1. Aims & Scope

Kerbala journal of pharmaceutical sciences (ISSN: 7027-2221) provides an advanced opportunity for findings on all aspects of pharmacy and biology derived from both novel and established biotechnologies. It publishes reviews, research papers, and communications in all areas of pharmacy, biologicals and at the interface of related disciplines. Our aim is to encourage scientists to publish their experimental and theoretical results in as much detail as possible. There is no restriction on the length of the papers. Full experimental and/or methodical details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced. Electronic files or software regarding the full details of the calculation and experimental procedure – if impossible to publish in a normal way – can be deposited as supplementary material.

This journal covers all topics related to pharmacy and biologics. Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

• Clinical Pharmacokinetics
• Chemical & Molecular Pharmacology
• Pharmacotherapeutics
• Biopharmaceutics
• General toxicology
• Industrial pharmacy
• Organic pharmaceutical chemistry
• Public health
• Applied therapeutics
• Dosage form design
• Pharmacoeconomic
• Physical pharmacy
• Physicalpharmacy

Vaccines

• Bacterial vaccines
• Viral vaccines
• Tumor vaccines

Hormones

• Insulin
• Glucagon
• Growth hormone
• Gonadotrophins

Cytokines and allied mediators

• Interleukins and Interleukin-based products (Interleukin-2)
• Interferons (Interferons-α, -β, -γ)
• Tumor necrosis factors
• Chemokinefamily
• Hematopoietic growth factors (Erythropoietin, colony-stimulating factors)

Diagnostics

• Radiology
• Nuclear medicine
• Medical imaging
• Endoscopy
• Pathology
• Biopsy
• Molecular diagnostics
• Medical screening
• Biomarkers
• Diagnostic microbiology and infectious disease
• Point-of-care testing and devices

Gene therapies

    Somatic gene therapies

    Germline gene therapies

Cytology

    Living cells used in cell therapy

    Cell culture technology

    Cellular immunology

Tissues

• Thrombolytic agents (tissue plasminogen activator)
• Monoclonal antibodies (Various)
• Blood and blood components

Allergenics

• Downstream processing
• General bacteriology
• General virology, endogenous, and adventitious viruses
• Molecular biology
• Parasitology
• Protein chemistry
• Toxins
• Toxoids

Resources:

• Human
• Animal
• Plant
• Fungus

• Editorial Board

Editorial Board Members

• Instructions for Authors
• Submission Checklist

1. read the Aims & Scope to gain an overview and assess if your manuscript is suitable for this journal;
2. use the paper template to prepare your manuscript;
3. make sure that issues about ethical issues, investigation ethics
4. data and figures format and  references style been appropriately considered;
5. Ensure that all authors have approved the content of the submitted manuscript.
6. Authors are encouraged to add his Biography (optional) to the submission and publish it.
7. Manuscript Submission Overview
   1.  
   1. Types of Publications

Pharmacist has no restrictions on the length of manuscripts, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive. Full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced. Biologics requires that authors publish all experimental controls and make full datasets available where possible

Manuscripts submitted to Kerbala journal of pharmaceutical sciences should neither be published previously nor be under consideration for publication in another journal.

The main article types are as follows:

• Articles: Original research manuscripts. The journal considers all original research manuscripts provided that the work reports scientifically sound experiments and provides a substantial amount of new information. Authors should not unnecessarily divide their work into several related manuscripts, although Short Communications of preliminary, but significant, results will be considered. The quality and impact of the study will be considered during peer review.
• Reviews: These provide concise and precise updates on the latest progress made in a given area of research. Systematic reviews should follow the PRISMA.
• Case reports: Case reports present detailed information on the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment (including all types of interventions), and outcomes of an individual patient. Case reports usually describe new or uncommon conditions that serve to enhance medical care or highlight diagnostic approaches.

• Submission Process

Manuscripts for Kerbala journal of pharmaceutical sciences be submitted online at kerbala.jps@uokerbala.edu.iq. The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. To submit your manuscript, register and log in to the submission website University of Kerbala . Once you have registered,   Kerbala journal of pharmaceutical sciences. All co-authors can see the manuscript details in the submission system, if they register and log in using the e-mail address provided during manuscript submission.

• Cover Letter

A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission. It should be concise and explain why the content of the paper is significant, placing the findings in the context of existing work and why it fits the scope of the journal. Confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal. Any prior submissions of the manuscript to Kerbala journal of pharmaceutical sciences must be acknowledged. The names of proposed and excluded reviewers should be provided in the submission system, not in the cover letter.

