Instruction for Authors

Overview

Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described has not been published elsewhere (except for conference abstracts). Furthermore, the work is not under consideration for publication anywhere else and its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities tacitly or explicitly at the institute where the work has been carried out.

Before you decide to publish with Regenerative Medicine and Dentistry (RMD), please read the following items carefully and make sure that you are well aware of Open Access Policies and Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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. It should explain why the manuscript fits the scope of the journal.

All cover letters are required to include the following statements:

  • We confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal.
  • All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to RMD.

Types of Publications

RMD does not require special formatting during the initial submission. Authors may follow any scholarly format or layout. This also includes references, as long as the citation style is consistent throughout the entire manuscript. However, authors are required to follow the specific guidelines based on the article type outlined below.

RMD welcomes novel, timely, substantial contributions in but not limited to the following types:

Article

The work should report scientifically sound experiments and provide a substantial amount of new information. The article should include the most recent and relevant references in the field. Articles should contain the Title page, Abstract and Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions (optional) sections. Introduction and Discussion should not contain any subheads.

Word count: The suggested minimum word count is 3500 words, not including references, affiliations, tables and figures.

Review

Detailed, critical surveys of published research. A review article may summarize previously published studies and draw some conclusions but will not present new information on the subject. Includes Reviews, Review of Literature, Mini-reviews, and Systematic reviews. Review articles should have appropriate section headings and subheadings chosen by the author.

Reviews should not present new, unpublished data. The structure may include Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Discussion, Conclusion and Prospective.

Case Report

A “Case Report” or “Case” is a short report on one patient in medicine and public health literature.

Letter

Brief Contributions or correspondence from the readers to the journal editor concerning previously published material. Includes “Readers Write”, “Questions and Answers”, “Letters to the Editor” and “Comments”.

Manuscript Preparation

The manuscript should be in the following order:

1. Front Matter

1.1. Title

The title of the manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant. When gene or protein names are included, the abbreviated name rather than full name should be used.

1.2 Authors and Affiliations

Authors’ full names should be listed. The initials of middle names can be provided. Institutional addresses and email addresses for all authors should be listed. At least one author should be designated as the corresponding author. As part of our efforts to improve transparency in authorship, we recommended all corresponding authors of accepted papers to provide their Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier ID (ORCID), before submitting the final version of the manuscript.

1.3 Abstract

Abstract (up to 250 words): The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions, but the presentation of experimental details should be avoided. Please do not present detailed/numbered values.

1.4 Keywords

Two to six keywords should be provided, which are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.

2. Main Text

Manuscripts should be structured according to the Types of Publications (see above).

2.1 Figures and Tables

Figures and tables should appear in the body of the paper near the place where they are mentioned. High-resolution images should also be uploaded separately as figure files. The figures and tables should be cited in numeric order in the text.

All image files for figures should be labeled with the figure number (label each part if the figures include multiple parts, e.g., 2A, 2B). The figure legend should be placed below each figure and should include descriptions of each figure part and identify the meaning of any symbols or arrows. Terms used for labels and in the legend must be consistent with those in the text.

All figures should be of a high quality (preferably no less than 600 dpi) in PNG, JPEG or TIFF formats.

Authors are encouraged to prepare figures and schemes in color (RGB at 8-bit per channel). There is no additional cost for publishing full-color graphics.

Images should be combined to avoid any issues during formatting changes. There should be no editable parts in the images.

Figures for papers accepted for publication must meet the image resolution requirements. Files for line-based drawings (no grayscale) should ideally be submitted in the format they were originally created; if submitting scanned versions, files should be 1200 dots per inch (dpi). Color photos should be submitted at 600 dpi and black-and-white photos at 300 dpi.

Charts and graphs can be submitted in the original form created (e.g., Word, Excel, or PowerPoint). Photographs or scanned drawings embedded in Word or PowerPoint are not acceptable for publication.

All photographs of patients that disclose their identity must be accompanied by a signed photographic release granting permission for their likeness to be reproduced in the article. If this is not provided, the patient’s eyes must be occluded to prevent recognition.

For tables, the system accepts most common word processing formats. Tables should have a title that describes the content and purpose of the table. Tables should enhance, not duplicate, information in the text.

If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s).

