Nexus of Pathophysiology and Therapeutics (NPT) is committed to a rigorous, transparent, fair, and timely peer-review process designed to ensure high standards of scientific quality, methodological integrity, and clinical or biomedical relevance. NPT evaluates research across pathophysiology, disease biology, diagnostics, biomarkers, laboratory sciences, pharmacology, therapeutics, pharmaceutical sciences, natural products, nutrition, toxicology, and related biomedical and translational fields. The journal seeks to publish research that advances understanding of human disease and contributes to improved diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, or therapeutic development.
Upon submission, all manuscripts undergo an initial assessment by the Editorial Office to determine their suitability for further consideration. This screening evaluates:
Scope Alignment: Relevance to the scientific, biomedical, diagnostic, pharmacological, therapeutic, or translational scope of NPT.
Scientific and Methodological Suitability: Whether the study presents a clearly defined scientific question, appropriate study design, adequate methodology, and potentially meaningful findings.
Ethical Compliance: Appropriate approval from the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board, where applicable, and adherence to recognized ethical and reporting standards.
Structural Integrity: Compliance with basic submission requirements, adequate manuscript organization, acceptable language quality, and completion of the required similarity/plagiarism screening.
Note: Manuscripts that do not meet the journal's basic scientific, ethical, structural, or scope requirements may be rejected at the editorial screening stage without external peer review.
NPT utilizes a double-blind peer-review system. The identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from each other throughout the peer-review process, where practicable, to promote an impartial, objective, and independent evaluation of submitted manuscripts.
Each manuscript is assessed by an appropriate Section Editor or handling editor and, where suitable, is assigned to at least two independent external experts with relevant subject-matter expertise.
Depending on the nature of the manuscript, additional reviewers or specialist assessors may be invited to evaluate specific methodological or technical components, including:
Advanced in vivo or experimental study designs
Clinical and translational research
Diagnostic and biomarker studies
Complex statistical analyses
Multi-omics, bioinformatics, or computational approaches
Pharmaceutical formulation and drug-delivery technologies
Medicinal chemistry and drug-discovery studies
Natural products and nutritional interventions
Toxicological and drug-safety assessments
NPT aims to provide an efficient and predictable editorial process while maintaining rigorous scientific assessment:
Initial Editorial Decision: Approximately 1–2 weeks for completion of initial screening and editorial assessment.
First Full Peer-Review Round: Approximately 5–6 weeks, depending on reviewer availability and manuscript complexity.
Timelines may vary depending on manuscript characteristics, the need for specialized expertise, reviewer availability, revision requirements, and other editorial circumstances.
Reviewers evaluate manuscripts according to the study design and scientific objectives of each submission. The following general and study-specific criteria are considered:
Scientific Significance: Does the study address a meaningful biomedical, clinical, diagnostic, pharmacological, therapeutic, or disease-related question?
Methodological Rigor: Is the study design appropriate, sufficiently controlled, scientifically sound, and adequately described to support reproducibility?
Validity of Results: Are the data reliable, appropriately analyzed, and presented clearly?
Interpretation and Conclusions: Are the conclusions appropriately supported by the results and consistent with the study design?
Originality and Contribution: Does the study provide novel, useful, or clinically or scientifically relevant knowledge?
Relevance and Impact: Does the work have the potential to advance understanding of disease, diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, therapeutic development, or biomedical practice?
Evaluation is tailored to the methodology and objectives of each study:
Clinical and Translational Studies: Assessment of study design, patient selection, clinical relevance, outcome measures, statistical methodology, and translational significance.
Diagnostic and Biomarker Studies: Assessment of biomarker validity, diagnostic or prognostic performance, appropriate comparators, analytical methodology, and potential clinical utility.
Laboratory and Biomedical Studies: Assessment of methodological validity, assay reliability, appropriate controls, and biological or clinical relevance.
Pharmacological and Therapeutic Studies: Assessment of intervention design, dosing or treatment strategy, appropriate controls or comparators, efficacy, safety, and interpretation of therapeutic outcomes.
Mechanistic and Experimental Studies: Assessment of experimental models, controls, mechanistic rationale, biological plausibility, and appropriate validation.
Pharmaceutical and Drug-Delivery Studies: Assessment of formulation, characterization, delivery strategy, pharmaceutical performance, and relevance to therapeutic application.
Natural Products and Nutritional Studies: Assessment of intervention characterization, methodological quality, biological or clinical relevance, and appropriate evaluation of outcomes.
Computational and Systems Biology Studies: Assessment of model validity, statistical or computational methodology, transparency, reproducibility, and biological interpretability.
All manuscripts submitted to NPT are treated as confidential documents throughout the editorial and peer-review process. Reviewers and editors must:
Maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and their contents.
Not share, disclose, or use unpublished information for personal, professional, or academic advantage.
Not retain or distribute manuscript files or confidential review materials beyond what is necessary for the review process.
Declare any actual, potential, or perceived financial, institutional, personal, or professional conflicts of interest before accepting or conducting a review.
Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, and evidence-based assessments and to maintain professional conduct throughout the review process.
In accordance with applicable publication-ethics principles and confidentiality requirements, reviewers must not upload or disclose any portion of a submitted manuscript, including the main text, figures, tables, supplementary files, or confidential review materials, to generative AI systems or external large language models for the purpose of conducting or preparing a peer review.
Reviewers remain responsible for protecting the confidentiality of unpublished manuscript content and for ensuring that any tools used in the review process do not compromise confidential information.
Manuscripts requiring revision may be returned to the original reviewers or, when appropriate, reassessed by other qualified reviewers. Authors are expected to respond carefully and transparently to reviewer and editorial comments and to provide a point-by-point response when submitting a revised manuscript.
Multiple rounds of revision may be requested when necessary to resolve substantive scientific, methodological, ethical, or presentation-related concerns.
The handling or Section Editor evaluates the manuscript and peer-review reports and provides an editorial recommendation. The final decision regarding acceptance, revision, or rejection is made by the Editor-in-Chief or an appropriately authorized senior editor in accordance with the journal's editorial policies.
Editorial decisions are based on the scientific quality, validity, originality, relevance, and overall suitability of the manuscript and are not determined solely by the recommendation of any individual reviewer.
Authors may appeal a formal rejection decision when they believe that the decision resulted from a substantive misunderstanding of the manuscript, a significant factual error, or a demonstrable procedural irregularity.
Appeals should be submitted in writing to the Editorial Office within 14 days of the decision notification.
The appeal should provide a clear, evidence-based, point-by-point explanation addressing the grounds for appeal.
Appeals are assessed by the Editor-in-Chief and, when appropriate, an independent editor or adjudicator who was not directly involved in the original decision.
Decisions following the appeal process are final.