• Author Biography

Authors are encouraged to add a biography (maximum 150 words) to the submission and publish it. This should be a single paragraph and should contain the following points:

1. Authors’ full names followed by current positions;
2. Education background including institution information and year of graduation (type and level of degree received);
3. Work experience;
4. Current and previous research interests;
5. Memberships of professional societies and awards received.

• Front Matter

These sections should appear in all manuscript types

• Title: The title of your manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant. It should identify if the study reports (human or animal) trial data, or is a systematic review, meta-analysis or replication study. When gene or protein names are included, the abbreviated name rather than full name should be used.

• Author List and Affiliations: Authors’ full first and last names must be provided. The initials of any middle names can be added. The PubMed/MEDLINE standard format is used for affiliations: complete address information including city, zip code, state/province, and country. At least one author should be designated as corresponding author, and his or her email address and other details should be included at the end of the affiliation section.

• Abstract: The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used. 3) Results: Summarize the article’s main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.

• Keywords: Three to ten pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.

• Research Manuscript Sections

Introduction: The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance, including specific hypotheses being tested. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper.

Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.

Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and limitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned. This section may be combined with Results.

Materials and Methods: They should be described with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used.

Conclusions: This section is not mandatory, but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long or complex.

 Patents: This section is not mandatory, but may be added if there are patents resulting from the work reported in this manuscript.

• Back Matter

• Acknowledgments: In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments).

• Conflicts of Interest: Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interest that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. If there is no conflict of interest, please state “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” Any role of the funding sponsors in the choice of research project; design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results must be declared in this section. Biologics does not publish studies funded by the tobacco industry. Any projects funded by industry must pay special attention to the full declaration of funder involvement. If there is no role, please state “The sponsors had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing of the study”. For more details, please fill the conflict of interest form

• References: References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as Mendeley or Endnote avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. We encourage citations to data, computer code and other citable research material. If available online, you may use reference style 9. below.
• Citations and References in Supplementary files are permitted provided that they also appear in the main text and in the reference list.

In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example, [5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101–105).

References should be described as follows, depending on the type of work:

·  Journal Articles:
1. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range.

·  Books and Book Chapters:
2. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154–196.
3. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; Volume 3, pp. 154–196.

• Preparing Figures, Schemes and Tables

• File for Figures and Schemes must be provided during submission in a single zip archive and at a sufficiently high resolution (minimum 1000 pixels width/height, or a resolution of 300 dpi or higher). Common formats are accepted, however, TIFF, JPEG, EPS and PDF are preferred.
• All Figures, Schemes and Tables should be inserted into the main text close to their first citation and must be numbered following their number of appearance (Figure 1, Scheme I, Figure 2, Scheme II, Table 1, etc.).
• All Figures, Schemes and Tables should have a short explanatory title and caption.
• All table columns should have an explanatory heading. To facilitate the copy-editing of larger tables, smaller fonts may be used, but no less than 8 pt. in size. Authors should use the Table option of Microsoft Word to create tables.
• Authors are encouraged to prepare figures and schemes in colour (RGB at 8-bit per channel). There is no additional cost for publishing full colour graphics.

10.Research and Publication Ethics

• Research Ethics
• Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975.

Example of an ethical statement: “All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

A written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified (including by the patients themselves). Patients’ initials or other personal identifiers must not appear in any images. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting to an MDPI journal. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible, e.g., do not mention specific age, ethnicity, or occupation where they are not relevant to the conclusions. A Patient Consent Form is available to download.

• Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research

The editors will require that the benefits potentially derived from any research causing harm to animals are significant in relation to any cost endured by animals, and that procedures followed are unlikely to cause offense to the majority of readers. Authors should particularly ensure that their research complies with the commonly-accepted ‘3Rs’:

• Replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible,
• Reduction in number of animals used, and
• Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize the harm to animals.

Any experimental work must also have been conducted in accordance with relevant national legislation on the use of animals for research. For further guidance authors should refer to the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures [1].

Manuscripts containing original descriptions of research conducted in experimental animals must contain details of approval by a properly constituted research ethics committee. As a minimum, the project identification code, date of approval and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated.

Home Office. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures. Available online: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc8889/hc01/0107/0107.pdf.

