Editorial Policies

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Authorship criteria

All authors listed in a manuscript submitted to any journal in the Blood Journals portfolio must have contributed substantially to the work. One author must be designated as the corresponding author, who will be responsible for conveying information between the journal and the author group. Upon submission of the manuscript, the corresponding author must indicate, in the online submission and in the Authorship section of the manuscript, the specific contribution of each author. An author may list more than one type of contribution and more than one author may have contributed to the same aspect of the work. The corresponding author assumes responsibility for obtaining permission from all coauthors for the submission of any/all version(s) of the manuscript. Examples of appropriate designations include:

• designed research
• performed research
• contributed vital new reagents or analytical tools
• collected data
• analyzed and interpreted data
• performed statistical analysis
• wrote the manuscript

If a manuscript reports on the results of a clinical trial run by a study group or collaborative clinical trials network, those members who meet criteria for authorship should be listed individually in the byline. For studies with a large number of authors, the journal reserves the right to request creation of a study group before publication. The corresponding author may be contacted by the ASH Publications office in such cases. In your correspondence, please clearly define the role of each author according to the journal’s criteria.

If authorship is attributed to a group listed as author (e.g., only the group name is in the byline or in addition to one or more individual authors), all members of the group must meet the full criteria and requirements for authorship as described above and they are acknowledged as authors in PubMed. The group members who do not meet the formal authorship criteria listed above but who contributed materially as collaborators may be named in the Appendix and if the manuscript is accepted, their names will be listed in an online supplemental Appendix. The group members listed in Acknowledgments or in the Appendix may be acknowledged as collaborators in PubMed.

All individuals share responsibility for any manuscript they coauthor. Some coauthors have responsibility for the entire manuscript as an accurate, verifiable report of the research. These include coauthors accountable for the conception or execution of the research reported in the paper, the integrity and analysis of the data, or the writing of the manuscript. Coauthors with specific, limited contributions to a paper are responsible for their contributions but may have only limited responsibility for other results. While not all coauthors may be familiar with all aspects of the research presented in the manuscript, all coauthors should have in place an appropriate process for reviewing the accuracy of the reported results. Each author should review and approve the manuscript before publication. The corresponding author is responsible for the integrity of the work as a whole.

Authorship changes, including changes to the author order, the addition of new authors, or the removal of authors, may only be done with the awareness and consent of all authors, including any authors being added or removed. The journal must be notified of any such changes and journal staff may request confirmation of consent from all of the authors for significant authorship changes.

As the representative of the author group, the corresponding author may ask to withdraw a submitted article from a Blood journal at any time prior to publication. If a coauthor requests withdrawal of a submitted article, the journal will contact the corresponding author to confirm the request. If the article has been accepted, but not yet published, the journal will require confirmed consent from each author prior to withdrawing the submission.

For more information on this important topic, see “Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors” from the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the Authorship section in the Recommendations for Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications from the Council of Science Editors.

Note on co-first or co-senior authors

In the case of co-first, co-senior, or co-corresponding authors, our submission form accepts only one of each. Only one author can be corresponding author throughout the submission process, and only one author can be listed as first author when the article is posted to First Edition. However, at the time of final publication, all authors will be credited according to their designation on the final submitted manuscript byline; if there is more than one first, senior, or corresponding author, this will be reflected in the published paper.

Policy regarding Use of Artificial Intelligence

Authorship

Machine learning (ML)/artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, are not eligible for authorship. These tools may not be listed as an author on submissions to any journals in the Blood Journals portfolio and, to ensure that submissions to the journals remain confidential, these tools may not be used to write a review of a journal article. Authors remain responsible for the originality of their work.

Manuscript Preparation

Generation of original text using AI tools is prohibited. Prompts entered into an AI system by humans to generate purely AI text is prohibited, even if then reviewed by the author, do not alone provide sufficient control to establish copyright. In the development of original text, AI use may be used but limited to spelling and grammatical checks using a closed AI system. AI may also be used to revise existing text with human author oversight. Referencing AI generated material as a primary source is not acceptable.

