Editorial policies

The responsible editor controls the editorial assessment and final decision. Editors and reviewers must disclose financial, personal, institutional or collaborative interests that could affect—or reasonably appear to affect—their judgment. A conflicted editor or reviewer must recuse themselves, and the manuscript will be reassigned. Publisher and commercial staff do not decide whether a manuscript is accepted.

JBBS uses single-blind peer review: reviewer identities are confidential while author identities are visible. Authors may request double-blind review by providing an anonymized manuscript and separate identifying information. Research manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by two to three independent reviewers with relevant expertise. Reviewer reports advise the editor; they do not determine the decision. Revised manuscripts may be returned to reviewers when substantive issues remain.

Every listed author must have made a substantial contribution, approve the submitted and final versions, and accept accountability for the work. The corresponding author must confirm the author list and disclose any change proposed after submission. Contributors who do not qualify for authorship should be acknowledged with their permission. Ghost, guest and gift authorship are not permitted. Accepted manuscripts should describe contributor roles using the CRediT taxonomy.

Authors must disclose funding, sponsor involvement, employment, consultancies, patents, equity, advisory roles and other interests relevant to the work. Editors and reviewers must make equivalent disclosures before handling a manuscript. Funding and competing-interest statements are published with accepted articles.

A data-availability statement is required for every research article. Non-sensitive data, code, protocols and sequence or structural records should be deposited in an appropriate repository with persistent identifiers or accession numbers. Restrictions must be explained and remain consistent with consent, law and ethics approvals.

• Identify critical antibodies, reagents, microbial strains, plasmids, vectors, constructs and model organisms with supplier, catalog, repository and validation details where available.
• Report study design, biological and technical replicates, sample-size rationale, exclusions, randomization, blinding, statistical tests, assumptions, effect estimates and uncertainty.
• Apply image adjustments consistently. Disclose splicing, grouping or contrast changes that could affect interpretation, and retain original uncropped files.

Submissions must be original, properly attributed and not under consideration elsewhere. JBBS screens manuscripts for text similarity. Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, undisclosed duplicate publication, inappropriate image manipulation and interference with peer review are prohibited. Suspected misconduct is assessed using documented evidence and appropriate publication-ethics guidance; institutions or funders may be contacted when necessary.

JBBS corrects the published record when errors affect accuracy, attribution or interpretation. An expression of concern may be issued while a serious matter is investigated. Retraction may be appropriate when findings are unreliable, research was unethical, publication is redundant or serious misconduct is established. Notices remain linked to the affected article and state the reason for the action. Crossmark is used to communicate record updates where applicable.

An author may appeal an editorial decision by sending a reasoned request and supporting evidence to [email protected]. An editor who was not responsible for the original decision will review the appeal where practicable. Complaints about process, conduct or publication ethics should be sent to the same address. An appeal is not a second round of peer review and does not guarantee a changed decision.

The approved manuscript-withdrawal terms are provided on the Article Processing Charges page.

Authors retain copyright. Published JBBS articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which permits sharing and adaptation with appropriate attribution. Authors are responsible for third-party permissions. Posting on a recognized preprint server does not by itself prevent submission, but the preprint and its identifier must be disclosed. Simultaneous submission to another journal is not permitted.

An AI system cannot be an author. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, citations, data and images in their submission and must disclose generative AI use that materially affected text, analysis, code or figures. Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscript content or personal data to an unauthorized AI service. Tool use must preserve confidentiality and cannot replace human judgment or accountability.