Instructions to Authors

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Aims and scope
EMBO Molecular Medicine is dedicated to the publication of the results of original, cutting-edge research in the field of Molecular Medicine of interest to medical and basic scientists. It will give priority to those articles that provide novel and relevant molecular insight into the cellular and systemic processes that underlie defined human diseases and that offer new perspectives for clinical application at the levels of prevention, diagnosis, treatment and/or therapy. The Journal publishes full-length research articles and short-format Reports relevant to all fields of clinical medicine and their related research areas in basic biology. Studies based on model organisms also fall within the scope of the Journal, provided that the results presented are evidently and directly relevant to human diseases. Potential authors of Reviews and other front-half materials should contact the Editorial Office before submission.

Review process
Similar to the review process employed by other EMBO journals, the editorial process of EMBO Molecular Medicine involves careful scrutiny and close assessment of each manuscript as soon as possible after its submission and subsequent assignment to an editor. The editor will carefully read each paper, make a check of background literature, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the work with other members of the editorial team. This process results in an initial decision either to reject editorially, to request expert advice, or to proceed with an indepth review. Rejections will be documented in detailed decision letters.
Only those manuscripts considered to be strong candidates for publication will be subjected to in-depth review. They will normally be assessed by three reviewers who are specialized in the area(s) of research covered. Reviewers are asked to comment on the overall novelty of the manuscript, its significance to the field, its medical/clinical relevance, the technical quality of the experimental data, and the soundness of the conclusions drawn. Reviewers are also asked to make suggestions of changes that would strengthen the paper. Editorial decisions on the suitability or otherwise of the reviewed manuscripts for publication will be based on a balanced evaluation of all reviewer reports with, if necessary, additional advice from a Senior Editor or member of the Advisory Editorial Board.

Article formats
Editorials and Perceptions are opinion pieces that focus on important issues regarding Biomedical research, its community and human health in general. Editorials are written by our Editors, whereas Perceptions are invited by the journal editors.
Closeup articles are inside looks on a specific development [often an original article(s) published in our Journal or elsewhere] in our understanding of a clinically relevant issue.
Reviews provide the reader with a broad and scholarly overview of a particular topic related to molecular medicine, while noting the most recent developments in the field. They are supplemented with explanations for non-specialist readers and online links to relevant sources of additional information.
In Focus articles are topical, personalized reviews that focus on a specific topic. Authors are encouraged to share personal views and to speculate about the implications or future directions of research in the field.
Bridge the Gap articles will help both basic and clinical researchers to better understand each other's perspectives and define common goals. Authors are encouraged to suggest new strategies and avenues of investigation that may fill the gaps they perceive as existing between the discovery of a biological mechanism and the application of the resultant concepts to the better understanding of a specific disease, its diagnosis, prevention or treatment. Alternatively, from a clinical perspective, authors might highlight disease phenotypes they consider to be poorly understood in molecular terms and suggest lines of research that would lead to such understanding.
Research articles report novel molecular research highly relevant to the understanding, prevention, treatment or cure of human diseases.
Reports are concise manuscripts that highlight a specific finding, model or methodology with a high impact on the field of molecular medicine.

Front half content
Editorials and Perceptions-are opinion pieces that focus on issues of high importance to Biomedical research, the corresponding research communities and Human health in general. These are short pieces of approximately 1000 words. Editorials are written by our Editors, while Perceptions are invited by the journal editors. They are non peer-reviewed opinion pieces that focus on a particular scientific or sociopolitical topic pertinent to the Molecular Medicine community. They are intended to reflect primarily the views of the author(s) on the issue under review and authors are encouraged to put forward their own ideas and opinions.
Closeup articles are short, focussed highlights of a specific development [often an original article(s) published in our Journal or elsewhere] in our understanding of a clinically relevant issue. They are aimed at non-specialist readers and are supplemented with explanatory text and online links to relevant sources of additional information. The total character count for a Closeup, including spaces, figure legends and references, may not exceed 10,000 characters and the exact character count should be stated on the front page of the manuscript. We strongly encourage authors to include an explanatory figure. The total length of the Closeup when printed should not exceed two pages. Please bear this limit in mind when preparing figures or tables. Closeups are usually commissioned by our editors. We are also open to original un-invited submissions but would urge you to contact the Editorial Office beforehand. All manuscripts submitted for this section will be peer-reviewed and may be extensively edited.
Reviews provide the reader with the background to, and a broad overview of a particular topic related to molecular medicine, while noting the most recent developments in the field. They are supplemented with explanations for non-specialist readers and online links to relevant sources of additional information. Reviews must be based on published data. The total character count for a Review, including spaces, figure legends and references, may not exceed 50,000 characters and the exact character count should be stated on the front page of the manuscript. We strongly encourage authors to include explanatory figures, models and Tables. Suggestions may be submitted to the Editorial Office in the form of a one-page proposal for consideration, but contributions are usually commissioned by the editors. All manuscripts submitted for this section will be peer-reviewed and may be extensively edited.
In Focus articles are topical, personalized reviews that focus on a specific topic. Authors are encouraged to share personal views and to speculate about the implications or future directions of research in the field. The articles are supplemented with explanations for non-specialist readers and online links to relevant sources of additional information. The total character count for an In Focus, including spaces, figure legends and references, may not exceed 30,000 characters and the exact character count should be stated on the front page of the manuscript. We strongly encourage authors to include explanatory figures, models and Tables. Suggestions may be submitted to the Editorial Office in the form of a one-page proposal for consideration, but contributions are usually commissioned by the editors. All manuscripts submitted for this section will be peer-reviewed and may be extensively edited.
Bridge the Gap articles will help both basic and clinical researchers to better understand each other's perspectives and define common goals. Authors are encouraged to suggest new strategies and avenues of investigation that may fill the gaps they perceive as existing between the discovery of a biological mechanism and the application of the resultant concepts to the better understanding of a specific disease, its diagnosis, prevention or treatment. Alternatively, from a clinical perspective, authors may highlight disease phenotypes that they consider to be poorly understood in molecular terms and suggest lines of research that would lead to such understanding. Bridge the Gap articles are supplemented with explanations for non-specialist readers and online links to relevant sources of additional information. The total character count, including spaces, figure legends and references, may not exceed 30,000 characters and the exact character count should be stated on the front page of the manuscript. We strongly encourage including explanatory figures, models and Tables. Suggestions may be submitted to the Editorial Office in the form of a one-page proposal for consideration, but contributions are usually commissioned by the editors. All manuscripts submitted for this section will be peer-reviewed and may be extensively edited.

Primary research articles and reports
Prior to submission To avoid unnecessary delays in the review process for research articles and reports, please consider the following policies carefully before you submit your manuscript.

Availability of published material
It is understood that by publishing a paper in EMBO Molecular Medicine the authors agree to make freely available to their colleagues in academic or clinical research any of the organisms, viruses, cells, nucleic acids, antibodies, and other reagents that were used in the research reported and that are not available from commercial suppliers.

Bioethics
For primary research manuscripts in EMBO Molecular Medicine that report experiments on live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates, the corresponding author must confirm that all experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The manuscript must include in the Methods section, Supporting Information or, if brief, at an appropriate place within the text of article, a statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments, including any relevant details. For experiments involving human subjects, authors must identify the committee approving the experiments, and include with their submission a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all subjects.

Conflicts of interest
In the interests of transparency and to help reviewers assess any potential bias, EMBO Molecular Medicine requires all authors to declare any competing commercial interests in relation to the submitted work. Referees are also asked to indicate any potential conflict they might have reviewing a particular paper. Please refer to the 'Guide for Referees' for details.

