Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration. The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full) unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling ("self-plagiarism")).

A single study is not split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g. "salami-publishing").

No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support your conclusions. No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own ("plagiarism"). Proper acknowledgments to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions are secured for material that is copyrighted.

Manuscripts published in this journal are not allowed to be reproduced in whole or in part in any type of publication without permission of the Editorial Board in English, Persian, or any other language. Figures and tables can be used freely if the original source is verified according to the Creative Commons Non-Commercial License. It is mandatory for all authors to resolve any copyright issues when citing a figure or table from a different journal that is not open access.

The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest statements, are properly completed. The corresponding author should respond to editorial queries throughout the submission and peer review process in a timely manner and should cooperate with any requests from the journal after publication.

Important note: The journal uses iThenticate software to screen for plagiarism.

Consent to submit has been received explicitly from all co-authors, as well as from the responsible authorities - tacitly or explicitly - at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out after the work is accepted.

Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.

Changes in authorship, or in the order of authors, are not accepted after the acceptance for publication of a manuscript.

Requesting to add or delete authors at the revision stage, proof stage, or after publication is a serious matter and may be considered when justifiably warranted. Justification for changes in authorship must be compelling and may be considered only after receipt of written approval from all authors and a convincing, detailed explanation about the role/deletion of the new/deleted author. In case of changes at the revision stage, a letter must accompany the revised manuscript. In case of changes after acceptance for publication, the request and documentation must be sent via the Publisher to the Editor-in-Chief. In all cases, further, documentation may be required to support your request. The decision on accepting the change rests with the Editor-in-Chief of the journal and may be turned down. Therefore, authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, corresponding author, and order of authors at submission.

Upon request, authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc.

If there is a suspicion of misconduct, the journal will carry out an investigation following the COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, the allegation seems to raise valid concerns, the accused author will be contacted and given an opportunity to address the issue. If misconduct has been established beyond a reasonable doubt, this may result in the Editor-in-Chief’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

If the article is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.

If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either an erratum will be placed with the article or in severe cases complete retraction of the article will occur. The reason must be given in the published erratum or retraction note. Furthermore, the author’s institution may be informed.

Peer Review/Responsibility for the Reviewers

Judgments should be objective.

Reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors, and/or the research funders.

Reviewers should point out relevant published work that is not yet cited.

Reviewed articles should be treated confidentially.

Reviewers should advise editors, but the final decision on an article is made by the Editors-in-Chief.

Reviewers should provide constructive comments to improve the quality of the article.

Editorial Responsibilities

The Editors-in-Chief have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.

Editors should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept.

When errors are found in a manuscript, the editors promote the publication of corrections or retractions.

The anonymity of reviewers is preserved.

Conflict of interest

The Journal asks authors of research articles, editorials, and reviews to disclose at the time of submission any relationships that could be viewed as potential conflicts of interest. For example, Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.

If no conflict exists, the authors should state:

Conflict of Interest: Author A, Author B, and Author C declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Research involving human participants and/or animals

When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists).

Immunology and Genetics Journal encourages authors submitting manuscripts reporting from a clinical trial to register the trials registries & bear a clinical trial registration number and name of the trial.

Informed consent

All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have, for example, the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

After Acceptance

Upon acceptance of your article, you will receive a link to the special Author Query Application at Avicenna’s web page where you can sign the Copyright Transfer Statement online. Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.

Copyright transfer

Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher (or grant the Publisher exclusive publication and dissemination rights). This will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.

Proofreading 

Contributors are provided with page proofs and are asked to proofread them for typesetting errors. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title, and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours.