proof reading draft and sign the ‘Proof Reading Approval by Corresponding Author’ provided by the editor. Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences will make sure to publish the approved draft accordingly. After the proof-reading approval, corresponding author is responsible for the accuracy of all content in the manuscript, including the names of co-authors, affiliations and addresses, as well as the acknowledgment.

Plagiarism Screening Policy

Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the manuscript for publication the author/s agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the author/s if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. All manuscripts submitted to Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences will be screened for plagiarism by using Turnitin and/or Crossref Similarity Check.

Conflict of Interest Policy

A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest may be influenced by a secondary interest. These instructions are based on ICJME recommendation for scholarly work in medical journal:

Author’s Conflict of Interest

At the point of submission, Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS) requires that each author reveals any personal and/or financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated. When considering whether you should declare a conflicting interest or connection, please consider the conflict of interest test: Is there any arrangement that would embarrass you or any of your co-authors if it was to emerge after publication and you had not declared it?

Corresponding authors are responsible for confirming whether they or their co-authors have any conflicts of interest to declare and to provide details of these. The statement includes any information regarding whether the manuscript is under consideration for other publication, or whether you have any patents that relevant to the manuscript. If the manuscript is published, any conflict of interest information will be written in the Conflict of Interest statement.

Author’s Acknowledgement

Authors whose manuscripts are submitted for publication must declare all relevant sources of funding in support of the preparation of a manuscript. MCBS requires full disclosure of financial support as to whether it is from government agencies, the pharmaceutical or any other industry, or any other source. Authors are required to specify sources of funding for the study and to indicate whether or not the manuscript was reviewed by the sponsor before submission. This information should be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript.

In addition to disclosure of direct financial support to the authors or their laboratories and prior sponsor-review of the paper, corresponding authors will be asked to disclose all relevant consultancies since the views expressed in the contribution could be influenced by the opinions they have expressed privately as consultants. This information should also be included in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript.

Reviewer’s Conflict of Interest

Reviewers must disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript and should recuse themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if the potential for bias exists. As in the case of authors, silence on the part of reviewers concerning potential conflicts may mean either that such conflicts exist that they have failed to disclose, or that conflicts do not exist. Reviewers must not use information of the manuscript they are reviewing before it is being published, furthering their interests.

Ethical Oversight

The policy is based on COPE's core practices.

MCBS journal is devoted to maintaining high ethical standards in the publication of scientific research. The following technical directions are established to ensure adherence to ethical oversight in both research and publication processes:

Research Ethics Approval:
Authors are required to provide evidence of ethical approval from a recognized ethics committee for studies involving humans or animals.

Consent:
Obtaining informed consent from participants is mandatory, and authors should be able to provide copies of signed consent forms upon request.

Confidentiality:
Authors are obligated to uphold confidentiality and anonymity of participants, especially in case studies or qualitative research.

Integrity:
Research should be conducted with integrity and honesty, and authors should report their findings accurately without fabrication, falsification, or manipulation.

Conflict of Interest:
Any conflicts of interest that could compromise the integrity of the research should be disclosed.

Animal Welfare:
Research involving animals should follow appropriate guidelines ensuring the humane treatment and welfare of the animals.

Author Responsibility:
Authors are responsible for the content of their manuscript, ensuring that it adheres to ethical guidelines and reporting standards.

Editorial Oversight:
The Editorial Board oversees the implementation of the ethical policy, ensuring that ethical standards are met in the review and publication process.

This policy emphasizes the journal’s commitment to uphold ethical practices in the conduct and dissemination of scientific research, ensuring the credibility and integrity of the work published.

Protection of Human Subject and Animal in Research Policy

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the said declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

When reporting experiments on animals, authors should be asked to indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed. Further guidance on animal research ethics is available from the International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare.

Informed Consent Policy

Subjects have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the subject (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Authors should disclose to these subjects whether any potentially identifiable material might be available via the internet as well as in print after publication. Nonessential identifying details should be omitted.

Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences decides that subject confidentiality is better guarded by having the authors archive the consent, and instead providing us with a written statement in the manuscript attesting that they have received and archived written subject consent. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated later in the published article.

Intellectual Properties

A patent is a form of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of years in exchange for publishing an enabling public disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent to enforce their rights.

Appropriate consent/permission/release must be obtained when the author wishes to include details, personal information, images, and any other materials of the patent. It is the responsibility of the author to ensure that such written consent/permission/release or Copyright Transfer Agreement must be retained by the author and copies of the consent or evidence must be provided to Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS).

Legally MCBS reserved all the rights to disqualify such material from the publication if found suspicious.

Data Sharing and Reproducibility

To enable the openness, transparency, reproducibility and verification of data, Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS) encourages authors to share information related with their research data including, but not limited to: raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, methods and materials.

MCBS also requires data sharing plans for registered clinical trials. Any clinical trial study that enrolling participants must include a data-sharing plan in the trial registration.

Advertising Policy

Advertisement will appear in the print or online version depending on request. All advertisements and commercially sponsored publications are independent from editorial decisions, hence editorial materials will not be influenced by advertisement. Advertisements may not be deceptive or misleading, and must be verifiable. Advertisements will not be accepted if they appear to be indecent or offensive in either text or artwork, or if they relate to content of a personal, racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, or religious nature. Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS) will not accept advertising for products or services known to be harmful to health (e.g., tobacco and alcohol products).

For all inquiries or critics regarding the advertisement, please contact the Secretariat of MCBS, Prodia Tower 8th Floor, Jl. Kramat Raya No.150, Jakarta Pusat 10430, Indonesia, or e-mail to: mcbs_office@cellbiopharm.com.

Direct Marketing

MCBS invites authors to submit manuscripts to our journal through official announcements on the journal's website, communication with associations, and direct communication with authors whose expertise aligns with the objectives and scope of our journal.
MCBS does not offer fast-track processing or acceptance guarantees.

Revenue Sources

The revenue sources of MCBS comes from organisational support by Cell and BioPharmaceutical Institute.

Allegations of Misconduct

Scientific misconduct is a wilful violation of standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behaviour in the publication of professional scientific research, which includes fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, reviewing research, or in reporting research results. Misconduct represents a tremendous attack on the values upon which science is based, and will be taken very seriously by Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS).

While misconduct can occur at any stage of the research, writing, peer review and publication processes, this policy ensure how MCBS investigates and acts upon allegations of scientific misconduct:

Identifying suspected manuscripts : Allegations of scientific misconduct can arise from numerous sources, either from automated screening tools, reviewers, editors, or third parties.
Reporting and communicating an instance of scientific misconduct : Any allegation of potential scientific misconduct should be reported immediately to Secretariat of MCBS (mcbs_office@cellbiopharm.com). The Editor in Chief will notify either the corresponding author of the manuscript, co-author of the manuscript, institution head of the author(s) or their affiliation, or funding body regarding the allegation of misconduct has been lodged against the paper by providing details as needed to let the author understand the concern.
Responding to an allegation of scientific misconduct : The authors are given a specified period of time to respond in writing to the allegation, explaining themselves. If authors are not cooperative, if their responses are not satisfactory or if they have a history of scientific misconduct, investigations can broaden in scope and penalties become increasingly severe. The Editor in Chief may call upon institution heads into the investigation.
Taking action on scientific misconduct : If it is determined that misconduct has occurred, The Editor in Chief will consult with the legal team of the publisher and parent society before issuing a penalty and notifying all related parties.

In the event of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in MCBS, the editor will follow COPE’s guidelines in dealing with allegations.

Correction and Retraction Policy

Permanency of Content

All articles published in Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS) receive a DOI and are permanently published. In order to maintain the integrity and the completeness of the scholarly record, we will apply the following policies when published content needs to be corrected. These policies take into account current best practice in the scholarly publishing and library communities:

Correction to an Article

Occasionally, MCBS may correct or amplify a previously-published article by republishing the article in its entirety, often to rectify an editorial or printing error in the original article.