3. Back Matter

3.1 Supplementary Materials

Additional data and information can be uploaded as Supplementary Materials to accompany the manuscripts. The supplementary materials will also be available to the referees as part of the peer-review process. Any file format is acceptable, such as data sheet (Word, Excel, csv, cdx, fasta, pdf or zip files), presentation (PowerPoint, pdf or zip files), image (cdx, eps, jpeg, pdf, png or tiff), table (Word, Excel, csv or pdf), audio (mp3, wav or wma) or video (avi, divx, flv, mov, mp4, mpeg, mpg or wmv). All information should be clearly presented. Supplementary materials should be cited in the main text in numeric order (e.g., Supplementary Figure 1, Supplementary Figure 2, Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Table 2, etc.). The style of supplementary figures or tables complies with the same requirements on figures or tables in main text. Videos and audios should be prepared in English, and limited to a size of 500 MB.

3.2 Author Contributions

Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; AND has approved the submitted version (and version substantially edited by journal staff that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature.

For research articles with multiple authors, a brief paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the reported work. The following statements should be used “A.A.: conceptualization, methodology, software; B.B.: data curation, writing—original draft preparation; C.C.: visualization, investigation; D.D.: supervision; E.E.: software, validation; F.F.: writing—reviewing and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.”

3.3 Funding

All sources of funding for the study should be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work and if you received funds to cover publication costs. Note that some funders will not refund article processing charges (APC) if the funder and grant number are not clearly and correctly identified in the paper.

Please add: “This research received no external funding” or “This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]” and “The APC was funded by [XXX]” in this section. Check carefully that the details given are accurate and use the standard spelling of funding agency names at https://search.crossref.org/funding, any errors may affect your future funding.

3.4. Institutional Review Board Statement

In this section, please add the Institutional Review Board Statement and approval number for studies involving humans or animals. Please note that the Editorial Office might ask you for further information. Please add “The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of NAME OF INSTITUTE (protocol code XXX and date of approval).” OR “Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification).” OR “Not applicable” for studies not involving humans or animals. You might also choose to exclude this statement if the study did not involve humans or animals.

3.5. Informed Consent Statement

Any research article describing a study involving humans should contain this statement. Please add “Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.” OR “Patient consent was waived due to REASON (please provide a detailed justifica-tion).” OR “Not applicable.” for studies not involving humans. You might also choose to exclude this statement if the study did not involve humans.

Written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified (including by the patients themselves). Please state “Written informed consent has been obtained from the patient(s) to publish this paper” if applicable.

3.6 Data Availability and Statistical Reporting

RMD aims to publish both experimental and observational research. Submission of study protocols is highly recommended, alongside the statistical codes underpinning the results (ideally available in web repositories, i.e., GitHub, OSF). Results should be reported alongside measures of uncertainty (confidence or credible intervals) and emphasis given on the effect size rather than “statistical significance”. Categorizing of continuous data is not recommended. Authors should clearly state how missing data and multiple testing have been handled and the statistical section should report the software used to perform the analysis, including non-routine packages/commands. Sensitivity analyses are encouraged to assess the robustness of the results.

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the manuscript for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least 10 years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release.

3.7 Acknowledgements (if any)

In this section, you can acknowledge any support not covered by the author’s contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical assistance or in-kind donations, such as materials used for experiments. Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgments section.

3.8 Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose all pertinent commercial and other relationships during submission.

3.9 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 EndNote, Reference Manager or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. We encourage citations to data, computer code and other citable research material.

In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3].

The reference list should include the full title, as recommended by the ACS style guide. Style files for Endnote and Zotero are available.

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

  • Journal Articles:
    Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the Article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range.
  • Books and Book Chapters:
    Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 298–351.
    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. 298–351.
  • Unpublished materials intended for publication:
    Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work (optional). Correspondence Affiliation, City, State, Country. Year, status (manuscript in preparation; to be submitted). 
    Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, phrase indicating stage of publication (submitted; accepted; in press). 
  • Unpublished materials not intended for publication:
    Author 1, A.B. (Affiliation, City, State, Country); Author 2, C. (Affiliation, City, State, Country). Phase describing the material, Year. (phase: Personal communication; Private communication; Unpublished work; etc.)
  • Conference Proceedings:
    Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D.; Author 3, E.F. Title of Presentation. In Title of the Collected Work (if available), Proceedings of the Name of the Conference, Location of Conference, Country, Date of Conference; Editor 1, Editor 2, Eds. (if available); Publisher: City, Country, Year (if available); Abstract Number (optional), Pagination (optional).
  • Thesis:
    Author 1, A.B. Title of Thesis. Level of Thesis, Degree-Granting University, Location of University, Date of Completion.
  • Websites:
    Title of Site. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year).
  • Archived websites
    Unlike published works, websites may change over time or disappear, so we encourage you create an archive of the cited website using a service such as WebCite. Archived websites should be cited using the link provided as follows:
    Title of Site. URL (archived on Day Month Year).

