Animal and Ethical Approval
Research involving human participants, human-derived materials, experimental animals, or identifiable personal data must comply with applicable legislation, institutional requirements, and internationally recognized research-ethics principles.
Studies involving human participants
- State the name of the approving institutional review board or ethics committee, approval number (when issued), and approval date.
- Report informed-consent procedures and relevant safeguards for privacy and confidentiality. Any waiver of consent must be documented and justified.
- Describe compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki for applicable clinical or biomedical human research.
Studies involving animals
- State the institutional animal care and use committee or competent authority, along with the approval number and date where applicable.
- Provide the animal species/strain, sex, age or weight, group allocation, housing, interventions, welfare monitoring, humane endpoints, and euthanasia methods as relevant.
- Apply the principles of Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement (the 3Rs) and use recognized reporting standards such as ARRIVE where appropriate.
The editorial office may request supporting documentation and may decline manuscripts that lack adequate ethical justification or required approvals.
