Editors Guidelines

The editorial role

What an editor is responsible for

Handling a manuscript

From assignment to decision

• Check scope firstRead the manuscript against the Aims and Scope page. The question is whether the stem cell biology is doing the explanatory work, not whether the study is clinically useful or novel. A foundational study is in scope on its own terms.
• Declare interestsWithdraw from handling a manuscript where you have a competing interest, a recent collaboration with the authors, or any relationship that would affect your judgment. Editors recuse themselves from decisions on their own submissions; those manuscripts are handled independently.
• Screen before reviewAll submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review. Check that ethical approvals, consent statements, trial registration and the data-availability statement are present before sending a manuscript out.
• Select reviewersManuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts. Choose reviewers whose expertise matches the claims being made — the model system as much as the biology — and avoid reviewers with a competing interest.
• Protect the review modelSingle-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.
• Weigh the reportsReviewer reports are advice, not a vote. Read them against the manuscript, resolve disagreement by judgment or by seeking a further opinion, and set aside any comment that is not about the work.
• Decide and explainEditorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Give authors a decision letter that states the reasoning and what a revision would need to address.

Judgment specific to this field

Keeping claims and evidence aligned

Most of the editorial work in a stem cell journal is about the distance between what was measured and what is concluded.

Identity claims

Ask whether the characterization presented actually supports the identity asserted — markers, functional assay and provenance together, rather than one of them alone.

System limits

Ask whether the conclusion is stated for the system that produced it. A result in an organoid or a reporter line is a result in that system until something else establishes otherwise.

Translational language

Ask authors to describe early clinical work as early clinical work. An observational series describes what was seen in the participants studied; it does not establish a therapy.

Reproducibility

Ask whether another laboratory could reconstruct the protocol from the methods as written. Where it could not, request the detail rather than accepting the claim.

Conduct

Confidentiality, independence and integrity

A submitted manuscript is confidential. Do not share it, discuss its content outside the review process, or use unpublished material in your own work.

Editorial decisions remain independent of fees, services, memberships and roles. An author's membership, an institution's relationship with the publisher, and the article processing charge have no bearing on the assessment.

Where you suspect a problem with integrity — data, images, authorship, duplication or ethics — raise it with the editorial office rather than resolving it alone. The journal's policies align with COPE, ICMJE and ISSCR guidance, and the process for corrections and retractions is set out in the editorial policies.