• Research Involving Cell Lines

Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines the provenance should be stated and references must also be given to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

An example of Ethical Statements:

The HCT116 cell line was obtained from XXXX. The MLH1+ cell line was provided by XXXXX, Ltd. The DLD-1 cell line was obtained from Dr. XXXX. The DR-GFP and SA-GFP reporter plasmids were obtained from Dr. XXX and the Rad51K133A expression vector was obtained from Dr. XXXX.

• Research Involving Plants

For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oryza sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened or endangered species this can be waived but it is necessary for the author to describe this in the cover letter.

Editors reserve the rights to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

An example of Ethical Statements:

Torenia fournieri plants were used in this study. White-flowered Crown White (CrW) and violet-flowered Crown Violet (CrV) cultivars selected from ‘Crown Mix’ (XXX Company, City, Country) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX (XXX Institute, City, Country).

Arabidopis mutant lines (SALKxxxx, SAILxxxx,…) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX , institute, city, country).

• Publication Ethics Statement

The editors of this journal enforce a rigorous peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, do arise. The editors of Kerbala journal of pharmaceutical science take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to proceed in such cases with a zero tolerance policy.

Authors wishing to publish their papers in Kerbala journal of pharmaceutical science must abide to the following:

• Any facts that might be perceived as a possible conflict of interest of the author(s) must be disclosed in the paper prior to submission.
• Authors should accurately present their research findings and include an objective discussion of the significance of their findings.
• Data and methods used in the research need to be presented in sufficient detail in the paper, so that other researchers can replicate the work.
• Raw data should preferably be publicly deposited by the authors before submission of their manuscript. Authors need to at least have the raw data readily available for presentation to the referees and the editors of the journal, if requested. Authors need to ensure appropriate measures are taken so that raw data is retained in full for a reasonable time after publication.
• Simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not tolerated.
• Republishing content that is not novel is not tolerated (for example, an English translation of a paper that is already published in another language will not be accepted).
• If errors and inaccuracies are found by the authors after publication of their paper, they need to be promptly communicated to the editors of this journal so that appropriate actions can be taken.
• Your manuscript should not contain any information that has already been published. If you include already published figures or images,
• Plagiarism, data fabrication and image manipulation are not tolerated.
  • Plagiarism is not acceptable in Kerbala journal of pharmaceutical science submissions.

Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source.

Reuse of text that is copied from another source must be between quotes and the original source must be cited. If a study’s design or the manuscript’s structure or language has been inspired by previous works, these works must be explicitly cited.

If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may publish a correction or retract the paper.

• Image files must not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information provided by the original image.

Irregular manipulation includes: 1) introduction, enhancement, moving, or removing features from the original image; 2) grouping of images that should obviously be presented separately (e.g., from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels); or 3) modifying the contrast, brightness or color balance to obscure, eliminate or enhance some information.

If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, we may reject the manuscript. If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed after publication, we may correct or retract the paper.

Our in-office editors will investigate any allegations of publication misconduct and may contact the authors’ institutions or funders if necessary. If evidence of misconduct is found, appropriate action will be taken to correct or retract the publication.

• Citation Policy

Authors should ensure that where material is taken from other sources (including their own published writing) the source is clearly cited and that where appropriate permission is obtained.

Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work.

Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.

Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications.

Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.

We expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations.” This condition also applies to an author’s own work.

1. Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review

Initial Checks

All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked by a professional in-office Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal, including those for human and animal experimentation. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal’s ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editors to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief.

Peer-Review

Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to at least two independent experts for peer-review. A single-blind review is applied, where authors’ identities are known to reviewers. Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewer.

In the case of regular submissions, in-office assistant editors will invite experts, including recommendations by an academic editor. These experts may also include Editorial Board Members and Guest Editors of the journal. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. Reviewers should not have published with any of the co-authors during the past five years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.

Editorial Decision and Revision

All the articles, reviews and communications published in MDPI journals go through the peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. The in-house editor will communicate the decision of the academic editor, which will be one of the following:

• Accept after Minor Revisions:
  The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given five days for minor revisions.
• Reconsider after Major Revisions:
  The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point by point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
• Reject and Encourage Resubmission:
  If additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions, the manuscript will be rejected and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once further experiments have been conducted.
• Reject:
  The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided.

All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.

Author Appeals

Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ and/or Editor’s comments. The Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Editorial Board member. The academic Editor being consulted will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

In the case of a special issue, the Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief who will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage will be final and cannot be reversed.

Production and Publication

Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional copy-editing, English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and, publication on the pharmacy.uokerbala.edu.iq website.