Instruction to Authors

About the Journal

Scope of the Journal

All contribution to Pharmacology, toxicology and Biomedical Reports (PTB Reports) - is an international, peer-review, open access Journal, online journal publishing research articles, review articles, clinical case reports and recent trends in experimental and clinical pharmacology, toxicology and Biomedicine. It covers clinical pharmacokinetics, biochemical pharmacology, clinical biochemistry, molecular biology, analytical toxicology, psychopharmacology, neuropharmacology, cardiovascular and renal pharmacology and other systemic pharmacology.

Editorial Policy

Authors should prepare their manuscripts submitted to the journal exactly according to the instructions given here. Manuscripts which do not follow the format and style of the journal may be returned to the authors for revision or rejected. The journal reserves the right to make any further formal changes and language corrections necessary in a manuscript accepted for publication so that it conforms to the formatting requirements of the journal. Manuscripts and figures are not returned to the authors, not even upon rejection of the paper.

Author/s is/are responsible for all statements made in their work and obtaining necessary permission to republish any previously published illustrations and/or other relevant materials.The journal’s full text is available online at www.ptbreports.org.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism is defined by the World Association of Medical Editors as the appropriation of the language, ideas or thoughts of another without crediting their true source and representation of them as one's own original work.

We deal with this problem and other cases of scientific misconduct at PTB Reports based on the guidelines prescribed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

PTB Reports uses plagscan for plagiarism screening for submitted articles

Open Access Policy

PTB Reports offers open access option to authors whose articles have been accepted for publication. With this choice, articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Copyright Form 

Copyright Form can be downloaded from LINK

All manuscripts are considered to be the property of PTB Reports from the time of submission. If PTB Reports is not publishing the paper, it releases its rights therein at the time the manuscript is rejected following the editorial/peer review or retracted by the authors. Manuscripts published in PTB Reports become the sole property of the Journal. The corresponding author, on behalf of all authors, signs a copyright transfer form at the time of submission of the manuscript.

The Editorial Process

A manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to PTB Reports alone at that point in time and has not been published anywhere, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere. The journal expects that authors would authorize one of them to correspond with the Journal for all matters related to the manuscript. All manuscripts received are duly acknowledged. On submission, editors review all submitted manuscripts initially for suitability for formal review. Manuscripts with insufficient originality, serious scientific or technical flaws, or lack of a significant message are rejected before proceeding for formal peer-review. Manuscripts that are unlikely to be of interest to the PTB Reports readers are also liable to be rejected at this stage itself.

Manuscripts that are found suitable for publication in PTB Reports are sent to two or more expert reviewers. During submission, the contributor is requested to provide names of two or three qualified reviewers who have had experience in the subject of the submitted manuscript, but this is not mandatory. The reviewers should not be affiliated with the same institutes as the contributor/s. However, the selection of these reviewers is at the sole discretion of the editor. The journal follows a double-blind review process, wherein the reviewers and authors are unaware of each other’s identity. Every manuscript is also assigned to a member of the editorial team, who based on the comments from the reviewers takes a final decision on the manuscript. The comments and suggestions (acceptance/ rejection/ amendments in manuscript) received from reviewers are conveyed to the corresponding author. If required, the author is requested to provide a point by point response to reviewers’ comments and submit a revised version of the manuscript. This process is repeated till reviewers and editors are satisfied with the manuscript.

Manuscripts accepted for publication are copy edited for grammar, punctuation, print style, and format. Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author. The corresponding author is expected to return the corrected proofs within three days. It may not be possible to incorporate corrections received after that period. The whole process of submission of the manuscript to final decision and sending and receiving proofs is completed online. To achieve faster and greater dissemination of knowledge and information, the journal publishes articles online as ‘Ahead of Print’ immediately on acceptance.

Authorship criteria

Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to each of the three components mentioned below:

  1. Concept and design of study or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data;
  2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
  3. Final approval of the version to be published.

Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content of the manuscript. The order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the contributor towards the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted the order cannot be changed without written consent of all the contributors. The journal prescribes a maximum number of authors for manuscripts depending upon the type of manuscript, its scope and number of institutions involved (vide infra). The authors should provide a justification, if the number of authors exceeds these limits.

