Journal Introduction
The Journal of Nanjing Medical University (Natural Sciences) is the official journal of Nanjing Medical University, established in 1956. It is a monthly publication with ISSN 1007-4368, CN32-1442/R. The journal is indexed in A Guide to the Core Journal of China and has consistently appeared from the 3rd edition to the 10th edition (2000 to present). It is recognized by the key magazine of China technology. The journal is also indexed by Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), Index Copernicus (IC), Japan Science and Technology Agency, Chinese Bibliographic Database (JST China), EBSCO, ASCI, and other internationally renowned databases, and has been awarded several times for outstanding journals and outstanding teams by Society of China University Journals (CUJS).
Aim and Scope
The Journal of Nanjing Medical University (Natural Sciences) is a general medical journal aiming to facilitate the development of science and technology, nurture academic talents, and promote academic communication. It publishes novel achievements, theories, technologies, and experiences in the fields of basic medicine, clinical medicine, public health, artificial intelligence, and interdisciplinary research between medicine and engineering.
Scope of Submission
The journal primarily publishes original articles (fundamental research, clinical research, public health, medical imaging, and interdisciplinary studies such as artificial intelligence applications, technologies, and methods), reviews, and clinical case reports of rare diseases. Priority of publishing is given to multicentre, large sample, prospective, and randomized controlled clinical studies, invited submissions, reviews, and research funded by national grants. Submissions that include original videos (e.g., surgical procedures or experimental operations) are also encouraged. In principle, 6,000-8,000 words (including figures and tables) are required for original articles, 8,000-10,000 words for reviews, and 4,000-5,000 words for case reports. Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics analyses or meta-analyses cannot be accepted. Due to the attributes of the journal, research papers must highlight innovation. Author(s) are encouraged to emphasize their innovative perspectives and findings in their works. Low-level, repetitive studies will not be considered for publication.
Manuscript Requirements
1. Ethical Requirements
-Research Integrity: The journal reserves the right to access original experimental or clinical case records and trace data related to manuscripts during the review process and after acceptance to verify the authenticity of results. In cases of suspected academic misconduct, the journal will investigate following the handling guidelines. If academic misconduct is confirmed, manuscripts under review will be rejected, published articles will be retracted, and the investigation results will be promptly notified to the author’s affiliated institution. The editorial office will handle cases of academic misconduct in accordance with the guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
-Medical Ethics: For papers involving human clinical trials, author(s) must provide ethical approval documentation. Studies involving patients (subjects) must include their signed informed consent forms. If the author(s)’ institution lacks an ethics committee, author(s) must indicate whether the research adheres to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Clinical trial studies should be registered with the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) in principle, and the registration number must be included in the manuscript. For papers involving animal experiments, authors must state compliance with the 3R principles (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement), provide approval from an animal ethics committee, and attach the supporting documentation.
-Authorship: The authorship order should be discussed and determined by all authors before submission and should not be changed after submission. Author(s) of the work must meet all the following four criteria: i) participate in selecting topics and design of the study or data analysis and interpretation. ii) draft or revise the critical theoretical framework or other main contents of the paper. iii) address revisions requested by the editorial office, respond to academic inquiries, and approve the final version for publication. iv) take responsibility for the integrity of all aspects of the research in addition to their specific contributions to the work. Individuals who contributed to other areas, such as laboratory technical support, should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Individuals who only assist in obtaining funding, collecting data, or managing the research team in general should not be listed as authors.
2. Format Requirements
-Manuscript Title: The title should be concise and precise, preferably within 20 Chinese words, and try to avoid using subtitles. Non-recognized abbreviations, acronyms, or characters are not allowed to be used. For works supported by national, provincial funding or key projects, the funding source and grant number should be noted as a footnote on the title page, with a copy of the project documentation attached.
