Abstract
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of APB will be reviewed.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on
This Journal is a member of the
This Journal recommends that authors follow the
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.
1. What Do We Publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
Before submitting your manuscript to APB, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Applied Biosafety: Journal of ABSA International (APB)
is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal committed to promoting global biosafety awareness and best practices to prevent occupational exposures and adverse environmental impacts related to biohazardous releases. A goal of APB is to provide a forum for exchange of sound biosafety and biosecurity initiatives through publication of original articles, review articles, letters to the editors, commentaries, and brief reviews. We welcome and encourage submissions which further the profession of biosafety.
1.2 Manuscript Types
More information on manuscript formatting can be found in Section 4: Preparing your manuscript.
1.3 Writing Your Manuscript
The SAGE Author Gateway has some general advice and on
1.3.1 Make your manuscript discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your manuscript more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on
2. Editorial Policies
2.1 Peer-Review Policy
APB adheres to a double-blind reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.
Please remove authors’ names and other identifying information from the manuscript, including the title page, text, and acknowledgments. Manuscripts are blinded to reviewers. Manuscripts that are not blinded will be returned to the author without review.
All manuscripts are reviewed initially by the Coeditors and only those manuscript that meet the scientific and editorial standards of the journal, and fit within the aims and scope of the journal, will be sent for outside review.
Decisions on manuscripts will be made as rapidly as possible. In general, Editors will seek advice from two or more expert reviewers about the scientific content and presentation of submitted manuscripts.
The Coeditors or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer-review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
APB is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your manuscript, and as such has partnered with Publons. Publons is a third-party service that seeks to track, verify, and give credit for peer-review. Reviewers for APB can opt-in to Publons in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the manuscript name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information, visit the
2.2 Authorship
Manuscripts should only be submitted for consideration once all contributing authors give consent. Those submitting manuscripts should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the manuscripts are acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:
Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data, Drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content, Approved the version to be published, Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the
2.3 Acknowledgments
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgments separately from the main text to facilitate anonymous peer-review.
2.3.1 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgments section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
2.4 Funding
APB requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the
2.5 Declaration of Conflicting Interests
It is the policy of APB to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published manuscripts.
Please ensure that a “Declaration of Conflicting Interests” statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgments and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that: “The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest.” For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations
2.6 Research Ethics and Patient Consent
Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the
Submitted manuscripts should conform to the
For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.
Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your manuscript, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your manuscript as a separate file.
Please also refer to the
All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The journal has adopted the
2.7 Clinical Trials
APB does not publish clinical trials.
2.8 Research Data
At SAGE we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Where relevant, APB encourages authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository subject to ethical considerations and where data is included, to add a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file. Authors should also follow data citation principles. For more information, please visit the
2.9 Dual Use Research of Concern
3. Publishing Policies
3.1 Publication Ethics
SAGE is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’
3.1.1 Plagiarism
APB and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published manuscripts. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted manuscripts may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an manuscript, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the manuscript is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the manuscript; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author’s institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the
3.2 Contributor’s Publishing Agreement
Before publication, SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. SAGE’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work, but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the
3.3 Open Access and Author Archiving
APB offers optional open access publishing via the SAGE Choice program. For more information, please visit the
4. Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission
4.1 Formatting
Manuscripts considered for publication must be written in English and structured as original articles, review articles, letters to the editors, commentaries, and brief reviews. In addition to presenting the methods and results of a study, the author(s) should draw implications from the results, discuss their relevance, and propose recommendations for change or further study. Work involving pathogens or toxins must be conducted in accordance with relevant biosafety guidelines and a statement on the containment used to conduct the experiment should be included.
Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address, and telephone numbers. These details should be presented separately from the main text of the manuscript to facilitate double-blinded peer-review.
Submissions not complying with the instructions provided herein will be rejected.
4.1.1 Cover letter
Manuscripts (except correspondence) must be accompanied by a cover letter signed by all authors stating: (1) there has been no duplicate publication or submission of any part of the work; (2) all authors have read and approved the manuscript; and (3) there is no financial arrangement or other relationship that could be construed as a conflict of interest. If a potential conflict exists, its nature should be stated in the letter and on the title page of the manuscript for each author involved (see Editorial and Ethical Policies for a complete explanation).
4.1.2 Title page file
Construct a title that does not exceed 50 words and does not contain acronyms other than those referring to trials.
List first and last names, affiliations, and email addresses for all authors.
List the total word count.
Acknowledge all sources of financial support (grants, fellowships, equipment, or remuneration of any kind) and any relationships that may be considered a conflict of interest (i.e., employment, stock holdings, retainers, paid or unpaid consultancies, patents or patent licensing arrangements, or honoraria) that may pertain to the manuscript (see Editorial and Ethical Policies).
Give details of any prior presentation, including meeting name, location, and date.
List acknowledgments, any shared first authorship, and other author notes.
Give the name, address, telephone/fax numbers, and email address(es) of the corresponding author.