Peer Review Process

Uploading any material under review to an open AI tool is prohibited. A submitted manuscript is provided to the publisher on a confidential basis and is treated as such. Uploading material under review to an AI system risk breaching that confidentiality. Peer reviewers should not use AI tools to write their report of the article outside of spell check and grammatical assistance and may only do so using a closed proprietary AI system for their peer review report and not feeding the submitted manuscript or any portions thereof into the system to ensure confidentiality is maintained.

Graphics and Data

Research that used ML/AI tools for data acquisition or analysis is eligible for submission. Submissions may include graphic outputs of ML/AI, but the role of ML/AI in creating the graphic must be specified in the legend.

Disclosure Requirements

To promote ethical and transparent use of AI, authors must address the following in their Methods sections:

1. Specify the AI tools used, including their names, whether they are commercial, open-source, or proprietary, and the specific features employed.
2. Use plain language to explain how the AI tools processed the data, such as for data cleaning, coding, visualization, or other analytical tasks.
3. Provide a clear justification for using AI tools in analysis.
4. Describe the steps taken to minimize bias, interpret nuances accurately, incorporate contextual knowledge, and maintain transparency and validity of the analysis.
5. Explain how the privacy of research subjects was safeguarded, including adherence to Institutional Review Board (IRB) privacy expectations and how the AI tools maintained these protections.

Use of an AI tool MUST be documented in the Methods section and indicate the tool(s) used.

Conflict of interest disclosure

ASH Conflict of Interest Policy
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) and our journals are committed to ensuring the integrity of all their activities. The conflict of interest disclosure policy for any Blood Journals portfolio contributors requires each author to disclose all relevant financial and other interests, regardless of amount or value, that might be construed as resulting in an actual, potential, or apparent conflict in one’s role as contributor to Blood.

At the time of submission, authors are required to disclose any potential conflict of interest, which may include one or more of the following: employment; consultancy within the past two years; ownership interests (including stock options) in a start-up company, the stock of which is not publicly traded; ownership interest (including stock options but excluding indirect investments through mutual funds and the like) in a publicly traded company; research funding; honoraria received directly from an entity; paid expert testimony within the past two years; any other potential financial relationship (e.g., holding a patent or receiving royalties); and/or membership on another entity’s Board of Directors or its advisory committees (whether for profit or not for profit).

Any involvement by pharmaceutical or medical device company employees or medical writers supported by a pharmaceutical or medical device company in the writing of an article must be clearly defined and disclosed in the Conflict-of-interest Disclosure section of the manuscript (if the individual is an author) or the Acknowledgments section (if the individual is not an author).

For Review, Perspective, How I Treat, or Blood Spotlight articles at Blood, or Review articles or Blood Advances Talks at Blood Advances: Pharmaceutical or medical device company employees and medical writers supported by a pharmaceutical or medical device company are not permitted to have any role in writing these articles. Please direct any questions regarding this policy to the Editor-in-Chief prior to submission.

If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and to collectively list ALL pertinent commercial relationships in the manuscript (under the Acknowledgment section or in the Authorship section) and in the metadata of the online submission.

It is important to note that this policy and the disclosure statements will not be regarded as creating a presumption of impropriety in the existence of financial interests or other relationships of a commercial nature. Instead our intent is to inform its editors, reviewers, and readers of the existence of financial relationships pertinent to the article in the interest of full transparency in the peer review and publication processes.

During the peer review process any conflicts of interest will be disclosed, all disclosures, including statements of no conflict of interest, will appear in the First Edition, print, and final online versions of the article, in the Authorship section.

Upon acceptance, all authors are asked to sign their electronic copyright transfer using eJournalPress, which is available to all authors upon successful initial submission and requires authors to confirm that any relevant conflicts of interest are disclosed in the manuscript. An article will not be prepublished or otherwise published in the journal until all signatures are received.

Originality

All journals in the Blood Journals portfolio accept only manuscripts that describe original work. Special cases regarding manuscripts expanding upon meeting abstracts and manuscripts with preprints are listed below. Copies of existing manuscripts with overlapping or duplicated material should be submitted together with the manuscript as supplemental data files so that the Editors can judge the originality of the material and its suitability for publication. Submission of duplicate content, already published elsewhere, will be considered a breach of ethical conduct and will trigger severe consequences. See also section III. D. “Overlapping Publications” of the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

Manuscripts related to published meeting abstracts

Manuscripts containing material that was previously presented as a digital poster presented in a conference or meeting with an online poster repository or videotaped will be considered for publication in a journal within the Blood Journals portfolio if significant new information is included.