-Author and Affiliations: List all author(s)’ names, institutional affiliations, city names, and postal codes in both Chinese and English. Author(s)’ names should be located below the title of the paper in pinyin, if applicable. Names should follow the format: last name first, followed by the given name, with the initials capitalized. Author(s)’ institutional affiliation should include the full name of the institution where the work was conducted (including the school, faculty, and department), along with the city and postal code placed beneath the author names. Graduate student research projects are attributed to the supervisor’s institution. For authors with different affiliations, superscript Arabic numerals should be placed to the upper-right of their names, linking authors with their respective institution’s name, city, and postal code listed below the author names in sequence. Affiliated hospitals of Nanjing Medical University should include “Nanjing Medical University” in the institution’s name. Corresponding authors must provide their ORCID ID (register at https://orcid.org/?locale=zh_CN). Review articles should generally have no more than three authors.
-Abstracts: Both Chinese and English abstracts are required. The Chinese abstract of the original article should be 500-800 words, including the purpose, methodology, results (primary data), and conclusion, which should be arranged in sequence. The abstract of the review should be 300-400 words. English abstracts should correspond to the Chinese abstracts. Abstracts must be written in the third person, and avoid using “this paper,” “the authors,” etc.
-Keywords: They should be selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). If no MeSH term is available, text words can be used. Generally, 3-8 keywords are recommended to be selected under the abstract, with English keywords corresponding to the Chinese ones. The first keywords should reflect the core theme of the work.
-Classification Number: Original articles need to be classified according to the Chinese Library Classification, placed below the keywords. If not provided, the editorial office will check and assign one.
-Main Text: The structure should not exceed three heading levels, aligned to the left and numbered in Arabic numerals (e.g., 1, 1.1, 1.1.1). Research articles should include the following sections: 1. Materials and Methods (or information and methods, subjects and methods), 2. Results, 3. Discussion. Primary drugs, reagents, animals, and instruments must be indicated with their source and specifications. References are sufficient when following the methods of others, with emphasis on describing improvements or innovations. Content should be accurate, concise, and well-organized. Avoid repeating content in text, tables, and figures if they can be expressed clearly in simple words. Abbreviations should be used sparingly and written in their full names in both Chinese and English when first introduced unless they are universally recognized (e.g., PCR, ECG, CT).
-Figures and Tables: Each figure and table must be labeled and referenced in the text and follow the principle of presenting text first, then figures or tables, with no repeat data presented. Titles and annotations of figures and tables should be provided in both Chinese and English. All tables should be three-line tables, with the title placed above the table. The vertical and horizontal headings of the tables should be rationalized and written in both Chinese and English, with the meaning of the data clearly expressed. The numbers in the table should be aligned with consistent significant figures. Missing values should be marked as “-”, and numbers should be stated if they are zero. The content of all images in the manuscript should be described in English. The main body of the images should be clear and distinguishable and kept to a minimum of 300 dpi. Microscopy images should include the staining method and magnification. Author(s) are responsible for obtaining patient consent and performing technical processing to make them as unrecognizable as possible for recognizable patient photos. The figure sequence and title need to be placed at the bottom of the figure.
-Terminology: Author(s) need to use medical terminology published by China National Committee for Terminology in Science and Technology (CNTERM). If unavailable, please refer to the English-Chinese Medical Dictionary by People’s Medical Publishing House. For new terms without standardized translations, the original term should be provided.
-Units of Measurement: All measurements must be recorded following the Legal Units of Measurement of the People's Republic of China (1984). For instance, 25.4 mm, 1.2 mol/L, 1 s, 2 min, 3 h, 41.23%, 5 μmol, 7 kg, 1,000 g (centrifugal force), 3-8 g, 3%-8%, 3 m×8 m×2 m, (8 ± 3) g, (8 ± 3) nmol/L, 37 ℃.