Authorship

RMD follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which state that, to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, the following criteria should be observed:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments. More detailed guidance on authorship is given by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Any change to the author list should be approved by all authors including any who have been removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication. We reserve the right to request confirmation that all authors meet the authorship conditions.

For more details about authorship please check Publication Ethics website.

Ethics Approval Statement

RMD is committed to publishing research that adheres to recognized ethical principles and relevant regulatory requirements. Authors must ensure that studies involving human participants are conducted in accordance with Declaration of Helsinki and other applicable ethical standards.

The journal integrates ethical assessment into its standard editorial and peer review procedures. These considerations apply to all types of research involving human participants, including research studies, clinical investigations, audits, surveys, evaluations, case reports, and other forms of academic work involving human subjects. For all studies involving human subjects and/or animals, including case reports and case series, authors are required to provide the following relevant information:

  • The full name of the ethics committee or Institutional Review Board (IRB) that granted approval for the study, along with the corresponding approval number or reference ID.
  • A clear statement indicating whether ethical approval was waived. Where a waiver has been granted, authors must provide a clear justification and confirm that the study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
  • A formal declaration that written informed consent was obtained from all participants. The journal reserves the right to request supporting documentation at any stage of the editorial process. If only verbal consent was obtained, authors must provide the reason(s) for the absence of written consent.

In addition, authors are encouraged to provide further information describing how ethical considerations were addressed during the study. If such information cannot be fully incorporated into the manuscript, it may be provided as supplementary material at the time of submission. The journal may request participant information materials or other documents relevant to the ethical review process. Although such materials are not normally published, they may be made available to editors, reviewers, or advisory committees when necessary. Ethical issues may be assessed during peer review and editorial evaluation.

RMD endorses and follows the Core Practices and the associated Guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The journal’s editorial policies and practices are consistently aligned with COPE’s principles of transparency, integrity, and accountability in scholarly publishing. The Editors are committed to promoting publication ethics, research integrity, and responsible scholarly communication. For further details, please refer to our Publishing Ethics policy. All authors are required to adhere strictly to the ethical guidelines outlined by the journal.

a. Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting research involving human participants, human-derived materials, human tissues, biological specimens, or identifiable human data, authors must confirm that the study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and relevant ethical, legal, and institutional requirements. Where required, approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or other appropriate ethics committee must be obtained before the study is conducted. Any additional ethical or regulatory requirements applicable to the study should also be reported. The approval number, date of approval, name of the relevant ethics committee or Institutional Review Board (IRB), as well as the specific title of applicable ethical guidelines and regulatory frameworks, must be explicitly stated in the "Institutional Review Board Statement" section.

If ethical approval is not required, authors must either provide an exemption from the ethics committee or cite the local or national legislation indicating that ethics approval is not required for this type of study. Where an exemption from ethical review has been granted, authors should identify the ethics committee or review body responsible for the decision and provide a clear explanation of the basis for the exemption in the ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ section.

Where a manuscript includes patient case details, personal information, or identifiable images, authors must ensure that informed consent for publication has been obtained from the patient or an appropriate legal representative before submission to RMD

Information relating to individual participants should be reported in sufficient detail to support the findings of the study, but identifying information should not be included unless it is necessary for the scientific purpose of the research (e.g., photographs of participants’ faces which show a particular symptom). Any personally identifiable information, including patient initials or other direct identifiers, must be removed from figures and graphical materials unless disclosure is scientifically justified and explicitly approved. Authors should ensure that all patient-related information is appropriately anonymized; for instance, demographic information including age, ethnicity or occupational status, should only be reported when scientifically relevant to the study objectives. The journal may request a blank copy of the consent form used for the study where necessary. To protect the privacy of patients and other individuals, signed consent forms should not be submitted unless specifically requested by the journal. Authors may be asked to provide evidence of consent during editorial assessment where necessary. Manuscripts that do not satisfy these requirements may be subject to further review and may not be considered for publication.

Research with vulnerable populations may require additional ethical review or supplementary clarification during the editorial assessment process. Authors must supply supporting evidence such as consent documents and ethical review records upon editorial inquiry. Furthermore, if research subjects are categorized according to race, ethnicity, sex, gender, disability, disease status or other demographic attributes, manuscripts must explicitly elaborate the scientific justifications underlying such classification schemes.

