The ALS's mission is to lead the debate on multidisciplinary fields of life sciences, and to engage, inform, and stimulate scientists, researchers and academicians in ways that will improve outcomes and produce new knowledge. Find our scope here.
To achieve these aims, we publish original research articles, review articles, news, letters to editors, short communications, and commentaries on the clinical, scientific, social, political, and economic factors affecting different areas of life sciences. The ALS also aims to publish articles that advance debate on the science and art of public partnership and coproduction of health. We are delighted to consider articles for publication from senior scientists, researchers and students and from anywhere in the world.
We can publish only about 25% of the articles we receive each year, but we aim to give quick and authoritative decisions. For all types of article the average time from submission to first decision is three to four weeks and from acceptance to publication eight to ten weeks. We reject about two thirds of all submissions without sending them for external peer review, but many authors tell us they appreciate quick decisions that allow them to submit their work elsewhere without delay.
We also audit the performance of the ALS's research articles, using a wide range of indicators such as citations to assess their impact on readers and their dissemination to the wider world.
Journal Metrics
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- Editorial Policy
- Plagiarism Detection
- Article Publishing Charges (APCs)
- Open Access & Permission Policy
- Manuscript Types
- Format Style of References, Tables and Figures (Endnote Library Style)
- Ethical Guidelines for Journal Publication
- Transparency Statement
- Declaration of Conflict of Interest / Competing Interest
- Article Withdrawal Policy
- Archiving
We don’t reject papers on the basis of poor English or grammatical mistakes but give comments as “minor” revisions, so that authors can improve their articles to the standard of publication. Articles/material submitted must not be under consideration for publication anywhere else. All received articles are subjected to double blind peer-review process. Editorial board will send paper to two external referees. Chief Editor will approve paper on advice of those referees. Articles will get published online right after acceptance with open access.
Submission should be made through “Advancements in Life Sciences – Manuscript Submission and Tracking System". Authors retain copyrights of their articles.
Publication of any personal information about an identifiable living patient requires the explicit consent of the patient or guardian. We expect authors to submit declared consent as supplementary file.
Author/s must have signed informed consent from patients (or relatives/guardians) before submitting to ALS. Please anonymise the patient’s details as much as possible specific ages, ethnicity, occupations. For living patients this is a legal requirement and we will not send your article for review without explicit consent from the patient or guardian.
If the patient is dead the Data Protection Act does not apply, but the authors must seek permission from a relative and present it to the editor.
Plagiarism Detection
ALS takes publication ethics very seriously and abides by the best practice guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics. ALS verifies the originality of content submitted before publication. Turnitin checks submissions against millions of published articles, and billions of web content. Authors, researchers and freelancers can also use Turnitin to screen their work before submission. Every article is screened on submission and any that is deemed to overlap more than trivially with other publications will be rejected automatically with no right of appeal.
Article Publishing Charges (APCs)
Advancements in Life Sciences is committed to keep open access to published research articles. To support this, authors are asked to pay Article Publishing Charges (APCs) of US$ 450 (exclusive of taxes) on acceptance of their paper. All articles become available right after publication to everyone from everywhere without any cost or subscription.
Express Processing Model
We understand that at times authors/researchers are under time constraints for publishing their research which is normally not achievable due to time-taking peer review process. To accommodate such cases, the journal is working on an 'express processing model'. Under this model, a pool of expert reviewers is being created who would provide their peer review services on a shorter timeline. As a result, interested authors shall get faster processing and letter of acceptance (in case of acceptance). In pilot test, this service is available for 250 USD in addition to the regular APCs of 450 USD. Authors may express their interest in this service via email or a note on their author portal for a given manuscript.
Waiver Policy
We are working to build research capabilities for low income authors in underdeveloped and developing countries. The editorial board appreciates that some authors do not have access to funds to cover APCs therefore accept part payment where limited funds are available. No payment information is requested before an article is accepted, so the ability to pay cannot affect editorial decisions.
Requests for waivers and discounts will be considered using the following criteria:
- Whether there was external funding for the research for any of the authors
- Whether the authors could contribute from their personal accounts
- Waiver policy is not applicable on cases under Express Processing Model
In recognition of reviewers’ support, any reviewer that returns a full review on time can receive a 15% discount on the article publication charges for a paper for which they are the corresponding author, if submitted within 12 months of completing the review.
Refund Policy
We do not offer refunds for open access once articles have been accepted after peer review or published or retracted.