Manuscripts with a preprint

Public release of the manuscript as a preprint before or during submission is allowed under these provisions:

• Authors must retain copyright for the manuscript so that it may be transferred to the American Society of Hematology if the manuscript is accepted, per the journal’s copyright policy.
• The preprint cannot be updated while the manuscript is under review and cannot be updated if it is accepted for publication in the Blood Journals Portfolio.
• The publication of the manuscript as a preprint, as well as public comments or coverage about that preprint, will be considered in the evaluation of the manuscript's impact.
• Publication of any related preprints must be noted in the cover letter for the submission and PDFs of those preprints must be included in the submission as supplemental files.
• Because of the potential impact on patient care, preprints of a clinical nature are discouraged but will be considered.

Manuscripts that are part of a doctoral thesis

Submission of a manuscript that has been included in a doctoral thesis is permitted, provided the thesis remains under embargo and is not posted online until after the manuscript is published, provided the manuscript is accepted for publication in the journal. The thesis should be cited in the submission as the source of the work. The authors of the portion of the thesis on which the submission is based are responsible for complying with any policies participating institutions may have regarding publication of thesis material.

Principles for publication of medical research involving human subjects

All studies that involve human subjects must abide by the rules of the appropriate institutional review board (or equivalent organization) of the institution in which the research was conducted and by the tenets of the World Medical Association’s most recently revised Declaration of Helsinki. A statement regarding ethical approval and Helsinki compliance must be included in the Methods section of the paper.

Published studies that involve human subjects should not provide subjects’ identifying information (e.g., names, true initials, recognizable images) unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or the patient’s parent/guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. If your study requires the appropriate written consent, please send a statement to [email protected] affirming that you possess the patient’s written consent. See the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals for further information.

All studies using animals should follow the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting in vivo experiments in animal research. A statement regarding institutional animal care and use committee approval (or equivalent) must be included in the Methods section of the paper.

Data Integrity

The American Society of Hematology (ASH) and the Blood Journals Portfolio are committed to the maintenance of the scientific record to continue to provide the highest quality research and clinical information relevant to the field of hematology. Submission to any journal in the Blood Journals Portfolio assumes that all authors who have contributed to the manuscript conform to the generally accepted standards of scientific integrity regarding experimental design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Journals staff reserve the right to investigate any indications that such standards have not been met.

Data Retention

For all articles published in any journal in the Blood Journals portfolio, all original data must be maintained for at least 10 years after publication and available to submit to the ASH office immediately upon request.

Each newly accepted manuscript is screened for potential image manipulation prior to publication. Any concerns will halt production of the manuscript while the issue is raised with the corresponding author. Authors will be required to provide all raw data during the investigation. Failure to provide raw data may result in withdrawal of acceptance of the paper. Raw data is defined as whole gel images, data tables, and other scientific software output that is the basis for any figures or results presented in the manuscript.

For manuscripts already published in any of the journals of the Blood Journals Portfolio that are undergoing investigation for suspected data fabrication or falsification, raw original data must be submitted to the ASH office immediately upon request. Failure to provide raw data or otherwise cooperate with the investigation may result in retraction of the manuscript.

Data fabrication and falsification

Falsely generating and manipulating data are strictly prohibited. Each reported or suspected instance of data fabrication and falsification will be investigated in accordance with generally accepted industry standards for integrity and objectivity, such as those outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and will require the cooperation of the corresponding author, and/or other senior authors where needed.

Any publisher action related to an article undergoing an investigation will be decided based on internal established procedures, and may result in either a published Correction, Retraction, or Expression of Concern, or an added Editor’s Note. Anyone wishing to raise a complaint regarding suspected data manipulation in a published article should send a message to [email protected] with specific and detailed evidence to support their claim. Journals staff will maintain contact and collaboration with all stakeholders involved in the investigation, as necessary.

Internal procedures will continue to evolve according to industry standards and routine reevaluation to maintain the highest ethical standards. If you have any questions pertaining to internal established procedures governing publication of a Correction, Retraction, or Expression of Concern related to published articles, please direct them to our Senior Data Integrity Manager. 

