Presented by Professor Nick Lemoine, MD PhD and Publishing Manager, Rebecca Vickerstaff www.nature.com/gt

1. How to Get Your Paper Published in Gene Therapy Presented by Professor Nick Lemoine, MD PhDand Publishing Manager, Rebecca Vickerstaff www.nature.com/gt

2. Nature Publishing Group • Leading scientific publisher • Nature, Nature Research journals, Nature reviews, NPG academic journals, Scientific American… • Focus on quality rather than quantity • Serving authors/readers needs

3. At the forefront of medicine, Gene Therapy brings you the latest research into genetic and cell-based technologies to treat disease. It also publishes Progress & Prospects reviews and News and Commentary articles, which highlight the cutting edge of the field. Key Facts • A founding journal in a field of great potential • First published in 1994 • High profile editors • 12 issues a year • Print and online publication • Impact Factor 4.538 • Online publication within 26 days

4. To which journal should you send your manuscript? Questions to ask… • Is your paper within the scope of the journal? • What is the quality of other papers published? • How easy is electronic submission? • How quickly will you receive a decision? • How quickly will your paper be published? • Does the journal offer an ‘open access’ option? • Does the journal reach an appropriate audience?

5. How much should you worry about Impact Factors? • Impact Factors are important and are currently the predominant method used to rank journals in terms of quality • Calculated as the number of cites received in the impact factor year to articles published in the previous 2 years • Gene Therapy’s 2010 Impact Factor released in June 2011 = 4.538 • Obviously there are journals with higher IF than Gene Therapy eg. Nature Medicine (25.430) or Nature Biotechnology (31.085) • Equally important to think about scope, ease of publication, reach, promotion and service delivered to you by the Publisher

6. Journal scope and content Gene Therapy covers both the research and clinical applications of the new genetic therapy techniques currently being developed. Over the last decade, gene therapy protocols have entered clinical trials in increasing numbers and as they cover a wide spectrum of diseases, these studies promise to unite the diverse organ-based specialities into which modern medicine has become divided. Gene Therapy covers all aspects of gene therapy as applied to human disease, including: • novel technological developments for gene transfer, control and silencing • basic science studies of mechanisms of gene transfer and control of expression • preclinical animal model systems and validation studies • clinical trial reports which have significant impact for the field • gene-based vaccine development and applications • cell-based therapies including all aspects of stem cells and genetically modified cellular approaches

7. Reviews • Review articles in Gene Therapy aim to provide accessible, authoritative overviews of a field or topic. • Reviews should communicate a sense of enthusiasm, weaving background information with the latest advances, and placing both of these elements in the context of the rest of the field. • The abstract describes what the article is about in a succinct, easily digestible way. It should not contain specialist details, abbreviations, references or figure citations. • References should concentrate on significant original research papers.

8. What are Editors looking for? • Novel or original findings • Credibility • Brevity • Clarity of data and conclusions • Interesting to the international community • Good standard of English (seek help if necessary) • Compliance with ethical standards and approval by Institutional Review Board if appropriate • Disclosure of possible conflicts of interests by all authors • References complete and up-to-date

9. Preparing for submission • Read the Instructions to Authors carefully • Regular manuscripts submitted to the journal follow a standard format • When ready to submit, ensure that you have available: - All authors’ names, postal and e-mail addresses - The complete manuscript with all images, tables and figures in the appropriate format - Cover letter drawing the editor’s attention to any special points • At this point you can also choose to ask NPG to deposit the author’s accepted version into PubMed Central on behalf of all authors upon publication or have your paper published open access.

10. Open Access Gene Therapy now offers authors open access – option to pay a one-off fee To have your final published version made freely available immediately on publication rather rely on readers who have paid subscriptions • Fee is £2,500 • NPG already complies with major funding agencies but this is a further step forward • Final version automatically deposited into PubMed Central • Choose one of two creative commons licences • Research receives greater visibility 11 papers published open access in 2011 so far – expected growth year on year

11. The peer review process Upon submission your manuscript will be quality-checked by the Journal Manuscript Coordinator and then assigned to the Editors who: • Determine if the manuscript is within the scope of the Journal • Assess whether the paper is of sufficient novelty and quality to be sent out for review • If NO a rapid reject decision will be made to enable the author to submit to another journal as quickly as possible • If YES the Editor will ask 2 or more experts to review the manuscript as rapidly as they can • Based on the reviewers’ reports the Editor will make an initial decision to accept, to reject or to ask for revision. • The decision letter is sent to the corresponding author

12. Revision of manuscript • If you are asked to revise your manuscript a revision you will have to submit a revised version within 3 months. • You must include a covering letter indicating exactly how you have responded to each point raised by the Editor and reviewers. • If you judge the reviewer to be incompetent or not to have understood your paper, you can explain this clearly in your reply and but preferably using tactful language! • Upon resubmission your paper may be sent for review again and you may be asked to carry out further revision. • Acceptance is never guaranteed until you receive the editor’s letter telling you the paper has been accepted for publication. • If accepted, your paper will be passed on to the NPG production department.

13. The production process • A production editor will ensure your paper meets Gene Therapy’s house style: • Check punctuation, grammar, and consistency of terminology • Check pharmaceutical names and abbreviations • Check references • Figures and tables are formatted and the manuscript is typeset • Reasons for delays to starting work on a paper: • Artwork in wrong format • Licence To Publish form not complete • Open access payment form not received • Page proofs are e-mailed to the corresponding author within 8 weeks of acceptance – corrections to be made to a .pdf version. • Once paper is returned a Document Object Identifier (DOI) number is assigned and paper is ‘queued’ for advanced online publication (AOP).

14. Advanced online publication (AOP) • Papers are published online in batches once a week • Your paper should appear online within 26 days of receipt in production providing you return your proofs in a timely manner. • This is the final published version and can now be cited. • Your paper is recorded in PubMed as soon as it is published online, ensuring more people see your article over a longer amount of time. • If you have chosen the open access option your paper will be freely available for all to view; if not, for one year the full text version will be available to persons who have paid subscriptions. • Ideally the print version of your paper will appear within 4 months of acceptance

15. Once published: promotion and visibility • Large subscriber base and high web traffic. • Electronic table of contents (e-ToC alerts) with direct links to all newly published articles are sent to over 100,000 registered users each month. • All articles are included in key abstracting, indexing and linking services including ISI, PubMed, Medline, Embase and Crossref. • Selected articles are press-released. • Selected articles appear on the Nature homepage (www.nature.com), in web focuses, and on subject area pages, all of which highlight the latest and best research from across the NPG portfolio. • Articles are included in a range of promotional campaigns – print adverts / reprint collections / conference promotion / online promotions / email campaigns

16. Please submit your article online to Gene Therapy www.nature.com/gt Any Comments or questions?