Open Access Policy
Advancements in Life Sciences provides online access to articles published (through its platform) free of charge to the end-user and that is re-usable. By default, we publish these articles under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence that allows reuse subject only to the use being non-commercial and to the article being fully attributed (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0). ALS makes all open access articles freely available on als-journal.com from the date of publication.
Open access articles can be identified by the Creative Commons copyright statement that appears at the end of the article and takes the following form:
“This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0.”
The ALS also sends these articles, without further intervention from the author, to Directory of Open Access Journals.
These articles “are still protected by copyright, but are made available under a Creative Commons or similar license that generally allows more liberal redistribution and reuse than a traditional copyrighted work.” For all research articles except those funded by an organisation that mandates CC-BY, the ALS licence allows reuse with attribution of the origin of the article (a full citation) for non-commercial use only. For commercial use our normal permissions policy applies.
Permission Policy
Library Use
Specific permission from ALS is not required at any time after publication for photocopying journal articles or sections of articles for student use if the following conditions are met:
- The library subscribes to the journal. [contact Shafique Ahmed at ALS for your library subscription]
- Copying is done at the request of the teacher of a course.
- A copyright notice appears on the first page of each copy.
Libraries in non-educational and commercial institutions or libraries transacting interlibrary loans may apply for paid permission to photocopy ALS articles through emailing us at als.editor@als-journal.com.
Custom Reprints
You may obtain high quality, bound versions of individual ALS articles suitable for professional use or display in a portfolio. Reprints may be ordered for up to one year after an article has appeared in print. The minimum order quantity is 50, and reprints must be ordered in multiples of 50. To order reprints, contact Shafique Ahmed at ALS.
Reprints in Books, Pamphlets, Journals, Magazines, Newspapers, or Newsletters, or Electronic Distribution by CD-ROM, Website, or Email.
Disallowed Use
Permission is never granted for use of ALS for endorsements, implied or otherwise, of products or services, or to use content as part of advertisements or advertising supplements.
Rights for some ALS articles may have reverted to the authors. ALS reserves the right to redirect any inquiry regarding a ALS article to the corresponding author for final disposition.
Copyright Notice
Substitute specific information for bracketed items.
Reprinted by permission of Advancements in Life Sciences, Volume [Number], [Issue Number] ([Month] [Year]). Copyright [Year] by the American Dental Education Association.
If the material is to appear on the Internet, a link to http://www.als-journal.com must be included at the end of the copyright notice.
Authorization for Use
Contact Shafique Ahmed at ALS to order reprints. Requests may be submitted by regular mail, fax, or email. Phone permission requests are not accepted. If you are working with a specific deadline, please highlight that in your request, and we will attempt to meet your needs.
Please include your full name, address, phone number, fax number, and email address; article title(s), corresponding author of each article, volume number(s), and issue dates(s); and intended use, form of reproduction, and approximate press run or distribution.
Manuscript Types
Major manuscripts types include full length research articles and short communications but Advancements in Life Sciences also publish other types of articles.
1. Full Length Research Articles
Articles are original research report whose finding and conclusions represent a substantial advance in understanding of an important problem in life sciences and have significant impact. They do not normally exceed 5 pages (should not exceed 5000 words) and have no more than 50 references. It should include a structured summary (abstract), with four paragraphs (Background, Methods, Result and Conclusion) not more than 250 words with no references, numbers, acronyms, abbreviation or measurements if not necessary. Articles should have 5 to 8 figures or tables as display items.
Funding agency must be mentioned in the end of article.
Use the SI system of units and gene names approved by the Human Gene Organization. Novel gene sequences should be submitted in a public database (GenBank, EMBL, or DDBJ) and their accession number should be mentioned in the text.
1.2 Short Communication
In this part, we publish original short communications from authors which are not more than 1-4 pages with structured or un-structured summary. Short Communications provides researchers with a venue where they can share their most current results and developments in the shortest possible time. The short communications, like regular papers in the Journal will be peer-reviewed and evaluated by the editor before publication.
2. Review Articles
Reviews should be overviews of major topics connected to any aspect of life sciences but it must address a specific field of current interest. A broad review is discouraged. Complete briefing about the choice of literature included is necessary to any Review paper. Therefore, all Reviews should have "Search strategy and selection criteria" section, which describes the material covered, databases consulted, search terms used and the criteria applied to include or exclude materiel.
2.1 Historical Reviews should be 3000-5000 words, with a maximum of 150 references. A 150-words unstructured summary should be included.