Electronic manipulation of images
Digital image enhancement is acceptable practice. However, during manipulation of images a positive relationship between the original data and the resulting electronic image must be maintained to avoid the presentation of unrepresentative data as well as the loss of meaningful signals. If a figure has been subjected to significant electronic manipulation, the specific nature of the enhancements must be noted in the figure legend or in the 'Materials and methods' section. The Editors reserve the right to request original versions of the figures and the original images that were used to assemble the figure from the authors of a paper under consideration. Rejection of the manuscript may occur in cases where the original data is not presented or was misrepresented. The following publication is a good reference for acceptable practices: Rossner M, Yamada KM (2004) What's in a picture? The temptation of image manipulation. J Cell Biol 166: 11-15. Please ensure your submission complies with the good-practice standards described therein.
Submission to public databases EMBO Molecular Medicine will only review and publish manuscripts if the authors agree to make all data that cannot be published in the Journal itself (e.g. novel nucleotide sequences, structural data or data from large-scale gene expression experiments) freely available in one of the public databases (see Submission to public databases below). Accession codes must be provided at the time a revised manuscript is returned to the Editorial Office. To avoid delays in publication of the manuscript, we encourage authors to deposit relevant data in public databases prior to submission. The authors may request that the data be stored in a confidential section of the database, in which they can request passwords from the database administrators and these should be passed on to the Editorial Office to allow the editors and referees to anonymously access the information during the review process. Further information on submitting to public databases can be found here.
Supporting information for the editors and the reviewers All manuscripts under review or accepted for publication elsewhere should accompany the submission if they are relevant to its scientific assessment. Authors should also provide at submission any kind of supplementary material that will aid the review process.

Submission
The Editors reserve the right to return manuscripts that are not in accordance with the following instructions.
Manuscripts must be written in clear and concise English and be intelligible to a broad readership. Non-native speakers of English may find this section useful. Authors may mention the names of potential reviewers to include in or to exclude from the review process when submitting their manuscript. Papers are, in general, reviewed by three appropriate referees selected by the Editors and based on their reports, the decision concerning publication, revision or rejection is taken. Papers may be returned to authors without review if in the judgment of the Editors they fail to meet the criteria of wide medical significance and novelty, or if they are considered too preliminary.
We will acknowledge receipt of a submitted manuscript by e-mail as soon as an Editor has been assigned to the paper. All further correspondence will also be by e-mail.
The Editorial Office will handle pre-submission inquiries but does not encourage enquiries based simply on abstracts. This is because it is often difficult to judge a paper based on limited information in an abstract and/or covering letter and without seeing the relevant data. We prefer instead submissions of full manuscripts [regardless of their format] or of an abstract and accompanying figures and figure legends. This allows us to make a more informed decision on the manuscript and to give authors a rapid decision in case we feel the manuscript is not appropriate for the Journal, or otherwise invite submission of the manuscript.

General format
The total character count (including spaces) for a full-length Research article, including the title page, abstract, figure legends and references (excluding tables and supporting material) may not exceed 60,000 characters (the exact character count to be printed on the title page). For a Report, the character limit is 27,500 characters. Manuscripts exceeding these limits at submission may be returned to the authors for amendment. Please consider including a supporting information section (see below) if your manuscript exceeds the above limitations. The total length of an article when published should not exceed 10 pages for a research article, and 7 pages for a Report. Please bear in mind the total page limits when preparing figures and tables.
Please use 'Times' font at 10 or 12 point size for all text pages, 'Symbol' font for non-Latin characters, and 'Arial or Sans-serif' font for lettering on figures. 'Courier' font may be used for sequence data. Number each page at the bottom (Title page is 1).

Introduction
The Introduction should be succinct and provide only the necessary background information, rather than a comprehensive review of the specific field. It should not contain subheadings.

Results and discussion
These sections should each be divided by subheadings and may be combined into one section if appropriate.