4.1.3 Manuscript file
Note that APB uses a double-blinded reviewing policy, so no information that could identify the source of the manuscript (e.g. author or institution names) should appear in the body of the manuscript.
In addition, please remove all hidden identifying information (including authorship information) from the file properties of your submission by using Microsoft Word’s document inspector. This will ensure blinding when reviewers add their own comments to your manuscript. Remember that deleting this data is irreversible, so please save an original version of the document with the data included for your own safekeeping before deleting the data from the document that you are submitting. If you are confused about how to remove this data, please refer to this online tutorial. Text material must be submitted as a single
Tables, figures, videos, and supplementary materials are delivered as separate files.
Type section heads in bold (initial capital) letters at the left margin (do not center) followed by a hard return; subheads appear in italics (initial capital) at the left margin followed by a hard return. Third-level heads are in italicized type (first word capitalized) and indented to run in with the text.
Second-level head.
Third-level head.
Do not embed anything in the text, including fonts, links, footnotes in a hidden field, field codes, bookmarks, comments, passwords, objects, worksheets, databases, artwork, or slides (e.g. PowerPoint). Use the formatting function for bold, italic, and sub/superscripts. Symbols, foreign letters, and short (one line) mathematical formulas may be inline in the text. Since manuscripts undergo a blind review, no author or institution name should appear in the text or header/footer.
4.1.4 Abstract
Give a substantive summary of an Original Article in 250 words or less.
All abstracts must be structured. Please label the sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion. For more information on structured abstracts, please see https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/policy/structured_abstracts.html.
Provide a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 6 keywords and/or key phrases.
4.1.5 Text
Organize the text for experimental investigations into sections entitled Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Editorials and Reviews may be structured as appropriate for the material.
Avoid naming any institution(s) in the work or otherwise identifying the author(s).
Use Sl measurements; generic drug names should be used.
Define abbreviations and acronyms when they first appear in the text.
Identify tables and figures using Arabic numerals in parentheses (e.g., Figure 1).
Place equations appearing in the text on their own line and number serially toward the right margin:
Short expressions without a number should be in-line with the text.
Complex equations should be prepared with appropriate software and inserted to flow with the text.
4.1.6 Statistical analysis
There should be sufficient information regarding study design, inclusion/exclusion criteria and what factors and how they were explored to permit study replication. For prognostic studies, the following information should be described:
Study design and outcome(s) of interest Factors which may influence that outcome Inclusion/exclusion criteria (including how comparison group was chosen) Measurement instruments for outcome and factors (exposures) that may be associated with it Length of follow-up Methods for statistical evaluation, including description of how confounding was controlled that would allow for replication of the study by another investigator
Equations should be typed exactly as they are to appear in the final manuscript. Authors are encouraged to review recommendations from the Annals of Internal Medicine regarding the presentation of percentages and statistical measures such as error measures, P values, and trends. Likewise, authors are encouraged to consult guidelines from the American Psychological Association for information on presenting statistical results.
For studies that have numeric data and use statistical inference, include a subsection that describes the methods used for statistical analysis and document the statistical software used.
If a statistical analysis is conducted, explanation of the methods used must precede the Results section in the manuscript. Unusual or complex analysis methods should be referenced.
Methodology for all statistical analysis should be described and references should be cited. Use of standard tests (chi-square test, student’s T-test, etc.) do not require citation of references. Use of proprietary software for statistical analysis should be documented.
4.1.7 Reference style
APB adheres to the AMA Manual of Style (10th ed.). View the guide
Letters to the Editor may have no more than 10 references.
Manuscript types other than Letters to the Editors have no limitations on references.
Number references in the order of appearance in the text. Identify references in the text, tables, and legends as superscript Arabic numerals.
List the first 3 authors (last name and initials separated by a comma); use ”et al.” for 4 or more authors.
Abbreviate journal titles according to the style of Index Medicus; formats for the common types of journal citations are:
4.2 Artwork, Figures, and Other Graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit SAGE’s
Figures supplied in color will appear in color online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. For specifically requested color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from SAGE after receipt of your accepted manuscript.
4.2.1 Legends
Type all figure and movie legends on a separate page of the Microsoft Word file, explaining abbreviations and symbols used in the figure. Previously published figures must be acknowledged and accompanied by written permission from the publisher to reproduce the material if it is copyrighted.
Do not use the caption function for figure legends or include the actual figures in the Microsoft Word file.
4.2.2 Table files
Use tables to supplement the text, not duplicate it.
Make separate Microsoft Word files for each table, number them sequentially using Arabic numerals, and give a title at the top of the page. Do not insert tables in the text or create/save tables as an image.
Format tables using the table formatting function in Microsoft Word; elaborate formatting (including reliance on shading and color) should not be used.
Define any abbreviations as the first footnote under the table; list the abbreviations alphabetically.
Use footnotes for explanatory material, labeling each with a superscript lower case letter (a-z) in alphabetical order.
