For authors

Letters in Applied NanoBioScience is an international interdisciplinary peer-reviewed platinum open-access journal published periodically.

The journal publishes a variety of article types in the field of:

  • Nanoscience
  • Bioscience

Categories of contributions for Letters in Applied NanoBioScience are reviews, original research papers, communications, and short notes.

There are no restrictions on the length of manuscripts, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive. Full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced, thus all experimental controls and full datasets must be made available. However, authors are asked to use the Microsoft Word Template to prepare the paper.

Download Template

Manuscripts submitted to Letters in Applied NanoBioScience should neither have been published before (even partially), nor be under consideration for publication in another journal. Also, all issues of ethical concern and authorship must be closely followed.

All eligible co-authors must be included in the author list and must have read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript.

Submission Checklist

  1. read the Aim & Scope to gain an overview and assess if your manuscript is suitable for this journal;
  2. use the Microsoft Word Template (Download template) to prepare your manuscript;
  3. make sure that issues about publication ethics, copyright, authorship, figure formats, data, and references format have been appropriately considered;
  4. please try to cite only articles with DOI (digital object identifier); also add DOI for each reference;
  5. please add at least 10 references from the last 2 years (2020-2021) in order to highlight the novelty of your work;
  6. please remove any citation from our journal (if applicable). This practice is not allowed by the editorial board!
  7. ensure that all authors have approved the content of the submitted manuscript.

Submission Process

!!! Manuscripts for Letters in Applied NanoBioScience must be submitted online at https://jams.amgtranscend.org/ powered by JAMS, an MDPI publishing platform. The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list (based on criteria to qualify for authorship) and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. To submit your manuscript, register and log in to the submission website. Once you have registered, click here to go to the submission form for Letters in Applied NanoBioScience. All co-authors can see the manuscript details in the submission system if they register and log in using the e-mail address provided during manuscript submission. !!!

Contact:  review@nanobioletters.com

Cover Letter

A concise cover letter should accompany the manuscript upon submission, in order to explain the relevance of the paper, meeting of the Aims & Scopes of Letters in Applied NanoBioScience, and place the conclusions in the context of existing work. Moreover, the cover letter must include a confirmation of the fact that neither the manuscript nor any parts of it are currently considered for publication in other journal/s.

How to prepare a manuscript

When preparing any kind of manuscript for publication at Letters in Applied NanoBioScience, authors are kindly asked to use the Microsoft Word template provided and to do the spelling thought the manuscript using American Style English.

All types of manuscripts should contain a front matter comprised of the following sections:

  • A concise, specific, and relevant title, which should evidence what kind of data the study reports, such as systematic review, meta-analysis, trial data, or replication study.
  • The author list and their affiliation, which must contain the author’s full first and last name(s) and may also be added middle names; affiliations should be given in the PubMed/MEDLINE standard format (complete address, including city, zip code, state/province, and country). The paper should have at least one corresponding author and details like the corresponding author(s) e-mail address, phone and fax should be added at the end of the affiliation section.
  • The Abstract should be no longer than 200 words, single paragraphed, and structured as:
    • Background- should define the objectives of the study and place them in the current context;
    • Methods- briefly specified;
    • Results- should contain a summary of the most important findings of the manuscript;
    • Conclusions- should indicate the main conclusions of the manuscript.

The headers must not be included.

The Abstract should be representative of the text.

All types of manuscripts should contain an introduction, which should clearly define the objectives and purpose of the study, but also reveal its significance in the broad context of today’s state of the art. Research manuscripts should include how the specific hypotheses are being tested. Moreover, these should be sustained by carefully selected key publication references. The introduction should help readers comprehend the topic of the paper.

In the case of research manuscripts, the content should be organized as follows:

  • Materials and Methods- containing sufficiently detailed information on the experimental procedures in such a way that other researchers to be able to replicate them. Well-established methods can be described briefly, but accompanied by appropriate citations. All substances, kits, equipment, or software should be fully named and their producer should be specified.
  • Results- should be described in a concise and precise way; the interpretation and experimental conclusions should be given.
  • Discussion- should contain a whole interpretation of the results in the perspective of previous studies and the previously defined objectives and hypotheses. The findings and implications should be discussed in a broad context, but also the limitations of the work should be emphasized. Perspectives and further research directions deriving from this study can be mentioned.

A combination of the section’s results and discussion is accepted.

  • Conclusions- should briefly conclude the findings of the study.

Funding sources or the absence of funding should be mentioned in a separate section.

Acknowledgments should include any support received that was not covered by the author’s contribution or funding sections (donations, administrative or technical support).

In the conflict of interest section, authors have to identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results in an inappropriate manner. In case of the absence of conflict of interest, this should be mentioned. Must be declared any implication of sponsors in the choice of research project choice, design, collection, analysis or interpretation of data, writing of the manuscript, the decision to publish the results. 