Materials and methods
This section should contain sufficient details so that all experimental procedures can be repeated by others, in conjunction with cited references. EMBO Molecular Medicine encourages detailed descriptions of methodology or additional materials to be included as Supporting information. This information should, however, not be of immediate importance for the understanding of the manuscript.
Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. Published articles as well as those in press (please state the name of the journal and enclose a copy of the manuscript) may be included. In the text of the manuscript, a reference should be cited by author and year of publication; no more than two authors may be cited per reference; 'et al' should be used if there are more than two authors (Ferrier & Lunkes, 2003;Wiersdorff et al, 2000).
In the reference list, citations should be listed in alphabetical order and then chronologically, with the authors' surnames and initials inverted; et al should not be used unless there are more than 10 authors. Publications by the same author(s) in the same year should be identified with a, b, c after the year of publication. The name of each journal should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus and italicized.
References should therefore be listed (and will subsequently appear in print) as follows: Personal communications (J Doe, personal communication, 2001) should be authorized in writing by those involved, and unpublished data should be cited as (J Smith and D Jones, unpublished data, 2001). Authors are responsible for requesting and presenting such authorizations. References to manuscripts in preparation or submitted, but not yet accepted, should be cited in the text as (C Lee and N Jones, in preparation), not as (C Lee and N Jones, submitted), and should not be included in the list of references.
Please download the Endnote Styles to format your manuscript at http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp   Tables  Tables should be typed on separate sheets and numbered  consecutively with Roman numerals (I, II, III, IV). Tables should be self-explanatory and include a brief descriptive title. Footnotes to tables indicated by lower-case superscript letters are acceptable, but they should not include extensive experimental details.

Supporting information
Authors should ensure that supporting information is supplied in its FINAL format because this will not be subedited and will appear online exactly as originally submitted. It cannot be altered, nor new supporting information added, after the paper has been accepted for publication. Supporting information is peer-reviewed material directly relevant to the conclusions of an article that cannot be included in the printed version owing to space or format constraints. It is posted on the Journal's web site and linked to the article when the article is published and may consist of additional text, figures, movies or extensive tables.
The printed article must be complete and self-explanatory without the supporting information. Supporting information should enhance, but not be essential to, a reader's understanding of the paper. While EMBO Molecular Medicine encourages authors to supply additional, extensive descriptions of the materials and methods used in a study as supporting information, it is not permissible to move the entire 'Materials and methods' section (or any other section of the manuscript) into the online supplement. Supporting information must be supplied to the Editorial Office in its final form for peer review. Supporting information is not subedited, so authors should ensure that it is supplied ready for publication online. Please see below for acceptable file formats and sizes (Supporting information).
Supporting data describing the results of microarray studies or similar large-scale expression experiments should be deposited with one of the public databases (ArrayExpress (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/) or GEO (http://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/)) prior to submission of the paper. To avoid delays in publication of the manuscript, we encourage authors to deposit relevant data in public databases prior to submission. The authors may request that the data be stored in a confidential section of the database, for which they can request passwords from the database administrators, and these should be passed on to the Editorial Office to allow the editors and referees to anonymously access the information during the review process. Authors may submit the data in a MIAME format on CD-ROMs in a form accessible on different computer systems at the time of submission if they have not received passwords from the database administrators yet.

Conventions
In general, the Journal follows conventions given in Scientific Style and Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors and Publishers (1994) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 6th edn. Please follow Chemical Abstracts and its indexes for chemical names. For guidance in the use of biochemical terminology follow the recommendations issued by the IUPAC-IUBMB Joint Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature. In general, genotypes should be indicated in italics; phenotypes should not be italicized.

Abbreviations
Try to restrict the use of abbreviations to SI symbols and those recommended by the IUPAC. Abbreviations should be defined and symbols of chemical elements may be used without definition in the body of the paper. Abbreviations of standard biochemical compounds, e.g. ATP, DNA, nucleotides in nucleic acids, and amino acids in proteins, need not be defined.

How to submit
We are using an online manuscript submission and tracking system, which can be accessed at: http://embomolmed. msubmit.net. For original submissions, you will need to upload a Word file of the text of the manuscript (including figure legends), a PDF file containing all the figures and a cover letter.
Alternatively individual figure files can be uploaded separately but please note that this can be more time-consuming than a PDF submission. Additional supporting files can also be uploaded when applicable (please refer to the section 'Supporting information' above).
Once you have submitted your files and the conversion is in progress, you may log off the Internet and come back later to check and approve the conversion. This process can take up to 5-10 minutes before the PDF, created in the conversion process, is ready for approval. Please remember that your manuscript will not be submitted until you have approved the converted files. To avoid any unnecessary delays, please refer to the most current electronic formatting guidelines when preparing your manuscript for submission. Authors using computer systems with non-Western type encoding are strongly encouraged to eliminate all occurrences of nonstandard fonts in both the manuscript and the figures. We suggest using only the fonts Times, Symbol, Courier and Helvetica.

