Guide to Authors

Welcome to the electronic manuscript submission website for Gene Therapy. The instructions below are structured so you can quickly and easily answer the following questions:

1. Is my manuscript suitable for Gene Therapy? (Scope + Editorial Note)
2. How do I format my manuscript for Gene Therapy? (Format of Papers)
3. How do I submit my manuscript to Gene Therapy? (Submission of Papers)

OTHER LINKS

• About the journal
• Format of papers
• Preparation of Original Articles
• House style
• Submission of papers
• Editorial policy
• Ethics and bioethics
• Peer review policy
• Corrections
• About npg online services

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Scope

Topics Covered
Gene Therapy covers all aspects of gene therapy as applied to human disease, including:

• novel technological developments for gene transfer, control and silencing


• “Enabling technologies” describing novel technological, methodological or experimental techniques for gene therapy research


• basic science studies of mechanisms of gene transfer and control of expression


• preclinical animal model systems and validation studies


• clinical trial reports which have significant impact for the field


• gene-based vaccine development and applications


• cell-based therapies including all aspects of stem cells and genetically modified cellular approaches

Editors	Nicholas Lemoine, London, UK Joseph C Glorioso, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Frequency	12 issues a year
Abstracted in	Current Contents MEDLINE EMBASE/Excerpta Medica MEDLARS Elsevier Biobase/Current Awareness in Biological Sciences Chemical Abstracts Biotechnology Citation Index Current Contents Life Sciences Science Citation Index Derwent's Biotechnology Abstracts Derwent's Gene Therapy Database

Editorial Note

FORMAT OF PAPERS

Article Type	Description	Word Count
Original Article (including Enabling Technologies)	These should follow the structure outlined below The overall length of the paper should not exceed eight published pages. As a guide, this is equivalent to approximately 8000 words, counting each half page figure or table as 500 words. Manuscripts which, when typeset, make over eight pages, will be subject to a page charge of £120 per page for each additional page. The final word count, excluding references and figure text, should be displayed on the title page of the paper.	Word Limit: 8,000
Review	Review articles in Gene Therapy aim to provide accessible, authoritative overviews of a field or topic. Reviews should communicate a sense of enthusiasm, weaving background information with the latest advances, and placing both of these elements in the context of the rest of the field. The abstract describes what the article is about in a succinct, easily digestible way. It should not contain specialist details, abbreviations, references or figure citations. References should concentrate on significant original research papers.	Word Limit: 4,000 The abstract should be about 200 words long References should be limited to ~100
News and Commentary	These should be shorter and more personal than reviews and comment on an individual paper or a specific area of research.	Word Limit: 1,000
Editorials or Brief Reviews	These will be solicited by the editors but suggestions for such material are very welcome.	Word Limit: undefined

Preparation of Original Articles

1. Cover letter (must include a Conflict of Interest statement)
2. Title page (excluding acknowledgements)
3. Abstract and keywords
4. Introduction
5. Results
6. Discussion
7. Materials (or patients) and methods
8. Acknowledgements
9. Conflict of Interest
10. References
11. Tables
12. Figures

Cover letter
The uploaded covering letter must state the material is original research, has not been previously published and has not been submitted for publication elsewhere while under consideration. The covering letter must also contain a Conflict of Interest statement (see Editorial Policy section).

Title page
The title page should bear the title of the paper, the full names of all the authors, highest academic degree obtained, and their affiliations, together with the name, full postal address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address of the author to whom correspondence and offprint requests are to be sent (This information is also asked for on the electronic submission form). The title should be brief, informative, of 150 characters or less and should not make a statement or conclusion. The running title should consist of not more than 50 letters and spaces. It should be as brief as possible, convey the essential message of the paper and contain no abbreviations. Authors should disclose the sources of any support for the work, received in the form of grants and/or equipment and drugs.

Abstract and Keywords
The abstract should not exceed 200 words and three to six keywords should be included to aid web searches after publication.

Introduction
The Introduction should assume that the reader is knowledgeable in the field and should therefore be as brief as possible but can include a short historical review where desirable.