Contribution Details

Contributors should provide a description of contributions made by each of them towards the manuscript. Description should be divided in following categories, as applicable: concept, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing and manuscript review. Authors' contributions will be printed along with the article. One or more author should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole from inception to published article and should be designated as 'guarantor'.

Conflicts of Interest/ Competing Interests

All authors of must disclose any and all conflicts of interest they may have with publication of the manuscript or an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors should also disclose conflict of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript.

Submission of Manuscripts

Manuscripts must conform to the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” http://www.icmje.org/. Contributions and Manuscripts must be written in English and submitted exclusively to PTB Reports. Manuscripts must be typewritten (double-spaced) with liberal margins and space at the top and bottom of the page.
All manuscripts must be submitted online via link provided.

Covering Letter

Disclose all possible conflicts of interest (e.g., funding sources for consultancies or studies of products). A brief indication of the importance of the paper to the field of Pharmacy is helpful in gaining appropriate peer review.

Preparation of Manuscript

Your Manuscript should be typed, double-spaced on standard-sized – paper (8.5" x 11") with 1" margins on all sides. You should use 12 pt Times New Roman font. Authors should take care over the fonts which are used in the document, including fonts within graphics. Fonts should be restricted to Times New Roman, Symbol and Zapf Dingbats.

Title: Should be in Title Case; The first character in each word in the title have to be capitalized.

A research paper typically should include in the following order

  • Abstract
  • Keywords
  • Introduction
  • Materials and Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements (If any)
  • References
  • Tables and/or Figures
  • Appendixes (if necessary)
  • Abbreviations (if necessary)

All types of studies ( Randomized clinical trail, observational, systemic review, case reports, quality improvement studies, economic evaluation, and others) are highly recommended to follow the Equator network guidelines through the link http://www.equator-network.org/

Abstract – Limit of 250 Words

A brief summary of the research. The abstract should include a brief introduction, a description of the hypothesis tested, the approach used to test the hypothesis, the results seen and the conclusions of the work.

Key words

Please, write no more than six keywords. Write specific keywords. They should be written left aligned, arranged alphabetically in 12pt Times Roman, and the line must begin with the words Keywords boldfaced. A 12pt space should separate the keywords from the affiliations.

Introduction 
Description of the research area, pertinent background information, and the hypotheses tested in the study should be included under this section. The introduction should provide sufficient background information such that a scientifically literate reader can understand and appreciate the experiments to be described. The introduction MUST include in-text citations including references to pertinent reviews and primary scientific literature. The specific aims of the project should be identified along with a rationale for the specific experiments and other work performed.

Materials and Methods

Materials and/or subjects utilized in the study as well as the procedures undertaken to complete the work. The methods should be described in sufficient detail such that they could be repeated by a competent researcher. Please include the company sources for all uncommon reagents (kits, drugs, etc). Illustrations and/or tables may be helpful in describing complex equipment or elaborate procedures. The statistical tool used to analyze the data should be mentioned. All procedures involving experimental animals or human subjects must accompany with statement on necessary ethical approval from appropriate ethics committee.

Results
Data acquired from the research with appropriate statistical analysis described in the methods section should be included in this section. The results section should describe the rational for each experiment, the results obtained and its significance. Results should be organized into figures and tables with descriptive captions. The captions, although brief, should tell the reader the method used, explain any abbreviations included in the figure, and should end with a statement as to the conclusion of the figure. Qualitative as well as quantitative results should be included if applicable.

Discussion/Conclusion 
This section should relate the results section to current understanding of the scientific problems being investigated in the field. Description of relevant references to other work/s in the field should be included here. This section also allows you to discuss the significance of your results - i.e. does the data support the hypotheses you set out to test? This section should end with new answers/questions that arise as a result of your work.

Tables and Figures

Tables
Each table must start on a separate sheet. They should be numbered with Roman numerals according to their sequence in the text, and have a short self-explanatory heading. Use SI units. Tables should include vertical rules, but horizontal rules should separate column headings from the content. Authors should keep in mind the page layout of the journal when designing tables. Tables that fit onto one printed page are preferred. Detailed explanations of symbols, units, and abbreviations should follow below the table.