For any research involving clinical trials, prospective registration is imperative. Authors shall ensure that the study is registered in a publicly available clinical trial registry that meets the recognition standards of the World Health Organization’s International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). The registry name, registration number, and registration date should be reported in the Institutional Review Board Statement or in the Materials and Methods section.

b. Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research

All animal studies must be reported in compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines, where applicable, and conducted in adherence to relevant national and international legislation as well as institutional animal welfare standards. These may include the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Bred, Supplied, or Used for Scientific Purposes, the Scientific Basis for Regulation of Animal Care and Use, and applicable regulations on animal research.

Authors should ensure that the principles of the ‘3Rs’ are considered in the design and conduct of the study: Replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible, Reduction in the number of animals used, and Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize harm to animals.

Approval from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or other appropriate committee is required. Any additional guidelines or regulations under which the study was conducted should also be reported. The approval number, date of approval, name of the relevant ethics committee or Institutional Review Board (IRB), as well as the specific title of applicable ethical guidelines and regulatory frameworks, must be explicitly stated in the "Institutional Review Board Statement" section.

If ethical approval is not required by national laws, authors must provide an exemption from the ethics committee, if available. Where an exemption has been granted, the name of the ethics committee that provided this should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’, together with a full explanation on why ethical approval was not required.

c. Research Involving Cell Lines

Research involving cell lines should state the source of the cell line, including when and from where it was obtained. Authors should also indicate whether cell lines were authenticated and tested for mycoplasma contamination.

d. Research Involving Plants

Research involving plant materials should comply with applicable legal, regulatory, and institutional requirements. Authors should provide sufficient information regarding the source, collection, identification, and documentation of plant materials used in the study to support transparency and reproducibility.

Where plant specimens are collected from natural populations, authors should retain appropriate voucher specimens or reference materials and deposit them in a recognized collection where feasible. Information regarding the collection locality, date, and specimen identification should be reported where relevant.

Studies involving protected, rare, threatened, or endangered species should comply with applicable conservation regulations and permitting requirements. Where standard specimen deposition is not possible, authors should provide an explanation of the alternative measures used to document the material and support verification of the research findings.

Authors are encouraged to consider relevant international agreements, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), where applicable.

Copyright and Permission to Reproduce Material

If your article makes use of any previously published material (including figures/diagrams, or short extracts, or content taken from websites) then you must first obtain the written permission of the copyright owner. The copyright owner is usually the publisher (for material taken from journal or proceedings articles), website owner/company (for material taken from websites) or the author or their employer (if the work is unpublished). Some publishers will also require that you seek the permission of the original author. You will need to check the terms of the publisher’s permission.

We ask you to submit written evidence:

  • That all necessary permissions have been obtained by providing the actual written permission granted by the copyright owner, or
  • That permission is not required, e.g., where the material is available under one of the Creative Commons licenses which allow commercial reuse and suits the purpose for which you want to reuse the content.

More details please check our Open Access Policy.

Preprints and Conference Papers

RMD accepts submissions that have previously been made available as preprints provided that they have not undergone peer review. A preprint is a draft version of a paper made available online before submission to a journal.

Expanded and high-quality conference papers can be considered as articles if they fulfill the following requirements: (1) the paper should be expanded to the size of a research article; (2) the conference paper should be cited and noted on the first page of the paper; (3) if the authors do not hold the copyright of the published conference paper, authors should seek the appropriate permission from the copyright holder; (4) authors are asked to disclose that it is conference paper in their cover letter and include a statement on what has been changed compared to the original conference paper. RMD does not publish pilot studies or studies with inadequate statistical power.

Intellectual Property and Author Rights

In adherence to the principles of open access publishing and to facilitate widespread distribution, authors submitting to RMD are under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This commitment to open access and the utilization of Creative Commons Licenses aligns with our mission to enhance the accessibility and impact of scholarly work within the academic community and beyond, which allows users to unrestrictedly read, print, download, disseminate, reproduce, alter, transform, or build upon the article, including for commercial and non-commercial purposes, as long as the original author is credited. For more information on Copyright Permission click here.

Author Rights & Responsibilities:

  • Intellectual Property Ownership:
    Authors affirm that the submitted manuscript (and any accompanying materials) represents their original intellectual property, and they have not transferred the copyright to any third party.
  • Integrity Assurance:
    Authors certify that the manuscript contains no plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, or manipulated citations and conforms to RMD authorship policies.
  • Copyright Permissions:
    Authors confirm that appropriate permissions have been secured from copyright holders for any copyrighted tables, figures, data, text, etc., reproduced in the manuscript.
  • Confidentiality Agreement:
    Authors commit to keeping confidential all communications, comments, or reports exchanged between authors and reviewers or editors. The privacy of these interactions is paramount to the integrity of the review process.

Update in June 2025