biopsy, and precision drug monitoring. Research on preclinical
diagnostics, diagnostic materials, bioinformatics, and AI-driven
computational diagnostics is also included. Integrated diagnostic
approaches and clinical validation studies are featured. The journal
also welcomes concise reviews and original research that bridge basic
science, technology, and clinical application, aiming to accelerate
diagnostic innovation and improve patient outcomes.
Peer review
This
journal follows a double anonymized review process. Your submission
will initially be assessed by our editors to determine suitability for
publication in this journal. If your submission is deemed suitable, it
will typically be sent to a minimum of two reviewers for an independent
expert assessment of the scientific quality. The decision as to whether
your article is accepted or rejected will be taken by our editors.
Read more about peer review.
Our editors are not involved in making decisions about papers which:
they have written themselves.
have been written by family members or colleagues.
relate to products or services in which they have an interest.
Any
such submissions will be subject to the journal's usual procedures and
peer review will be handled independently of the editor involved and
their research group. Read more about editor duties.
Authors
may submit a formal appeal request to the editorial decision, provided
it meets all the requirements and follows the procedure outlined in
Elsevier’s Appeal Policy. Only one appeal per submission will be
considered and the appeal decision will be final.
Special issues and article collections
The
peer review process for special issues and article collections follows
the same process as outlined above for regular submissions, except, a
guest editor may send the submissions out to the reviewers and may
recommend a decision to the journal editor. The journal editor oversees
the peer review process of all special issues and article collections to
ensure the high standards of publishing ethics and responsiveness are
respected and is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance
or rejection of articles.
Open access
We refer you to our open access information page to learn about open access options for this journal.
Ethics and policies
Ethics in publishing
Authors must follow ethical guidelines stated in Elsevier's Publishing Ethics Policy.
Submission declaration
When authors submit an article to an Elsevier journal it is implied that:
the
work described has not been published previously except in the form of a
preprint, an abstract, a published lecture, academic thesis or
registered report. See our policy on multiple, redundant or concurrent
publication.
the article is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
the
article's publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or
explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried
out.
if
accepted, the article will not be published elsewhere in the same form,
in English or in any other language, including electronically, without
the written consent of the copyright-holder.
To verify compliance with our journal publishing policies, we may check your manuscript with our screening tools.
Authorship
All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following:
The conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data
Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
Final approval of the version to be submitted.
All
authors are accountable for all aspects of the work, to ensure that
questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work
are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Authors
should appoint a single corresponding author to communicate with the
journal during the editorial process. This individual submits the
manuscript and all required documentation to the journal, and serves as
the primary contact between the journal and the co-authors. Only the
corresponding author’s affiliation will be used to determine eligibility
for a publishing agreement, and possible discounts related to it.
Affiliations of other co-authors are not relevant for eligibility.
Changes to authorship
The
editors of this journal generally will not consider changes to
authorship once a manuscript has been submitted. It is important that
authors carefully consider the authorship list and order of authors and
provide a definitive author list at submission.
The policy of this journal around authorship changes:
All
authors must be listed in the manuscript and their details entered into
the submission system. Changes can only be made prior to acceptance,
and only if approved by the journal editor. This includes additions,
deletion, or rearrangement of author names.
Requests
to change authorship must be made by the corresponding author using the
Authorship Change Request form. The corresponding author must provide
the reason for the request to the journal editor with written
confirmation from all authors, including any authors being added or
removed, that they agree with the changes. Requests which do not comply
with the instructions outlined in the form will not be considered.
This
journal does not allow authorship changes after acceptance. This
includes additions, deletions, or the rearrangement of author names,
including changes to the corresponding author.
The review process may be paused while a change in authorship request is being considered.
Change
requests made by the authors without the Authorship Change Request form
or editor approval may result in the rejection of the manuscript, or
retraction if the article has already been published.
Declaration of competing interests
All
authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with
other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence or
bias their work. Examples of potential competing interests include:
Employment
Consultancies
Stock ownership
Honoraria
Paid expert testimony
Patent applications or registrations
Grants or any other funding
Affiliation with the journal as an Editor or Advisory Board Member
The declarations tool should always be completed.
Authors with a journal affiliation to declare should enter the following text under “Other Activities” within the declarations tool and should inform the journal and publisher prior to completing the submission process:
Given
their role as [insert journal role title], [insert your name] had no
involvement in the peer-review of this article and has no access to
information regarding its peer-review. Full responsibility for the editorial process for this article was delegated to another journal editor.
Editorial
disclosure statements will be included as a footnote and/or in the
declaration of competing interest section of the article.
Authors with no competing interests to declare should select the option "I have nothing to declare".
The
resulting Word document containing your declaration should be uploaded
at the "attach/upload files" step in the submission process. It is
important that the Word document is saved in the .doc/.docx file format.
Author signatures are not required.
Funding sources
Authors
must disclose any funding sources who provided financial support for
the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. The role
of sponsors, if any, should be declared in relation to the study design,
collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the report
and decision to submit the article for publication. If funding sources
had no such involvement this should be stated in your submission.
List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements:
Funding:
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant
numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle,
WA [grant number zzzz]; and the United States Institutes of Peace [grant
number aaaa].
It
is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or
type of grants, scholarships and awards. When funding is from a block
grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other
research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization
that provided the funding.
If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence:
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