Referring to ‘Retraction: Guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)’, an article may be corrected for several reasons, including:

it contains minor errors in article design,
it contains a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially because of honest error),
the author/contributor list is incorrect (i.e. a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included).

Retraction to an Article

Retraction is a mechanism for removing the literature and alerting readers to publications that contain such seriously flawed or erroneous data that their findings and conclusions cannot be relied upon. Unreliable data may result from honest error or from research misconduct. The main purpose of retractions is to correct the literature and ensure its integrity rather than to punish authors who misbehave.

Articles in MCBS may be retracted for several reasons, including:

it is found with clear evidence that the article is a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error),
the article or the data contained in the article have previously been published elsewhere without proper Crossref referencing permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication),
it constitutes plagiarism,
it reports unethical research or has a failure to disclose a major competing interest.

Appeals and Complaints

The complaint should be raised by sending us an email to mcbs_office@cellbiopharm.com with intention written in the subject of the email.

Complaint about Scientific Content

Complaint about scientific content includes any complaint and/or appeal regarding the editor decisions (for example manuscript rejection). Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether a submission is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many submissions are declined without external review with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal.

If the author believes the decision to reject the submission was not in accordance with journal policy and procedures, the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor in Chief with a detailed point by point response to reviewer and editor’s comments. The Editor in Chief will review the peer review process undertaken for the submission. The Editor in Chief will consider the authors’ argument, the reviewer reports and decides whether prior decision should stand, another independent opinion is required, or the appeal should be considered. Decisions on appeals are final and new submissions take priority over appeals.

Complaint about Processes

Complaint about process includes any complaint and/or appeal regarding the time taken to review a submission. The Editor-in-Chief will investigate the matter. The complainant will be given appropriate feedback. Feedback is provided to relevant stakeholders to improve processes and procedures.

Complaint about Publication Ethics

Complaint about publication ethics includes any complaint and/or appeal regarding any misconduct happened, either from the author’ or reviewer’s side. The Editor-in-Chief may ask the publisher via their in-house contact for advice on difficult or complicated cases. The Editor-in-Chief decides on a course of action and provides feedback to the complainant. If the complainant remains dissatisfied with the handling of their complaint, authors can submit the complaint to the publisher.

Handling Complaints and Appeals

Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS) will abide by the following principles when investigating complaints and appeals:

Fairness: MCBS will endeavour to treat all parties involved in a complaint fairly and to avoid bias either in process or outcome. MCBS will avoid conflicts of interest.
Confidentiality: MCBS will only disclose information necessary to resolve a complaint.
Clarity: MCBS will seek to be clear in communication, taking into account the needs of the complainant.
Speed: MCBS will endeavour to resolve complaints as quickly as possible. It should be noted that some investigations are complex and take time to resolve equitably (for example, allowing reasonable time for multiple parties to respond).

Any appeals or complaint email sent to mcbs_office@cellbiopharm.com will be acknowledged within a week. The Editor in Chief will conduct an investigation following Committee on Public Ethics (COPE) guidelines. The investigation will establish whether the correct procedures have been followed and assess whether the concerns have been addressed fairly and without prejudice.

Post-publication Discussions and Corrections Policy

Molecular and Cellular Biomedical Sciences (MCBS) allows debate post publication by submitting a letter to mcbs_office@cellbiopharm.com. The Editor in Chief will review the submitted comments and discuss them with the section editor, corresponding author and peer reviewers, if required. The final result of these investigations will be discussed to make the best action. It might be in a range of a logical private reply to author, publishing of a note, or a short communication on that article at the journal, correction of parts of the article with or without public announcement, and in some very exceptional circumstances the removal of the article from MCBS. An email listing all considerations and criteria for the final decision will be sent to the corresponding author and the reviewers. If required, the matter will be published at MCBS website for public notice.