Nexus of Pathophysiology and Therapeutics (NPT) is committed to a rigorous, transparent, and timely peer-review process. Our evaluation system ensures the highest standards of scientific quality, methodological integrity, and deep mechanistic insight, advancing the translation of foundational biomedical discoveries into therapeutic strategies.
Upon submission, all manuscripts undergo a mandatory initial assessment by the Editorial Office to evaluate basic structural and scientific alignment. This internal screening checks for:
Scope Alignment: Direct focus on mechanistic insights, causal pathways, and translational or therapeutic relevance.
Ethical Compliance: Presence of appropriate IRB/Ethics committee approvals and alignment with international reporting guidelines.
Structural Integrity: Basic formatting, clear English language quality, and a complete plagiarism check.
Note: Manuscripts failing to meet these preliminary baseline criteria will be rejected at the screening stage without external review to ensure efficient processing.
NPT utilizes a double-blind peer-review system. The identities of both the authors and the reviewers are strictly concealed throughout the entire evaluation process to ensure impartial, unbiased, and objective scientific assessment.
Each manuscript is assigned to a Section Editor and routed to at least two independent external experts within the specific field.
For complex, multidisciplinary, or highly mechanistic studies, additional specialist reviewers may be invited to independently audit specific components, including:
Advanced in vivo experimental designs
High-throughput computational or systems biology models
Complex statistical, multi-omics, or bioinformatic datasets
NPT prioritizes an efficient and predictable workflow for authors while maintaining rigorous quality control:
Time to First Decision: Approximately 1-2 weeks from submission (initial screening and routing results).
Standard Peer-Review Cycle: Approximately 5 to 6 weeks for the completion of the first full external review round.
Timelines may fluctuate dynamically based on manuscript complexity, the necessity of specialized technical review, or reviewer availability.
Reviewers are instructed to critically evaluate submissions based on a structured matrix of quality metrics:
Mechanistic Depth: Does the study provide profound causal insight rather than purely descriptive observations?
Methodological Rigor: Are the experimental designs robust, well-controlled, and entirely reproducible?
Data Interpretation: Are the conclusions directly justified and supported by the presented statistical data?
Therapeutic Novelty: Does the work significantly advance current biomedical science or therapeutic strategies?
In Vivo & Experimental Studies: Validation of experimental models, animal welfare compliance, and mechanistic clarity.
Clinical & Translational Studies: Biological plausibility, choice of mechanistic endpoints, and clear clinical relevance.
Computational & Systems Biology: Model validation transparency, accessibility of source code, and biological interpretability.
All manuscripts under review are treated as strictly confidential legal assets. Reviewers are strictly prohibited from:
Sharing, disclosing, or utilizing any portion of the unpublished manuscript content for personal or professional gain.
Retaining copies of the manuscript after the review process is completed.
Disclosing their identity to the authors at any stage of the evaluation.
Reviewers must formally declare any potential financial, institutional, or personal conflicts of interest before accepting a review invitation.
In strict compliance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, reviewers are strictly prohibited from uploading any part of a submitted manuscript, abstract, or supplementary file into generative AI tools or Large Language Models (LLMs) for the purposes of generating evaluation reports, summaries, or critiques.
Uploading manuscript data into external AI tools constitutes a severe breach of confidentiality and a violation of intellectual property rights.
Manuscripts requiring revision are typically re-evaluated by the original peer reviewers to verify that all scientific concerns have been thoroughly addressed. NPT may request multiple rounds of targeted revisions to ensure absolute scientific robustness before formal acceptance.
The Section Editor synthesizes the peer reports and provides a recommendation, but the final editorial decision regarding acceptance, revision, or rejection rests exclusively with the Editor-in-Chief.
Authors have the right to appeal a formal rejection decision if they can demonstrate a specific misunderstanding of the scientific data or a clear procedural oversight by the reviewers.
Appeals must be submitted in writing to the Editorial Office within 14 days of the decision notification, providing a detailed, point-by-point scientific justification.
The Editor-in-Chief will review the appeal alongside an independent internal adjudicator. Decisions on appeals are final.