Data sharing, distribution of reagents, and compound structure disclosure

Data sharing

All the journals in the Blood Journals portfolio support the efforts of the National Academy of Sciences to encourage open sharing of publication-related data. As a condition of publication in Blood, authors must make renewable materials, datasets, and protocols available to other investigators without unreasonable restrictions. All the journals in the Blood Journals portfolio adhere to the belief that authors should include in their publications the data, algorithms, or other information that are integral to the publication or make it freely and readily accessible. Authors should use public repositories for data whenever possible and make patented material available under a license for research use.

All original research articles must include a data sharing statement at the end of the Materials and Methods section. This statement should describe how readers may access the data, whether that is through contacting the authors or accessing a public database. For more details, please see the  section of the Manuscript Preparation page for the respective journal within the Blood Journals portfolio. 

Distribution of reagents

The Blood Journals policy requires that any readily renewable resources mentioned in a journal article and not already obtainable from commercial sources be made available to all qualified investigators in the field. The policy stems from the principle that authenticity requires reproducibility. Publication in in one of our journals constitutes de facto acceptance of this policy by the authors. Included are reagents that can be easily provided; specifically, nucleic acid sequences, cDNA and genomic clones, cell lines, and monoclonal antibody clones. Small amounts (sufficient for the replication of any in vitro work reported) of novel protein reagents are also considered transferable.

Although the Editors appreciate that many of the reagents mentioned may be proprietary or unique, neither condition is considered adequate grounds for deviation from this policy. Suitable material-transfer agreements can be drawn up between the provider and the requester; if a reasonable request is turned down, the corresponding author will be held accountable. The consequence for continuing noncompliance will be refusal of of any journal in the Blood Journals to publish articles from the corresponding author for the following three years.

Disclosure of compound structure

Authors must provide the specific chemical structure(s) of synthetic compounds either in the manuscript or through a Web link to a publicly available source. For natural products, the chemical structure must be similarly provided if it is known. If it is not known, adequate information on the source and composition must be provided to identify the compound uniquely.

Deposition into public databases

Datasets must be accessible by reviewers and editors at the time of submission and must be publically available as of the date of publication, at which point we require that the following types of datasets be made available via community-endorsed platforms, such as those listed below. Microarray data must be MIAME-compliant, as described at the FGED web site specifying microarray standards. Accession numbers must be supplied parenthetically at a relevant location in text. As new technologies are developed, the journal reserves the right to request full dataset access as a condition of publication.

DNA/RNA gene sequences and high throughput mRNA, miRNA and other related datasets

Data Type	Suggested	Databases
DNA/RNA sequencing	NCBI Genbank	EMBL-EBI European Nucleotide Archive
Raw sequence reads	NCBI Sequence Read Archive
High-throughput datasets (e.g., mRNA gene expression microarrays, RNAseq, miRNA arrays, ChIP-chip arrays, CGH, SNP arrays)	NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus	EMBL-EBI ArrayExpress
Protein sequences	EMBL-EBI UniProt
Proteomics	EMBL-EBI PRIDE	ISB PeptideAtlas
Protein interaction Chemical compound screening and assay	IMEx Consortium NCBI PubChem

HeLa Cell Whole Genome Sequence Data Policy

The Blood Journals portfolio supports the policy on the access and research use of HeLa cell whole genome data. The policy was developed as a result of an agreement between the NIH and Henrietta Lacks’ surviving family members and is outlined in the HeLa Genome Data Use Agreement, as well as the NIH Guide notices for researchers who submit HeLa data to the NIH and investigators who use these data (NIH NOT-OD-13-099 and NIH NOT-OD-14-080).

The NIH’s policy for HeLa cell whole genome data was designed as a solution to a very unique situation of an identified cell line and is not a precedent for submission and use of de-identified human genomic data.

Under the policy, researchers who generate HeLa cell whole genome sequence data from DNA or RNA are expected to submit the data to the NIH database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP). Investigators who wish to use the dbGaP HeLa data for research purposes must request the data from the NIH and, if the use is found to be consistent with the HeLa Genome Data Use Agreement, access will be granted. Researchers who submit HeLa data are also expected to follow the same access request process as secondary users of the data to ensure that all uses are consistent with the HeLa Genome Data Use Agreement. Further, we ask researchers who publish their findings to include an acknowledgement of the contributions of Henrietta Lacks and her family.