References should be numbered in the order of appearance in the text (including the citations in tables and legends) and individually listed at the end of the manuscript. Software packages such as EndNote, ReferenceManager, Zotero are recommended to be used. Citation to data, computer code, or other citable research material is encouraged.  Citations and References in Supplementary files are permitted provided that they also appear in the main text and in the reference list.

Reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ] in the text and placed before the punctuation ([1], [1–3], or [1,3]). For embedded citations in the text with pagination, both parentheses and brackets can be used to indicate the reference number and page numbers ([5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101–105)).

References should be described as follows:

  • Journal Articles: [] Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year).
  • Books and Book Chapters: [] Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154–196.


[] 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. 154–196.

  • Unpublished work, submitted work, personal communication:
[] Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. status (unpublished; manuscript in preparation).


[] Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. Abbreviated Journal Name stage of publication (under review; accepted; in press).


[] Author 1, A.B. (University, City, State, Country); Author 2, C. (Institute, City, State, Country). Personal communication, Year.

  • 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).


The chosen style must be unitary thought the manuscript.

How to prepare figures, schemes, and tables

Figures and schemes should be provided as separate files in a single zip archive during submission, at a minimum resolution of 1000 pixels width/height or 300 dpi. Common formats are accepted, however, TIFF, JPEG, EPS, and PDF are preferred. Multimedia files can be published in articles or as supplementary materials. Please, contact the editorial office for further information.

All Figures, Schemes, and Tables must be numbered following their number of appearance (Figure 1, Scheme I, Figure 2, Scheme II, Table 1, etc.) and should be accompanied by an explanatory caption; they can be added in the text nearby the appearance of their first citation.

Table columns should have an explanatory heading. Smaller fonts may be used, but no less than 8 pt. in size. Authors can use the Table option of Microsoft Word to create tables.

Color figures and schemes are encouraged (RGB at 8-bit per channel), as there is no additional cost for publishing full-color graphics.

Supplementary Materials

Additional data and files can be submitted as “Supplementary Material” during the manuscript submission process. The supplementary files will also be available to the referees as part of the peer-review process, but will not undergo an editing process. Thus, authors are kindly asked to present the supplementary material in an organized and concise manner.

Any restrictions on data availability should be noted during submission and in the manuscript. “Data not shown” should be avoided, as authors are encouraged to publish all observations related to the submitted manuscript as Supplementary Material. “Unpublished data” intended for publication in a manuscript that is either planned, “in preparation” or “submitted” but not yet accepted, should be cited in the text and a reference should be added in the References section. “Personal Communication” should also be cited in the text and reference added in the References section.

Research and Publication Ethics

Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), revised in 2013. Approval from an ethics committee should have been obtained before undertaking the research. A statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be cited in the Methods Section of the article. Data relating to individual participants must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants can not be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a particular symptom). Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

Example of an ethical statement: “All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code).”

Written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting them to the journal. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible. A blank version of the form used to obtain permission (without the patient names or signature) must be submitted with your manuscript. Alternatively, you may provide a detailed justification of why informed consent is not necessary. For the purposes of publishing, a consent, permission, or release form should include unlimited permission for publication in all formats (including print, electronic, and online), in sublicensed and reprinted versions (including translations and derived works), and in other works and products under open access license. To respect patients’ and any other individual’s privacy, please do not send signed forms. The journal reserves the right to ask authors to provide signed forms if necessary.

Research Involving Cell Lines

The origin of any cell lines should be stated in the materials and methods section. In the case of established cell lines, the provenance should be stated (references to a published paper or to a commercial source). Approval of institutional review board or ethics committee must be given in case of de novo cell lines. A confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

Publication Ethics Statement

Unethical publishing behavior is not tolerated at Letters in Applied NanoBioScience. Besides a rigorous peer-reviewing process, manuscripts submitted here are strictly checked for complete ethical policy fulfillment.

What classifies as publication ethics infringement:

  • Plagiarism;
  • Data falsification;
  • Image manipulation;
  • Inappropriate authorship credit.

Authors who want to publish a manuscript at Letters in Applied NanoBioScience must comply with the following rules:

  • Any possible author’s conflict of interest must be disclosed in the manuscript submitted for publication;
  • The results of the research must be presented in an accurate manner and discussions must be made objectively;
  • Detailed methods and data must be given so that anyone will be able to replicate the work presented in the manuscript;
  • Raw data must be prepared by authors and made available for referees and editors of the journal if requested. Measures must be taken in order to store this data a certain time after publication and make it public if requested.
  • Simultaneous submission of the manuscript to more than one journal is not tolerated.
  • Content sent for publication must be novel.
  • Any errors or inaccuracies found by the authors after publication of the manuscript must be immediately reported to the editors of Letters in Applied NanoBioScience.
  • The manuscripts submitted at Letters in Applied NanoBioScience should not contain any information that has already been published. Already published figures or images can be included if the necessary permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CC-BY license has been obtained.
  • Plagiarism, data fabrication, and image manipulation are not tolerated.
  • Images must not be manipulated or adjusted in a way that can lead to the misinterpretation of information.