-References: They should be limited to primary literature of recent years that author(s) have personally reviewed. It is required that the cited literature should be original papers from the Source Journal for Chinese Scientific and Technical Parpers and Citations or above or foreign language journals, with at least 80% from the past five years. Author(s) must carefully check the content, year, volume, issue, page of the original references and list references in the order they appear in the text, indicating them in square brackets in the upper-right corner of the cited section. Internal or unpublished material should not be cited as references. Journal names in references should be written in full for Chinese publication while following the format of Index Medicus for Western journals. References with three or fewer authors should be listed in full, while those with more than three authors should be listed only in the first three, followed by “et al”. Author(s) needs to add the identification code of the document type after the title of the work in reference. M for monographs, J for journals, C for proceedings, and indicate the language of journals not in Chinese or English. Chinese references should be translated into English under the same number and placed after the Chinese text.
References should be written in the following format:
Journal Article: [No.] Primary responsible authors. Title [J]. Journal, Year of Publication, Volume (Issue): Page No.
-Chinese Example：
[1]裴桐忻，张克忠，鲁严. 一氧化氮在神经精神疾病中作用的研究进展[J].南京医科大学学报（自然科学版）,2024,44(8):1155-1164
[1] PEI T X, ZHANG K Z, LU Y. Research progress on the role of nitric oxide in neuropsychiatric diseases[J]. Journal of Nanjing Medical University (Nature Sciences), 2024,44(8):1155-1164
-English Example:
[2] MA X, WANG J, SHI Y, et al. Effect of single blastocyst-stage versus single cleavage-stage embryo transfer on cumulative live births in women with good prognosis undergoing in vitro fertilization: Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial[J]. Nat Commun. 2024 Sep 5;15(1):7747
Original Article: [1] primary responsible authors. Title of Literature [M]. Edition (first edition omitted). Publication place: publisher, year of publication: page No.
-Chinese Example：
[2] 章雅青. PBL-情境-模拟综合案例护理教程[M]. 北京: 人民卫生出版社, 2015: 1-3
[2] ZHANG Y Q. PBL-situation-simulation comprehensive case nursing course[M]. Beijing: People's Medical Publishing House, 2015: 1-3
-Conflict of Interest Statement: Authors must disclose any conflicts of interest in both Chinese and English. If none exist, state, “All authors declare there is no conflict of interest.” For any conflict of interest, specify the nature of the funding, commercial interests, or non-financial relationships. Authors affiliated with Nanjing Medical University must disclose this relationship.
-Author’s Contributions: Original articles must include a contributions statement in both Chinese and English, stating each author’s specific role in the study’s planning, implementation, and reporting.
-Video Submissions: Videos are supported in MP4 format (≤100 Mb). The video cover should include the manuscript title, author(s), and affiliation information. Compress files into ZIP format and upload them as attachments.
Submissions to the journal must be made through the online submission system: http://jnmu.njmu.edu.cn/zr/aumn/author/login. Manuscripts should be submitted by the corresponding author using their institutional academic (work) email address, which should be noted as a footnote on the bottom-left corner of the title page. Submissions must include an electronic version of a letter of introduction from the institution. The letter of introduction should confirm the authenticity of the data sources, declare the absence of duplicate submissions, address any confidentiality concerns, and confirm no disputes regarding authorship. Before submission, please ensure that all information, including the corresponding author names, affiliations, funding information, and email addresses, is accurate and complete. Once the manuscript is accepted, no modifications will be allowed. Manuscripts that do not meet the above requirements will be rejected directly.
If authors do not receive any manuscript status update within two months after receiving the submission receipt, it indicates the manuscript is still under review. Authors wishing to submit elsewhere must first contact the editorial office to avoid duplicate submissions. Manuscripts that have not been accepted or require revision within six months can be proceed by the author(s) themselves. Revised manuscripts not returned within three months or authors failing to pay the article-processing charge on time according to the notice will be treated as voluntarily withdrawn.
Fees: Authors are required to pay an article-processing charge of 600 CNY per journal page, with an additional fee of 500 CNY per page in color. Two copies of the issue in which the article is published will be mailed to the author(s) free of charge.