The Clinical Biochemist Reviews uses a ‘single-blind’ peer review system, whereby reviewers will know the names of the authors, and their reviews will be returned to the authors in blinded format. At manuscript submission authors will be asked to suggest the names of experts who should be able to provide an objective peer review of their article. These reviewers should not be currently collaborating with the authors, or from the same institution as the authors. The Editor is not obliged to invite these suggested reviewers. If the Editor or Editorial Board member submits an article, this manuscript will be handled by an alternative Board member or Guest Editor.

Each manuscript received is treated confidentially, acknowledged, reviewed by the Editor, and then sent for peer review by at least two referees for review and mini-review articles and at least one referee for other article types. Authors are then advised of the acceptability of the manuscript for publication, generally within a few weeks of submission. Manuscripts accepted for publication are subject to copy editing, and galley proofs when available, are returned to the authors to review editorial changes and identify typesetting errors.

The corrected pdfs of the article are made immediately available on the AACB website, with access to full-text restricted to AACB members only. Articles are submitted subsequently to Open Access on PubMed Central.

The Clinical Biochemist Reviews follows the recommendations from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) including criteria for authorship and plagiarism. In particular, duplicate submissions (a submission under review with another journal) and those that have a substantial overlap with a manuscript already published without proper citation, are prohibited. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software.

Articles contributed to The Clinical Biochemist Reviews become the property of the AACB. The AACB reserves the copyright and renewal of all published material, as agreed in the assignment of copyright, and such material may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the AACB.

Authors are required to declare any conflicts of interest at submission, which includes any affiliation with any organisation with a financial interest, direct or indirect, in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript that may affect the conduct or reporting of the work submitted. Published articles will include a ‘Competing Interests’ statement summarising these interests.

• The manuscript should be submitted online at http://www.editorialmanager.com/aacb.
• The Assignment of Copyright and Declaration of Interest form must be completed by each author and uploaded at the time of submission or emailed to the Editor (see Copyright).
• Please indicate any possible overlap of contents with prior publications, and obtain permission for reproduction where necessary from the copyright holder.
• There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal. General Instructions
• Use clear and simple English and English (UK) spelling. Avoid unnecessary use of jargon, acronyms or abbreviations. Statements contained therein are the responsibility of the author(s).
• Supply text in single-spaced 12 point Times New Roman font, formatted on A4 with standard margins.
• Abbreviations should be defined the first time they are used.
• Arrange the manuscript in the order (1) Title Page; (2) Abstract; (3) Text and Acknowledgements; (4) References; (5) Figure Legends; (6) Tables.
• Use separate files (see below) for figures (7).
• Manuscripts that do not follow these instructions may be returned without review.

• Include a full title, as well as a short title (<50 characters) to be used as a running header.
• List authors (first name plus any middle initials and last names) and their affiliations.
• Affiliations should include the name of the department(s) and institution(s) from which the manuscript originates, city, state, postcode and country.
• Provide the name e-mail address, postal address and telephone number of the corresponding author.

• Abstracts are required for reviews and mini-reviews, but not for commentaries or guidelines reviews. The abstract should not exceed 250 words.

• Follow the guidelines in ‘General Instructions’.
• References, figures and tables should be numbered in order of appearance.
• Reference numbers should be superscripted and be placed after punctuation.
• All measurements should be expressed in SI Units.
• Headings within the text should be kept short. Format headings as follows: 1) First Level Headings: bold. 2) Second Level Headings: italics, bold. 3) Third Level Headings: italics. 4) Fourth Level Headings: normal.
• Acknowledgements, including financial and other types of support, should be listed at the end of the main text and before the references.

• Accuracy is the responsibility of the authors.
• Number in order of mention. Please superscript; do not use parentheses.
• Ensure that the reference number is placed after the punctuation, and not before. e.g. It is widely used on automated haematology analysers in the form of Bull's algorithm.3
• List all authors when six or fewer; when seven or more, list the first six and add et al.
• Provide the date websites were accessed (see example below).

Examples:

• More than six authors
  • Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JD, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res 2002;935:40-6.
• Standard journal article
  • Gaw A, Hobbs HH. Molecular genetics of lipoprotein (a): new pieces to the puzzle. Curr Opin Lipidol 1994;5:149-55.
• Chapter in a book
  • Lai MMC, Holmes KV. Coronaviridae: the viruses and their replication. In: Knipe DM, Howley PM, editors. Fields Virology. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins; 2001. pp. 1163-86.
• Conference paper
  • Christensen S, Oppacher F. An analysis of Koza's computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, Lutton E, Miller J, Ryan C, Tettamanzi AG, editors. Genetic programming. EuroGP 2002: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3-5; Kinsdale, Ireland. Berlin: Springer; 2002. p. 182-91.
• Abstract
  • Levy GA, Lake JR, Beauregard-Zollinger L, Prestele H. Improved clinical outcomes for liver transplant recipients using cyclosporine blood level monitoring based on two-hour post-dose levels (abstract). Transplantation 2000;69(Suppl):S387.
• Homepage/Website
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the absence of SARS-CoV transmission worldwide: guidance for surveillance, clinical and laboratory evaluation, and reporting version 2. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars/guidance/index.htm (Accessed 21 January 2004).
• Personal communications and unpublished papers are not acceptable citations in the References. Instead, indicate appropriately in text in parentheses: for example, (Smith RX, personal communication).

• Supply figure legends on a separate numbered page after the references.
• Begin each legend with a short title.
• Each figure should stand alone; identify and explain all abbreviations and symbols used in the figure, even if explained in the text.
• Include copyright permission if figure has been reproduced.

• Use a separate page for each table.
• Give each table a title and number (Arabic numerals, bold face). A table title should describe concisely the content of the table without reference to the text (no bold face).
• Provide a footnote to each table identifying all abbreviations used even if explained in text. In footnotes, use the following symbols in sequence: *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡, §§, ||||, ¶¶, etc.
• Include copyright permission if table has been reproduced.

• For optimum print quality please submit figures electronically as JPEGs or TIFFs (at least 300 dpi resolution, and each as a separate file), not embedded into a Word or a PowerPoint document.
• All lettering should be of approximately equal size.
• Each axis in a graph should be labelled with the parameter measured (and the units in brackets) e.g. time (min).
• Titles should be included in the figure legend, not in the figure.
• Identify each file by figure number and first author's surname.
• Colour figures may be published following discussion with the Editor but only at the author’s expense.