3. Editorials are the voice of ALS and are written by the members of the editorial board.
4. Commentaries and Correspondence
Commentaries (of 700-900 words having up to 15 references) may discuss articles published in ALS or in other journals. Correspondences are written as letter in response to articles published specifically in ALS. They may include corrections of already published peer-reviewed articles in Journal. They must appear before editorial board in 10 weeks after publication of that very material. They must not extend than 450 words and have 5 or 6 references.
5. Letters to Editor
Letters are brief reports of original research whose importance will be of interest to scientists and researchers in other fields. It should describe how your results could move some scientific field forward. They must be contained in 4 pages and 1,500 words other than references. References should not count more than 40. In start, a summary must be given with briefly discussing relevance of your work with different area of research.
6. Metadata Analysis and Survey Reports
ALS welcomes metadata analysis and survey reports for publication. The abstract of your analysis and survey report should appear as structured summary (Background, Methods, Result and Conclusion). The data repositories consulted must be accessible and legible to every user. In survey report, a “Recommendation” paragraph must be added in the end which must prescribe the future strategies for a specific problem to policy makers.
It should not exceed than 10 pages without references. Reference count is desirable up to 20 but may extend up to 30 if required.
All statistical analysis should follow the PRISMA manual of instructions for verifiable results.
7. “Wild Ideas”
In this section we intend to provide a forum for researchers and students, who can think out of the box, to discuss ideas and models from a different viewpoint than established ones. They are more forward looking and futuristic and may take a narrower and specific field of view. They may be authors’ opinion but should not be a fiction. Their main purpose is to stimulate discussion and new experiments.
They may be 2-3 pages with maximum 3,000 words. References should not exceed than 20. A summary (unstructured) must be provided in the start of article. 4-5 subheadings could be used to elaborate your idea.
All ideas are reviewed by the Editor Board prior to publication.
Format Style of References, Tables and Figures
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- Advancements in Life Sciences
EndNote Library Style for bibliography can be downloaded here.
1.1 References
References are each numbered and sequentially ordered as they appear in the text. In text, reference numbers should be written in line with text. Published conference abstracts, numbered patents and proceedings on may be included in reference list.
1.1.1 Article Reference:
Andrews K, Miller K, Hoschler O, Stanford P, Hardelid M, Zambon N. Topic of the article. Journal, (year); issue: pages.
1.1.2 Book Reference:
Andrews K, Miller K, Hoschler O, Stanford P, Hardelid M, Zambon N. Chapter: Book Name. year of publication; volume: pages. Publisher
1.1.3 Website Reference:
References to websites should mention authors (if available), title of the cited page, full URL, and at date accessed.
2. Tables
Tables should have a one-line title in bold text and be as small as possible. Abbreviations and symbols are defined and briefly explained right below the table.
3. Figures and Figure Legends
Figures should be small and simple with clarity. The goal for figures is to enhance the understanding of the reader of related disciplines. Figures should be of good quality to be assessed by referees, preferably JPEGs. Unnecessary coloring of the figures and making panel of un-related figures are not desirable. All figures should have legends right below having brief description.
Ethical Guidelines for Journal Publication (based on COPE's Guidelines)
ALS is committed to ensure ethics in publication and quality of articles.
Authors: Authors should present an objective discussion of the significance of research work as well as sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the experiments. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. Review articles should also be objective, comprehensive, and accurate accounts of the state of the art. The authors should ensure that their work is entirely original works, and if the work and/or words of others have been used, this has been appropriately acknowledged. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Authors should not submit articles describing essentially the same research to more than one journal. The corresponding author should ensure that there is a full consensus of all co-authors in approving the final version of the paper and its submission for publication.
Editors: Editors should evaluate manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit. An editor must not use unpublished information in the editor's own research without the express written consent of the author. Editors should take reasonable responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper.
Reviewers: Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments, so that authors can use them for improving the paper. Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
Transparency Declaration
A statement that the lead author (the manuscript's guarantor) affirms that the manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.
Declaration of Conflict of Interest / Competing Interest
A competing interest—often called a conflict of interest—exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain or personal rivalry). It may arise for the authors of an article in ALS when they have a financial interest that may influence, probably without their knowing, their interpretation of their results or those of others.
We believe that, to make the best decision on how to deal with an article, we should know about any competing interests that authors may have, and that if we publish the article readers should know about them too. We are not aiming to eradicate such interests across all article types in the ALS. However, certain articles (see below) fall under a stricter policy. This means that authors whose financial conflicts of interest are judged to be relevant by the ALS team are not permitted to publish these articles.
A declaration of interests (samples here) on behalf of all authors from corresponding author must be received before an article can be reviewed and accepted for publication.