Illustrations
Figures for final production should be submitted as electronic files and hard copy so that the editorial office can ensure that the output of electronic files matches the hardcopy. Please pay particular attention to the guidelines below. The editorial office cannot undertake preparation of manuscripts and illustrations not conforming to journal style. Manuscripts of insufficient quality will be returned immediately without refereeing. A high standard of illustration (both line and photo) is an editorial priority. All illustrations should be prepared for printing to fit 80 x 240 mm (column width) or 169 mm by up to 240 mm (full page) size. It is preferred that the full-page length is not used and that authors keep in mind that the caption will be placed underneath the figure. In the event that full-page length is necessary for plates, captions will have to appear on adjacent pages. Figure(s) must be numbered consecutively in the text. Compound figures with more than one micrograph or photo should be referred by a single figure reference (e.g. Figure 1), and individual parts should be labeled with capitalized letters in the lower left-hand corner. Lettering should be of a sans-serif type (i.e. fonts without serifs such as Arial) with a minimum published size of 4.2 mm (12 pt). Descriptive labeling in the figures should be clearly readable, and all lettering should have a minimum published size of 6 pt (2.1 mm) for labeling items on photographs or in line art is recommended and a maximum size of 10 pt is suggested. Use a scale bar to indicate magnifications and place in the lower right corner if possible. Computer prepared photographic images must be at a minimum of 350 dpi at the final publication size. Lower resolution will result in pixilation and poor quality images. These should be submitted as JPEG, TIFF or PPT files, but encapsulated postscript (EPS) format is also acceptable.

Computer drawn figures are accepted provided they are of high quality. Please note that graphs produced by many statistic packages are rarely adequate. In particular, letter quality on axes and captions are often poor. Such figures should be exported into an accepted graphics package and lettering rendered using a text function. Authors should note that .dot, .bmp, and .pat fills should be avoided. Do not use postscript fill patterns as these are often based on bit map patterns that result in screening patterns during final reproduction. When filling illustrations, use fills such as lines, tints or solids. Line width minimum is 0.25 pt (0.09 mm). Also avoid the use of bitmap scans to render text and detail. Text should be saved as text at a minimum text size of 6 pt (2.1 mm). Please submit line art as Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, or EPS files. These must be at a minimum resolution of 800 DPI at publication size. High resolution may be necessary where fine line detail is present.
For graphs Excel graphs are also acceptable. Note that vertical axes must all be at the same scale especially where the paper compares between them. Otherwise they should be produced as separate figures. Avoid 3D plots when presenting 2D data.

Table and Figure captions

Figure and table captions should be included at the end of the manuscript. Figure captions/legends should include a statement at the end of each caption/legends about reproduction size (e.g. at full page width, at column width). They should be double spaced and typed in the journal format. Explanations should be brief and authors should keep in mind that captions/legends will be placed below figures.

Acknowledgements – Limit of 100 Words

This is a brief section crediting the people who have helped make your manuscript possible and who aided you in your work but are not part of the authorship. Please mention all applicable grants and other funding that supported your work.

Review Articles:

It is expected that these articles would be written by individuals who have done substantial work on the subject or are considered experts in the field. A short summary of the work done by the contributor(s) in the field of review should accompany the manuscript.

The prescribed word count is up to 3000 words excluding tables, references and abstract. The manuscript may have about 90 references. The manuscript should have an unstructured Abstract (250 words) representing an accurate summary of the article. The section titles would depend upon the topic reviewed. Authors submitting review article should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.

The journal expects the contributors to give post-publication updates on the subject of review. The update should be brief, covering the advances in the field after the publication of the article and should be sent as a letter to editor, as and when major development occurs in the field.

References
Reference List: Author/Authors
< References should be numbered consecutively in the order i which they are first mentioned in the text (not in alphabetic order). Manuscript with square bracket after the punctuation marks. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. Use the style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the NLM in Index Medicus. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Use complete name of the journal for non-indexed journals. Avoid using abstracts as references. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as "unpublished observations" with written permission from the source. Avoid citing a "personal communication" unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. The commonly cited types of references are shown here, for other types of references such as newspaper items please refer to ICMJE Guidelines (http://www.icmje.org or http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).