Although the NIH policy applies to NIH-funded investigators, we are encouraging non-NIH-funded investigators to adhere to this policy as well. The investigators, regardless of funding source, who publish scientific findings involving the generation and/or use of HeLa cell whole genome sequence data, are encouraged to include a statement acknowledging the contributions of Henrietta Lacks and her family and affirming that the NIH has approved their use of these data (see the link to the acknowledgement statement above, provided by the NIH).

Clinical trial reporting and registry

Manuscripts reporting on clinical trials, whether phase 1, 2, 3 or 4, are welcome. Reports must include the clinical trial protocol, which entails a full description of the study design, patient population, methodology and conduct; the statistical analysis plan (SAP) is highly encouraged but not required. In all cases, the report will undergo peer review and will be evaluated for technical merit, novelty, clinical and scientific impact, and other measures to determine suitability for publication. Fast- track peer review is offered for clinical trial studies that deserve to be brought out to the public with maximum expediency. The full scope of reporting clinical trials is found in each journal’s respective Journal Scope page within the online author guide.

As defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (www.ICMJE.org), a clinical trial is ‘any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention, with or without concurrent comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome’.

Our journals  follow the trial registration policy of the ICMJE and considers only trials that have been registered before submission, and before the onset of patient enrollment. Acceptable registries must be ICMJE-approved (see more information in the section below).

For authors reporting phase II and phase III randomized controlled trials it is recommended to consult the CONSORT Statement and Checklist to facilitate the complete and transparent reporting of trial findings. In addition, including a Patient Flow Diagram in the manuscript is recommended for randomized studies.

Registration number and name of the trial registry must be provided at the end of the article abstract.

In accordance with the guidelines published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), our journals require, as a condition of consideration for publication, that all clinical trials be registered in ClinicalTrials.gov or in any of the primary registers that participate the WHO International Clinical Trial Registry Platform (ICTRP) or in EudraCT. Registration in a partner register only is insufficient. Trials must be registered at or before the onset of patient enrollment.

The ICMJE and Blood Journals portfolio implement the WHO definition of clinical trials for all trials that began enrollment on or after July 1, 2008 . This definition states that a clinical trial is "any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes."

Following ICMJE, results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which the primary registration resides to be previous publication if the results are presented in the form of a brief (< 500 words), structured abstract or table.

For more information, see the ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.

 

Guidelines for stem cell research

Research with embryonic stem cells should adhere to the guidelines established by the National Academy of Sciences, as published in the National Academy Press.

Open access options for authors

All articles published in Blood Advances, Blood Neoplasia, Blood Vessels, Thrombosis & Hemostasis, and Blood Global Hematology are free to access. Authors pay an article publishing charge; information regarding the fees for a specific journal may be found on the “Publication Fees” page of the journal’s Author Guide.
Blood maintains a 12-month access embargo to non-subscribers while offering an inexpensive pay-per-view option. All Blood content older than 12 months is available for free online. In addition, Blood ensures that patients looking for pertinent information can may access any article without charge by contacting the journal.
Any author may pay a fee to make their Blood article free to access immediately upon publication, as described in the ”Public access option” section of the Publications fee page.

Submission of NIH-funded accepted manuscripts to PubMed Central

Blood and the American Society of Hematology (ASH) signed an agreement with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that creates a straightforward way for authors to comply with NIH policy regarding public access to biomedical research. As a result of this agreement, Blood Journals authors who publish NIH-funded articles (May 2005 – Present) have no obligation to submit manuscripts to the NIH archive because the respective journal will do this on their behalf.

To ensure that NIH-funded manuscripts are correctly identified during submission, we request that authors use full titles and/or full acronyms when referring to NIH funding. Please also note that the corresponding author is responsible for disclosing NIH funding for all coauthors.

Press embargo policy

Information regarding manuscripts that have been accepted by the Blood Journals should not be shared publicly until the initial publication of the manuscript, typically in the journal’s First Edition . There is no press embargo of an article once it has published to First Edition. Authors who would like to hold publication temporarily (e.g., for an institutional press release) should contact journal staff as quickly as possible after the manuscript has been accepted.

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