4.2.3 Figure files
Please note that color figures will be displayed in color online and will be printed in grayscale. If you would prefer to print the figures in color, this can be arranged for an additional fee; please indicate your interest in a comment during production. The fees for color are $800 for the first figure and $200 for each additional color figure. Please indicate “print color requested” at the end of the legend of any figure that needs to be printed in color and for which you are willing to pay the fee. The publisher will confirm the color order at the page proof stage and send an invoice.
If you are submitting a figure that will appear in color online but will be printed in grayscale because you choose not to pay the fee for color printing, please ensure that readers will be able to discern the colors when they are converted into grayscale (e.g., use different line or fill patterns on graphs in addition to different colors, which will look very similar in grayscale).
Figures, pictures, charts, graphs, or line art should be cited in numeric order. All image files for figures should be labeled with the figure number (label each part if figures include multiple parts, e.g. 2A, 2B). The figure legend should be placed below each figure and should include descriptions of each figure part and identify the meaning of any symbols or arrows.
Use color judiciously in pictures and graphics.
Text mentioned in figures and charts should use Arial font throughout (unless reproduced from an external source). The font color of such text should be black in order to ensure better legibility in a black and white print. Font size of such text should not be less than 8 point.
Do not embed images into the text document. High-resolution images should also be uploaded separately as figure files.
Supply all figures in a digital format of suitable quality for printing: TIFF for pictures or EPS for graphs and line drawings (to preserve quality when enlarged/zoomed). Image resolution should be at least 400 ppi for color or grayscale images and 600 ppi (preferably higher) for black and white line drawings or graphs. Image size at these resolutions should be no less than 3 inches wide for vertical images and 5 inches wide for horizontally oriented figures. Use a lossless compression algorithm (such as LZW) that does not degrade the resolution.
4.2.4 Movie files
Submit video clips up to 50 MB each in size in any video format. Legends must be provided, and the callout location of each file must appear in the text.
Upload a movie/video file as a ”figure” or “supplementary material” as appropriate.
4.3 Supplemental Material
Follow the formatting instructions above for any supplemental figures, tables, reference lists, appendices, etc. Each item (e.g. table, reference list, etc.) should be named Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Reference List, Supplementary Figure 1, etc. and uploaded as ”supplementary material.”
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full-text of the manuscript. For more information, please refer to our
4.4 English Language Editing Services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using SAGE Language Services. Visit
4.5 Publication
Accepted manuscripts will be scheduled for publication generally in the order in which they are received after no further author revisions are required and the SAGE Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement has been signed by the corresponding author.
APB reserves the right to edit accepted manuscripts to comply with the journal’s format, to remove redundancies, to correct grammatical faults, and to improve readability without altering the meaning. Several weeks before the scheduled publication of a manuscript, the Editorial Office will send an edited version of the manuscript via email to the corresponding author for approval. After author approval of the edited version has been received, the publisher will send a PDF file of the page proof by email. At this stage, only correction of typographical errors or mistakes in the presentation of data can be made. Approval of or changes to the proof must be returned within 4 business days. A complimentary PDF of the final published manuscript will be sent to the corresponding author after publication. The average time from acceptance to online publication is 5 weeks.
4.6 Guidance for Manuscript Sharing
Authors’ rights with regard to sharing an manuscript’s pre- and post-publication are outlined on the
In all cases, when posting or reusing the contribution under this policy, appropriate credit must be given to the SAGE journal where the contribution has been published, as the original source of the content, as follows:
Author(s), Manuscript Title, Journal Title (Journal Volume Number and Issue Number) pp. xx-xx. Copyright © [year] (Copyright Holder). Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.
5. Submitting Your Manuscript
APB is hosted on SAGE Track, a web based online submission and peer-review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/apb to login and submit your manuscript online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online, please visit
5.1 ORCID
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer-review process SAGE is a supporting member of
We encourage all authors and co-authors to link their ORCIDs to their accounts in our online peer-review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. We collect ORCID IDs during the manuscript submission process and your ORCID ID then becomes part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your manuscript so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this
5.2 Information Required for Completing Your Manuscript
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplemental files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
5.3 Permissions
6. Acceptance and Publication
6.1 SAGE Production
Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your manuscript’s progress throughout the production process. Page proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal SAGE Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. If there are any changes to the author list at this stage, all authors will be required to complete and sign a form authorising the change.
6.2 OnlineFirst Publication
OnlineFirst allows final manuscripts (completed and approved manuscripts awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the
6.3 Access to Your Published Manuscript
SAGE provides authors with online access to their final manuscript.
6.4 Promoting Your Manuscript
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your manuscript and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The SAGE Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the
7. Further Information
Any correspondence, queries, or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the APB editorial office as follows:
Karen D. Savage
(866) 425-1385 (toll free) (847) 949-1517
7.1 Appealing the Publication Decision
Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an manuscript is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the manuscript, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.
If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at