Revisions
When a manuscript is returned to authors for revision, the revised version should be submitted within 3 months of the authors' receipt of the referee reports. If a revised manuscript is returned thereafter, it will generally be considered as a new submission. Additional time for revision can be granted upon request, at the Editors' discretion. Only a single round of revision will be permitted. Authors will be provided with a URL in the letter of decision regarding the original version of the manuscript. Please use this URL for submission of revised manuscripts.

Format of text
The Editorial Office will only accept text files in RTF or MS Word format. The final character count must be clearly indicated on the title page of the revised manuscript. Manuscripts that do not comply with the formatting guidelines above, or exceed the length restrictions, will not be considered and returned to the authors for amendment. Please submit the full text (including figure legends, tables and references) as an MS Word or RTF file, named ''<5-digit manuscript number>.doc'' or ''<5-digit manuscript number>.rtf' ' (e.g. '48000.doc' or '48000.rtf').

Saving files with Microsoft Office 2007
Microsoft Office 2007 saves files in an XML format by default (file extensions .docx, .pptx and xlsx). Files saved in this format cannot be accepted for publication.
Save Word documents using the file extension .doc

Illustrations
When submitting a revised manuscript, it is essential to include high-quality computer files for all figures, which will be used for the production process.
We can only accept one file per figure. Composite figures containing multiple panels must be collected into one file before submission and must be scaled such that they can be reproduced on a single printed page. The figure files must be labelled in the following way: 'Fig_1.eps ','Fig_2.tif','Fig_3.psd','Fig_4.ai',etc. Please do not use an alternative labelling system and do not include the manuscript number in the file names.
Composite figures may be assembled in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator and may be submitted in the default formats offered by these programs. If it is not possible to send artwork in the above formats, the Editorial Office can accept line drawings and composite figures in EPS format, and halftone figures in TIFF (please be sure to use LZW compression) or EPS formats. Highquality PDF or MS PowerPoint files for figures may also be acceptable.
All lettering should be done using standard fonts (Helvetica, Times, Symbol, Courier) and retained in a separate layer (if possible) so that the production team can adapt any labels to the Journal's style if necessary. All fonts used for labelling the figures should also be embedded in the final files if the software package offers this option.
All colour artwork must be submitted in CMYK colour mode. When converting files from RGB, please consider that the final figures will be printed on coated paper, using Euroscale process inks. If you are not familiar with these specifications, or are not sure how to apply them within your software package, please consult a local graphics expert. Ultimately, it is important that all colours look satisfactory after conversion to CMYK, both on screen and when printed on different printers. Figures supplied electronically should have the following resolution: Type Resolution Graphs 800-1200 DPI Photos 400-800 DPI Colour (only CMYK) 300-400 DPI Free colour on the web All figures where colour is required for proper understanding of the data presented must be printed in colour. In certain cases, if colour is not mandatory, authors may choose to have their figures printed in black and white but have colour versions of individual figures on the html and online PDF version of the article. This option is subject to prior approval by the editor.

Supporting information
Supporting information must be supplied in one of the following file formats: Unfortunately, we cannot accept TeX and LaTeX. Data supplied in other formats cannot be considered for online publication. File sizes must be as small as possible, so that they can be downloaded quickly. The number of files should be limited to 10 and individual files should not be larger than 1MB (PDF or Excel files), 8MB (movie files) and 6MB (image files). Please provide figure legends below the Figure in question. Please seek advice from the Editorial Office before sending files larger than our maximum size to avoid delays in reviewing and publication.
It is important that you name the supporting files 'Sup_1.pdf', 'Sup_2.xls', 'Sup_3.mpg', etc. Please do not use an alternative labelling system. The supporting information may not be altered, nor new supporting information added, after the paper has been accepted for publication. Please refer to each supporting item in the body of the text or the figure legends. You should also include the text 'Supporting information is available at EMBO Molecular Medicine online' at the end of the article and before the references.