What classifies as plagiarism:

  • Copying of texts, images, or data from another source (even the author’s own publications) without giving credit to the original source.

The reuse of text that is copied from another source must be between quotes and the original source must be cited. If a study’s design or the manuscript’s structure or language has been inspired by previous works, these works must be explicitly cited.

In case plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected.

In case plagiarism is detected after publication, the manuscript might be published with a correction or retracted

What is not accepted when adjusting and manipulating images:

  • introduction, enhancement, moving, or removing features from the original image;
  • grouping of images from separate experiments, in order to falsify the outcome results;
  • modifying the contrast, brightness, or color balance to obscure, eliminate or enhance some information.

In case irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, the manuscript might be retracted.

In case irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed after publication, the manuscript might be corrected or retracted.

Our editors will investigate any allegations of publication misconduct and may contact the authors’ institutions or funders if necessary. If evidence of misconduct is found, appropriate action will be taken to correct or retract the publication. Authors are expected to comply with the best ethical publication practices when publishing with us.

Reviewer Suggestions

Authors can suggest three potential reviewers with appropriate expertise to review the manuscript. The editors will not necessarily approach these referees.

Detailed contact information of the suggested referees must be given (address, homepage, phone, e-mail address). The proposed referees should: (·) not be current collaborators of the co-authors; (·) not have published with any of the co-authors of the manuscript within the last five years; (·) be from different institutions to the authors.

English Corrections

Manuscripts must be written using grammatically correct American English.

If you are not a native English speaker, we recommend that you have your manuscript professionally edited before submission or read by a native English-speaking colleague.

All accepted manuscripts undergo language editing, free of charge, however, we kindly ask to use as much as possible correct spelling and grammar when writing your manuscript. Incorrect use of the language might alter the meaning of the original phrases. The editor in charge can reject manuscripts that are not edited using comprehensive language.

Qualification for Authorship

Can be considered as authors of the manuscript persons who have made substantial contributions to (·) the conception or design of the work; (·) acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; (·) the creation of new software used in the work; (·) and/or writing or substantively revising the manuscript.

All authors must have approved the submitted version and any substantially modified version that involves the author’s contribution to the study). All authors must be personally accountable for their own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even those in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group does not justify authorship by themselves. 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 Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Also, “all authors should agree to be listed and should approve the submitted and accepted versions of the publication. 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 (e.g. answering reviewers’ comments)”*. We reserve the right to request confirmation that all authors meet the authorship conditions.

*Wager, E.; Kleinert, S. Responsible research publication: international standards for authors. A position statement developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore, July 22-24, 2010. In Promoting Research Integrity in a Global Environment; Mayer, T., Steneck, N., eds.; Imperial College Press / World Scientific Publishing: Singapore; Chapter 50, pp. 309-16.

Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review

Initial Checks

All manuscripts submitted for publication at Letters in Applied NanoBioScience will be checked by the Editorial Office concerning the appropriate level of preparation, ethical publication concerns, fitting of the scopes of the journal, and meeting of the scientific soundness.

Manuscripts that do not fit the journal’s ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review.

Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission.

Peer-Review

After passing the initial checks, the manuscript will be assigned to at least two independent experts for peer review. A single-blind review is applied, where authors’ identities are known to reviewers. Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewer.

These experts may also include Editorial Board members and Guest Editors of the journal. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered, but these should not have been published with any of the co-authors during the past five years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.

Editorial Decision and Revision

All the articles, reviews, and communications published in Letters in Applied NanoBioScience go through the peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. The  editor will communicate the decision of the academic editor, which can be:

  • Accept in the present form, when the paper needs no further changes.
  • Accept after minor revision, when the paper is mainly accepted, but authors must respond to small reviewers’ comments and questions. A five- days time allowance is given for authors to provide a response.
  • Reconsider after major revision, when the acceptance of the manuscript is conditioned by the ability of authors to respond and comply to the reviewer’s comments. A ten- days time allowance is given for authors to provide a response.
  • Reject, when the article is not accepted for publication due to either major flaws or lack of originality. No offer of resubmission to the journal will be made.

All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point manner. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.

Author Appeals

Authors can appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal, however, this must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ and/or Editor’s comments.

The Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Editorial Board member. The academic Editor being consulted will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

In the case of a special issue, the Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief who will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage will be final and cannot be reversed.

Production and Publication

Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional copy-editing, English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and, publication on the website.