Results and Discussion
The Results section should briefly present the experimental data in text, tables or figures. Tables and figures should not be described extensively in the text, either. The discussion should focus on the interpretation and the significance of the findings with concise objective comments that describe their relation to other work in the area. It should not repeat information in the results. The final paragraph should highlight the main conclusion(s), and provide some indication of the direction future research should take.

Acknowledgements
These should be brief, and should include sources of support including sponsorship (e.g. university, charity, commercial organization) and sources of material (e.g. novel drugs) not available commercially.

Conflict of interest
Authors must declare whether or not there is any competing financial interests in relation to the work described. This information must be included at this stage and will be published as part of the paper. Conflict of interest should also be noted on the cover letter and as part of the submission process. See the Conflict of Interest documentation in the Editorial Policy section for detailed information.

References
Only papers directly related to the article should be cited. Exhaustive lists should be avoided. References should follow the Vancouver format. In the text they should appear as numbers starting at one and at the end of the paper they should be listed (double-spaced) in numerical order corresponding to the order of citation in the text. All authors should be quoted for papers with up to six authors; for papers with more than six authors, the first six only should be quoted, followed by et al. Abbreviations for titles of medical periodicals should conform to those used in the latest edition of Index Medicus. The first and last page numbers for each reference should be provided. Abstracts and letters must be identified as such. Papers in press and papers already submitted for publication may be included in the list of references but no citation is required for work that is not yet submitted for publication.

Journal article, up to six authors:
Luo R, Mann B, Lewis WS, Rowe A, Heath R, Stewart ML et al. Solution structure of choline binding protein A, the major adhesion of Streptococcus pneumoniae. EMBO J 2005; 24: 34–43.

Journal article, e-pub ahead of print:
Flagler K, Alexeev V, Pierce EA, Igoucheva O. Site-specific gene modification by oligodeoxynucleotides in mouse bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells. Gene Ther 2008; e-pub ahead of print 13 March 2008; doi:10.1038/gt.2008.31.

Journal article, in press:
Kells AP, Henry RA, Connor B. AAV–BDNF mediated attenuation of quinolinic acid-induced neuropathology and motor function impairment. Gene Ther (in press).

Complete book:
Gordon MY, Barre AJ. Bone Marrow Disorder: the Biological Basis of Clinical Problems. Blackwell Scientific Publishers: Oxford, UK, 1985.

Chapter in book:
Greenberger JS. Long-term hematopoietic cultures. In: Golde DW (ed). Hematopoiesis. Churchill Livingstone: New York, 1984, pp 203–242.

Abstract:
Feig SA, Lenarsky C, Moss T, Gallardo RL, Juneja HS, Gordon MY et al. Bone marrow transplantation for neuroblastoma. Exp Hematol 1985; 13(Suppl 2): 362 (abstract 102).

Letters to the Editor:
Kyritsis AP, Rao JS, Puduvalli VK. Radio-responsive TRAIL gene therapy for malignant gliomas [letter]. Cancer Gene Ther 2007; 14: 1002.

EndNote users should select the Gene Therapy output style for the correct reference style.

Personal communications must be allocated a number and included in the list of references in the usual way or simply referred to in the text; the authors may choose which method to use. In either case authors must obtain permission from the individual concerned to quote his/her unpublished work.

House Style

SUBMISSION OF PAPERS

Colour charges

Page charges
The first eight pages of published manuscripts are free. For each additional page there will be a charge of £126 ($252).

EDITORIAL POLICY

Statement of Ethics

Peer-review policy

Correction and retraction process

Non-Native Speakers of English
Researchers who are not native speakers of English who submit manuscripts to international journals often received negative comments from referees or editors about the English-language usage in their manuscripts, and these problems can contribute to a decision to reject a paper. To help reduce the possibility of such problems, we strongly encourage such authors to take at least one of the following steps:

• Have your manuscript review for clarify by a colleague whose native language is English.
• Use on of the many English language editing services that are available, such as that offered by Nature Publishing Group Language Editing. An editor will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review.

Please note that the use of Nature Publishing Group Language Editing is at the author's own expense and in no way implies that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted by an NPG journal (or any other journal). The decisions that the editors of any NPG journal make based on the quality and suitability of a manuscript for that journal are entirely independent of whether that manuscript has been language-edited by Nature Publishing Group Language Editing.

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