In-text citation examples

Correct / Acceptable Format

Natural products have proven to be a great source of new biologically active compounds. Thus, in an effort to discover new lead anti-malarial compounds, several research group screen plant extracts to detect secondary metabolites with relevant biological activities that could served as templates for the development of new drugs. Flavonoids have been isolated and characterized from many medicinal plants used in malaria endemic areas.[10]However, controversial data have been obtained regarding their antiplasmodial activity, probably because of their structural diversity.[11-13] More recently, several flavonoids have been isolated from Artemisia afra[14,16] and Artemisia indica, [17-20] two plants related to Artemisia annua, the famous traditional Chinese medicinal plant from which artemisinin is isolated.

Incorrect / Not accepted

Natural products have proven to be a great source of new biologically active compounds. Thus, in an effort to discover new lead anti-malarial compounds, several research group screen plant extracts to detect secondary metabolites with relevant biological activities that could served as templates for the development of new drugs. Flavonoids have been isolated and characterized from many medicinal plants used in malaria endemic areas. [10]. However, controversial data have been obtained regarding their antiplasmodial activity, probably because of their structural diversity (11, 12, 13). More recently, several flavonoids have been isolated from Artemisia afra14 and Artemisia indica(15), two plants related to Artemisia annua, the famous traditional Chinese medicinal plant from which artemisinin is isolated.

JOURNAL REFERENCES [Vancouver Style]

  1. Single/Multiple Authors

Parasuraman S, Raveendran R, Kesavan R. Blood sample collection in small laboratory animals. J PharmacolPharmacother 2010;1:87-93

  1. More than six authors

Parasuraman S, Sujithra J, Syamittra B, Yeng WY, Ping WY, Muralidharan S,et al. Evaluation of sub-chronic toxic effects of petroleum ether, a laboratory solvent in Sprague-Dawley rats.J Basic Clin Pharm. 2014;5(4):89-97.

  1. Organization as Author

Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group. Hypertension, insulin, and proinsulin in participants with impaired glucose tolerance.Hypertension. 2002; 40(5): 679-86.

  1. Unknown Author

21st century heart solution may have a sting in the tail. BMJ. 2002; 325(7357): 184-5.

  1. Journal article on the Internet

Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [serial on the Internet]. 2002 Jun [cited 2002 Aug 12]; 102(6): [about 3 p.]. Available from: http://www.nursingworld.org/AJN/2002/june/Wawatch.htm
Note: Plant/Micro organisms, in-vivo, in-vitro should be in italics.

  1. Personal author(s)

Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA.Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.

  1. Editor(s), compiler(s) as author

Gilstrap LC 3rd, Cunningham FG, VanDorsten JP, editors.Operative obstetrics. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002.

  1. Author(s) and editor(s)

Breedlove GK, SchorfheideAM. Adolescent pregnancy.2nd ed. Wieczorek RR, editor. White Plains (NY): March of Dimes Education Services; 2001.

  1. Organization(s) as author

Royal Adelaide Hospital; University of Adelaide, Department of Clinical Nursing.Compendium of nursing research and practice development, 1999-2000. Adelaide (Australia): Adelaide University; 2001.

  1. Chapter in a book

Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.

  1. Conference proceedings

Harnden P, Joffe JK, Jones WG, editors.Germ cell tumours V. Proceedings of the 5th Germ Cell Tumour Conference; 2001 Sep 13-15; Leeds, UK. New York: Springer; 2002.

  1. Thesis

N. Khoshakhlagh. The compositions of volatile fractions of Peganumharmala seeds and its smoke.Pharm. D. Thesis, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. (2002).

  1. WEBSITES

Website informationCancer-Pain.org [homepage on the Internet]. New York: Association of Cancer Online Resources, Inc.; c2000-01 [updated 2002 May 16; cited 2002 Jul 9]. Available from: http://www.cancer-pain.org/.

Acknowledgements
All messages and reviews sent electronically will be acknowledged electronically upon receipt.

