Aims and scope
Avicenna Journal of Medical Biotechnology (AJMB) provides a medium for the publication of both full-length articles and short communications on all aspects of medical biotechnology. The Journal will accept papers ranging from genetic or molecular biological aspects to those covering biochemical, chemical or bioprocess engineering aspects, provided that in each case the material is directly relevant to medical biotechnology systems. The following areas are covered by the Journal: Medical Biotechnology, New Products, Nucleic Acids, Gene therapy, Molecular Biology, Nanobiotechnology, Bioinformatics, Biodiagnostics, Biochemistry, Biochemical Engineering, Bioprocess Engineering, Transgenic therapeutics, Biotherapeutics, Industrial Processes, Clinical trial reports, Bioethics and Biopharmaceuticals.

General principles
Manuscript should follow the last updated recommendations issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) . The text of observational and experimental articles should be divided into sections with the headings Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. Long articles may need subheadings within some sections to clarify their content. Other types of articles, such as case reports, reviews, and editorials, are likely to need other formats.
The Editors have the right to make editorial corrections and additional changes with the acknowledgment and approval by corresponding author. Double spacing of all portions of the manuscript- including the title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, individual tables, and legends-on A4 paper only, with 2.5 cm margins on all sides make it possible for editors and reviewers to edit the text line by line, and add comments and queries, directly on the paper copy. The manuscripts should be submitted electron-ically, and the files should be double spaced, because the manuscript may need to be printed out for reviewing and editing. Authors should therefore number all of the pages of the manu-script consecutively, beginning with the title page. Statement of the study's registration at domestic or international databases for RCTs is essential.

Technical information
Authors submitting review manuscripts should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract. Authors should describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results, and should present their results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Authors should not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observa-tions. Extra or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix. Tables and figures should be restricted to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Graphs should be used as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables.

Peer Review System
Manuscripts are first reviewed by the editorial board to ensure they are appropriate and relevant to the framework of the journal. Manuscripts are also excluded by the editor if they bear major faults in their methodology of research. Peer-review process is double blind. Peer reviews are handled anonymously and comments are discussed in weekly editorial sessions. Reviews are then sent to the corresponding authors for proposed modifications and the new version of the manuscript will be peer-reviewed for a second time by the same external reviewers.

Types of papers

1. Original Articles should (a) be divided into sections (Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion); (b) contain an Abstract, not exceeding 250 words, at the beginning of the paper, followed by 3-6 keywords; (c) generally not exceed 4500 words including the space required for figures (excluding the references). Longer papers will be considered but need editor's approval.
2. Short Communications should not exceed 1500 words or equivalent space including figures and tables. These must be brief definitive reports and not preliminary findings.
3. Review Articles will be published following invitation from the Editor-in-Chief or by the suggestion of an editor after preliminary discussion with the authors. Review article should be written by established experts (Corresponding author) referring to three published articles in the field.
4. Special Issues on highlighted aspects of biotechnology are also published. Special Issues may contain selected contributions from inter-national meetings, or a collection of papers on a specific topic, and may be composed of review articles, research papers, and short notes. Guest Editors responsible for the organization of Special Issues will be invited by the Editors of the Journal, but may also be suggested by scientists who are willing to organize a special issue on a topic that deserves publication.
5. Letters to the Editor should be unstructured and not exceed 750 words. Also the references must be limited to 10 in number. Announcements of meetings and courses will be included at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher.
6. Supplements will be published at the discretion of the Publisher in consultation with the Editor-in- Chief.
7. Mini-Review article has a word limit of 2000-3000 and no more than 100 references.

Cover letter
The authors should a cover letter at the time of manuscript submission. Authors are welcomed to suggest three to five referees for their paper as well as their choice of the most appropriate Associate Editors; however, the editors cannot guarantee assignment of a particular reviewer to a paper.

Title page
The title page should carry the following information: The title of the article, authors’ names and institutional affiliations, the name of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed, disclaimers, if any, The name, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author, a running head with no more than 40 characters (count letters and spaces), word counts for the text only (excluding abstract, acknowledg-ments, figure legends, and references), and the number of figures and tables.

Abstract
It should include the background, methods, results, and conclusion sections in a structured format. Objective of the study, findings (including its statistical significance), and the conclusion made on the basis of the findings should be clearly stated. Review articles should have an abstract. Nevertheless, the length of an abstract should not exceed 250 words.