All articles that are editorials and education articles including clinical reviews, practice articles, commercial molecular biology kits' efficiency / comparative efficiency testing articles, articles regarding new antimicrobial sources and drug efficiency testing articles.
In May 2017, ALS implemented a policy for such articles to be written by authors without relevant financial ties to industry. By "industry" we mean companies producing drugs, devices, or tests; medical education companies; or other companies with an interest in the topic of the article.
We consider the following relationships with industry to be relevant, making it unlikely that we would be able to publish your work.
- Employment.
- Ownership of stocks and shares.
- Travel and accommodation expenses.
- Paid consultancy or directorship.
- Patent ownership.
- Paid membership of speakers panels/bureaus and advisory board.
- Acting as an expert witness.
- Being in receipt of a fellowship, equipment, writing, or administrative support.
- Writing or consulting for a medical education promotional or communications company.
When submitting an editorial, clinical review or medical practice article:
The corresponding author should insert within their manuscript a summary statement — see below. This will be included in the published article.
For Research Papers
ALS requires authors of research papers to use a revised version of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' (ICMJE) unified disclosure form.
The form asks authors to disclose three types of information:
Associations with commercial entities that provided support for the work reported in the submitted manuscript (the timeframe for disclosure in this section of the form is the life span of the work being reported).
Associations with commercial entities that could be viewed as having an interest in the general area of the submitted manuscript (in the three years before submission of the manuscript).
Non-financial associations that may be relevant or seen as relevant to the submitted manuscript.
After publication, the forms must be made available by the corresponding authors on request.
All authors must download and complete a copy of the disclosure form, which is available as a PDF at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf.
They should keep a copy of the form and send a copy to their corresponding author.
The corresponding author must insert within the submitted manuscript a summary statement derived from the information provided in the forms—see above. This will be included in the published article.
Examples of different sorts of summary statements:
No competing interests
“We have read and understood ALS policy on declaration of interests and declare that we have no competing interests.”
Competing interests disclosed
“We have read and understood ALS policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: AA is an unpaid member of XX group developing guidelines for ZZ.
Grant funding for research but no other competing interest
"All authors have completed the ICMJE disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf and declare: all authors had financial support from ABC Company for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."
Mixed
"All authors have completed the ICMJE disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; AB has received research grants and honorariums from XYZ company, BF has been paid for developing and delivering educational presentations for BBB foundation, DF does consultancy for HHH and VVV companies; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."
"All authors have completed the ICMJE disclosure at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf and declare: financial support for the submitted work from ABC Company; AB has received research grants and honorariums from XYZ company, BF has been paid for developing and delivering educational presentations for BBB Company, DF does consultancy of HHH and VVV companies; AB chairs the BAA guideline committee on disease Y, BF is a member of the Royal College of Physicians’ guideline committee on gastroenterology."
*Note: These policies have been adopted from THE BMJ guidelines.
Article Withdrawal Policy
It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor of a learned journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision the editor is guided by policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly archive as a permanent, historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered as far as is possible. However, very occasionally circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted or even removed. Such actions must not be undertaken lightly and can only occur under exceptional circumstances.
This policy has been designed to address these concerns and to take into account current best practice in the scholarly and library communities. As standards evolve and change, we will revisit this issue and welcome the input of scholarly and library communities. We believe these issues require international standards and we will be active in lobbying various information bodies to establish international standards and best practices that the publishing and information industries can adopt.
Article Withdrawal
Only used for Articles in Press which represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors, or may have been accidentally submitted twice. Occasionally, but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article(s), or are determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors (such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like), may be “Withdrawn” from ALS. Withdrawn means that the article content (HTML and PDF) is removed and replaced with a HTML page and PDF simply stating that the article has been withdrawn according to the ALS Policy on Article in Press Withdrawal with a link to the current policy document.
Article Retraction
Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Occasionally a retraction will be used in case of failing to reproduce the results or correct errors in submission or publication. The retraction of an article by its authors or the editor under the advice of members of the scholarly community has long been an occasional feature of the learned world. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this best practice is adopted for article retraction by ALS:
A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.
In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article. The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself. The original article is retained unchanged save for a watermark on the .pdf indicating on each page that it is “retracted.” The HTML version of the document is removed.
Article Removal: Legal limitations
In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes others’ legal rights, or where the article is, or we have good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In these circumstances, while the metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.
Article Replacement
In cases where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. In these circumstances the procedures for retraction will be followed with the difference that the database retraction notice will publish a link to the corrected re-published article and a history of the document.
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.