Page layout & styles

Page size 

Letter Portrait 8 ½  X 11

Margins

All Margins, 1cm

Page number

Numbered at bottom right

Footer / Headers

None

Title 

14 pt Times New Roman, bold, centered.

Author and co-authors

12 pt Times New Roman centered, bold - author and all co-authors names in one line. The corresponding author should include an asterisk*.

Authors address

12 pt Times New roman centered - giving each authors' affiliation (i.e. Department/Organization/Address/Place/Country/email). Followed by single line spacing.
Author for Correspondence: 10pt Times New roman centered - giving a valid e-mail of the corresponding (main) author is a must. It should be indicated as*  followed by two line spacing.

Abstract 

12 pt Times New roman, full justification Normal - maximum 250 words

Text 

12 pt Times New roman, full justification – 1.5 line spacing between paragraphs. No indentation

Heading

Major headings (ABSTRACT, KEYWORDS, INTRODUCTION, MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, REFERENCES) in upper case left-justified, 12 pt bold, Intermediate headings should be in italics, sentence case, left justified, 12 pt

Tables

To be incorporated at the end of Manuscript 

Correct

“Table 1 : Serum enzyme levels………”

Incorrect

 

“Table No. 1 : Serum enzyme levels………”

Figures /Graphs

Figures may be embedded in your word document but they should be created with a program that allows you to save them as gif, jpg or tiff format.

For any figures or other materials directly extracted from previously published materials, you must have written permission from the publisher of that material for reprint use. A copy of that permission release must be submitted with your article.

It is the individual author's responsibility to attain this permission.

To be incorporated at the end of the manuscript with proper labeling

Correct

“Figure 1 : Serum enzyme levels………”

Incorrect

“Figure No. 1 : Serum enzyme levels………”

Graphs

To be included from excel, it should be editable.
Non – editable graphs will not be accepted.

 

 

All text should bully justified. Please put all primary section titles inER CASE letters and subheading in both Upper and Lower Case letters. Do not number your titles (for example, 1.0 Introduction; 2.0 Background). Do not use the t key to indent blocks of text such as paragraphs of quotes or lists because the page layprogram overrides your left margin with its own, and tabs end up in mid-sentence.

Limitations for papers submitted under each category

Article type

Abstract: No. of words

Key words: No. of words

Running title: No. of words

Text: No. ofwords

Sub-headings

Tables & No. offigures: max. No

References

Review article

< 250

3-5

2-6

<5000

Variable

Total of six

<50

Research paper

< 250

3-5

2-6

< 3500

Standard

Total of six

< 30

Methods

< 150

3-5

2-6

< 1600

Standard

Total of four

< 20

Case Report

< 150

3-5

2-6

< 1400

Variable

Total of two

<8

Short communication

Not Required

NR

2-6

< 1200

No sub-heading

Total of two

<8

Letter to the editor

Not Required

NR

2-6

< 800

No sub-heading

Total of two

< 6

Submission of manuscript

Manuscripts always be submitted only by Web based Manuscript Submission Systems[WBMS] PREFERABLY.

Visit www.ptbreports.org      

Note : Do not send hard copies/CDs, until you receive e-mail request from Editorial office.

A timely submission, however, is not a guarantee that your work will be accepted for forthcoming publication. All submissions are peer reviewed by the editorial board and a select group of reviewers. Please make sure that all guidelines are followed carefully. All the accepted articles will be queued for publication and will appear in the futures issues based on the priorities set by the editorial board.

Important e-mails

PTB Reports

Queries : contact@ptbreports.org
Other correspondence : editor@ptbreports.org

HARD COPY SUBMISSION

Hard Copy of Manuscripts are not being accepted, Submissions should be made by Web Based Manuscript Submission Systems ONLY

Check List before Submitting Manuscript

  • Covering letter
  • Copyright Forms (Scanned)
  • Manuscript
  • Illustrations (if any)

URL:
PTB reports : www.ptbreports.org
Online Submissions :   www.ptbreports.org/submissions

Editorial Office: 
Gulf Index Electronic Publisher (GIEP)
2436 Abdullah Ibn Rashid Ibn Jalud - Al Nahdah Dist.
Unit No 2 Riyadh 13222 - 7354
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Tel: +966 53 678 9590