Governance & Transparency

Journal Policies

The three policies authors and reviewers ask about most: how peer review is run, what we expect for data availability, and how research and publication misconduct is handled — aligned with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

This page is maintained by the Aperture Papers editorial office. It summarises current practice for Letters in Basic and Translational Biochemistry and is not a certification. Where full policy documents exist, links are provided.

Peer review

Double-blind peer review

Every research and review article submitted to Letters in Basic and Translational Biochemistry is peer-reviewed under a fully double-blind model. Author identities are hidden from reviewers, and reviewer identities are hidden from authors, throughout the review and decision process.

Model

Double-blind. Author identities are withheld from reviewers; reviewer identities are withheld from authors.

Reviewer count

Minimum of two independent reviewers per manuscript, with a third invited when reports diverge.

Editor handling

A subject-matched handling editor triages, invites reviewers, and drafts the decision. The Editor-in-Chief signs off on rejections after review and on all retraction decisions.

Timeline target

4–6 weeks from assignment to first decision. Delays are communicated to the corresponding author.

Reviewer conduct

Reviewers agree to confidentiality, no use of the manuscript for own work, no AI upload of the manuscript, and disclosure of any conflict before accepting the invitation.

Author anonymisation

Authors must supply a title-page-free main manuscript, remove identifying acknowledgements, and refer to their own prior work in the third person.

Reviewer assessment checklist

Does the manuscript address a clear, well-scoped biochemistry question?
Are the methods reproducible, and are reagents, instruments, and software versions specified?
Do the data support the conclusions? Are statistical tests appropriate and correctly reported?
Are figures and tables clear, unmanipulated, and adequately captioned?
Are prior contributions cited fairly? Any signs of duplication, plagiarism, or salami slicing?
Are ethics, consent, funding, conflicts, and data-availability statements complete?

Possible decisions

Accept: Ready for publication with minor copy-editing only.
Minor revision: Revisions confined to text and analyses that do not require new experiments; typically re-reviewed by the handling editor.
Major revision: New experiments, analyses, or substantial rewriting required. Returned to at least one original reviewer.
Reject & resubmit: The current version is not viable, but a substantially reworked manuscript may be considered as a new submission.
Reject: Out of scope, not sufficiently novel, or not supported by the evidence. Authors may appeal (see below).

Full peer-review policy Author guidelines

Data availability

Data availability expectations

We follow the FAIR principles — findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable. Every accepted manuscript must include a data-availability statement. Where the data underlying the study can be shared, it should be deposited in a recognised public repository before publication and cited in the manuscript by accession number or DOI.

Recommended repositories

Data type	Repository
Protein structures	PDB, EMDB
Sequence data (DNA/RNA)	GenBank, ENA, DDBJ, SRA
Gene expression / omics	GEO, ArrayExpress, PRIDE, MetaboLights
Small-molecule / chemistry	ChEMBL, PubChem
General-purpose	Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad, OSF
Custom analysis code	GitHub/GitLab with archival snapshot on Zenodo, under an OSI-approved licence

Example statements

Pick the one that matches your situation and adapt the placeholders.

Public repository

"The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available in the [repository name] repository, [accession/DOI]."

Available on request

"The datasets analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Any restrictions (ethical, contractual, or legal) are stated below."

Included in the article

"All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files."

Restricted

"The data are not publicly available due to [ethics/consent/legal restriction]. De-identified data may be shared with qualified researchers under a data-use agreement."

Data restricted by ethics, consent, or legal grounds is acceptable, but the restriction must be explicit and justified in the statement. "Data available on request" without a repository or contact route is discouraged and may be queried by the editor.

Full data-availability policy

Misconduct

COPE-aligned misconduct handling

Aperture Papers investigates concerns about research or publication misconduct following the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts. The process is confidential, proportionate, and evidence-led. Whistleblowers acting in good faith are protected from retaliation.

Behaviours we investigate

Fabrication or falsification

Invented or manipulated data, results, or images.

Plagiarism

Unattributed use of text, ideas, figures, or data — including self-plagiarism.

Duplicate / redundant publication

Submitting substantially overlapping work to multiple journals, or republishing your own work without disclosure.

Image manipulation

Non-linear adjustments, selective cropping, or splicing that alters the scientific meaning of a figure.

Authorship disputes

Ghost, gift, or guest authorship, or omission of a qualifying contributor.

Undisclosed conflicts of interest

Failure to declare financial or non-financial interests that could reasonably influence the work.

Peer-review manipulation

Fake reviewer identities, coordinated citation rings, or attempts to influence reviewers outside the editorial channel.

Ethics or consent violations

Research involving humans, animals, or identifiable data conducted without appropriate approvals or informed consent.

How a concern is handled

1
Report received
Concerns can be raised by anyone — reader, reviewer, author, or third party — by emailing editorialoffice@aperturepapers.com. Reports are acknowledged within 5 working days.
2
Initial assessment
The Editor-in-Chief and editorial office review the evidence, apply the relevant COPE flowchart, and decide whether to open a formal investigation.
3
Author response
If a formal investigation is opened, the corresponding author is contacted in writing, given a fair summary of the concern, and invited to respond within a defined window (usually 14–28 days).
4
Institutional referral
For serious allegations — data fabrication, ethics breaches, or authorship fraud — the author's institution is asked to conduct or support the investigation, per COPE guidance.
5
Outcome
Findings result in one or more of: no action, correction, expression of concern, retraction, ban on future submissions, or referral to the institution. All outcomes are documented.
6
Publication record
Corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions are published with the same visibility as the original article, linked bi-directionally, and cited by DOI once DOI assignment is live.