Submission to public databases
EMBO Molecular Medicine requires submission of novel sequence, structural and large scale analysis data to the appropriate public databases. We will not accept an article for publication until the relevant entry codes have been provided. These must be quoted in the text of the article. Please note that this policy applies even to short stretches of novel sequence information (e.g. epitopes, functional domains, genetic markers or haplotypes). Such short novel sequences must include surrounding sequence information in order to provide context. The sequences of all RNAi, antisense and morpholino probes must be included in the paper, or deposited in a public database with the accession number quoted. When an unpublished library is included in the paper, sequences of the probes central to the conclusions of the paper must be presented.

Sequence data
Nucleotide sequence data can be submitted in electronic form to any one of the three major collaborative databases: Structural data EMBO Molecular Medicine accepts and follows the recommendations of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), with regard to the deposition and release of macromolecular structural data. These guidelines are set out in the article by the IUCr Commission on Biological Macromolecules in Acta Crystallographica (2000), D56, 2. In summary, they state that all publications must be accompanied by deposition of both the atomic coordinates and the structure-factor amplitudes in the appropriate database (PDB or NDB). In the case of lowresolution structures for which only a chain trace is reported, a set of C alpha positions and structure-factor amplitudes may be sufficient. For NMR structures, data deposited should include resonance assignments, and all restraints used in structure determination (NOEs, spin-spin coupling constants, amide exchange rates, etc.) and the derived atomic coordinates for both an individual structure and for a family of acceptable structures.
Structures of biological macromolecules solved by electron microscopy must be submitted to the EMDB database at http:// www.ebi.ac.uk/msd/Deposition.html. For a brief description of the database, see Tagari  Under exceptional circumstances and upon request, the Editors may grant a delay of up to 6 months for deposition or the release of deposited data.
EMBO Molecular Medicine requires submission of microarray data to the ArrayExpress (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/) or GEO (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/) databases, and provision of accession numbers before acceptance of the paper for publication.

Proteomics data
Proteomics databases include the International Molecular Exchange consortium; PRIDE; IntAct; PeptideAtlas; Tranche; and the Global Proteome Machine Organization.

Other large-scale datasets
To facilitate access to data associated with studies published in EMBO Molecular Medicine we ask you to provide in supporting information the dataset(s) used in the study in a format that would allow others to reproduce the essential aspects of the analysis and use/compare/integrate your data in other studies.

Speed of publication
The journal aims for rapid publication of papers, using two modes of advance online publication, ''Early View'' and ''Accepted Article Express'' to expedite the process. Once a manuscript is accepted, the authors can choose to have their version of the manuscript (unformatted and unproofed) available (Accepted Article Express). This will be posted on the web as soon as possible after acceptance (usually within 48 h). Alternatively, only a properly copy-edited and formatted version will be published as ''Early View'' after the proofs have been corrected. Please help the Editors and publisher avoid delays by providing e-mail address(es), telephone and fax numbers at which author(s) can be contacted.

Proofs
The corresponding author will be sent an email with the galley proof attached. These should be printed, annotated for necessary corrections (which should be detailed in a covering letter in case the FAX is unclear), and then returned by FAX to The Production Editor, Wiley-Blackwell, embomol-med@wiley.com, Fax: þ49 62 01 606 226 AND to the Editorial Office, info@embomolmed.org, Fax þ49 6221 8891 240. In the interests of speed, corrections should be returned within 48 hours. Essential changes of an extensive nature may be made only by insertion of a 'Note added in proof', and only with the approval of the Editors. A charge will be made to authors who insist on extensive amendment within the text at the page proof stage. Excessive alterations may delay publication of the article.

EMBO open charges
Upon acceptance of an article authors are given the option to pay a fee in order to make their article Open-Access immediately upon publication. The fee is $3.000 (plus VAT where applicable). EMBO Open articles are published either under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license or a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license, depending on the choice of the authors, or their funding agencies. A copy of the EMBO Open license can be found on the Journal's homepage.