Keywords
For indexing purposes, each submitted article should include three to six keywords chosen from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).

Reference style and format
AJMB reference style is based largely on Vancouver style. It is recommended that the EndNote file be used to manage the references in the manuscripts. AJMB website allows access to the EndNote file for this purpose. References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure.
Journals
Authors' last names and initials. Title of article. Journal name Year; Volume (number): Inclusive pages (list all authors when six or fewer; when seven or more, list six and add et al). Some examples are given below:
* Ardekani AM, Jabbari S. Nutrigenomics and cancer. Avicenna J Med Biotech 2009;1(1):9-17.
* Hemmati S, Zarnani AH, Mahmoudi AR, Sadeghi MR, Soltanghoraee H, Akhondi MM. Ectopic expression of Sortilin 1 (NTR-3) in patients with ovarian carcinoma. Avicenna J Med Biotech 2009;1(2):125-131.
Book:
Authors' last names and initials. Book title. Edition. City: Publisher; Date.
* Lodish H, Baltimore D, Berk A, Zipursky SL, Matsudaira P, Darnell J. Molecular cell biology. 3rd ed. New York: Scientific American; 1995.
Chapter of a book:
Authors' last names and initials. Title of Chapter. In: editor's name (eds). Book title. City: Publisher; Year, Pages.
* Rezaei N, Bonilla FA, Sullivan KE, de Vries E, Orange JS. An introduction to primary immuno-deficiency diseases. In: Rezaei N, Aghamoham-madi A, Notarangelo LD (eds). Primary immuno-deficiency diseases: definition, diagnosis and man-agement. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag; 2008,1-38.
It is notable that the Index Medicus abbreviations should be used for journal titles.

Tables
Tables should be typed double-spaced on separate sheets, numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals, and only contain horizontal lines. A short descriptive title should appear above each table, with possible legend and footnotes (identified with a, b, c, etc.) below.

Figures
Figures should be either professionally drawn and photographed, or submitted as photographic quality digital prints. In addition to requiring electronic files of figures in a TIF format suitable for printing; authors should review the images of such files on a computer screen before submitting them, to be sure they meet their own quality standard. Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text. If a figure has been published, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. Permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher except for documents in the public domain. Legends for illustrations should be typed using double spacing, starting on a separate page, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one clearly in the legend. Figures should be line drawings in black ink. Figures should be completely labeled, the size of the lettering being appropriate to that of the drawing, taking into account the necessary reduction in size. All legends should be typed double-spaced on separate sheets. If figures are not to be reduced, their format should not exceed 16.0x20.2 cm. Color reproduction is possible. Figure legends have to be submitted on separate sheets.

Ethics
Authors must acknowledge that the protocol for the study has been approved by the appropriate Ethics Committee of the institution within which the work has been conducted and that the research conforms to the provisions of the declaration of Helsinki in 1995 (as revised in Edinburgh 2000). Submission of the manuscript should be accompanied with a statement from the authors disclosing all financial and personnel relationship the might bias their work. The authors must announce the name of the institution which has provided the project with any financial grant.
The clinicians who conduct a clinical trial on human subjects and wish to publish the results of their investigations in this Journal should have obtained permission for their clinical trial from Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT) or other well-known clinical trials registries.
Conflict of Interest: Provide a notification regarding potential conflict (s) of interest for authors. If this is not the case, state its absence.

Acknowledgement
Besides personal acknowledgement, sources of financial support should be mentioned in this section.

Submission of manuscripts
Submission of a paper to the AJMB implies: (1) that it is not being submitted for publication elsewhere; (2) the transfer of the copyright from the author to the Publisher. Authors are requested to submit their manuscripts electronically, by using either the online submission at https://submission.ajmb.org/ or email to ajmb@avicenna.ac.ir. After registration, authors will be asked to upload their article, an extra copy of the abstract and associated artwork. The submission tool will generate a PDF file to be used for the reviewing process. The submission tool generates an automatic reply and a manuscript number will be generated for future correspondence. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a cover letter.

Publication charge
There are no charges for publication of the articles in this Journal. However, the Publisher may request a charge for publication of color Figures.

Proofs
Proofs will be sent to the author before publication. They should be checked carefully and returned within a week of receipt.