ISSN 0121-4004
Printed version

ISSNe 2145-2660
Electronic version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and policy
• Classification of articles
• Manuscript submissions
• Originals revision
• Publishing Costs
• Licensign works

The VITAE Journal is a four-monthly scientific publication of the college of Pharmaceutical and Food Sciences, of the University of Antioquia, and is devoted to communicate the development and advances in research in various fields including the pharmaceutical, food and related sciences. The Journal publishes original and novel manuscripts, selected by the Editorial Board and evaluated by national and international peers. A Review Article –or structured search– will be published by invitation only. The responsibility over judgments, opinions and points of view expressed in the published manuscripts relies exclusively on the authors. The statement of the Faculty is recorded in the Editorial section.

The selection and evaluation of the manuscripts submitted abide under the responsibility of the Editorial Board and the peer reviewers, respectively. The reception of a manuscript implies neither its approval nor its publication. For the accepted manuscripts, the Editorial Board reserves the right to perform the necessary editorial modifications for its publication, as well as the release date in the Journal.

The Vitae Journal publishes the following manuscript types:

- Research Articles

- Short articles

- Structured Reviews

- Editorial section and Editorial comments

- Letters to the Editor

The articles are classified within one of the following sections:

- Foods: Science, technology and engineering

- Pharmaceutical care

- Biotechnology

- Pharmacology and toxicology

- Pharmaceutical Thechnology

- Natural products

The VITAE Journal receives English written articles for evaluation. Manuscripts must be submitted via the Open Journal System platform (https://aprendeenlinea.udea.edu.co/revistas/index.php/vitae). Authors must also submit the requested information: Colciencias (F-8516-23), authors (F-8516-08) and Open–Access License (F-8516-25 V2). The author may verify the fulfillment of the requirements before submitting the manuscript by using the List of verification, which is available in the web page in the Author’s forms and guidelines sections. The online submission site provides a security mechanism to protect all electronically submitted papers. The same system is utilized throughout the peer reviewing process, and the access is restricted only to Editors and Reviewers assigned to a particular paper.

Manuscript Format

The document should be written in US Standard English. Authors must certify that the

manuscript have been reviewing and editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English. The text must be prepared using accepted word-processing software (e.g.: Word®), with double spaced lines, Times New Roman font, size 12, and symmetrical margins (3 cm). All pages must be numbered consecutively, starting with the title page including tables and figures.

The Journal’s Sections, must be assembled in the following sequence:

- First Page (single page)

The First Page must contain the title, Authorship and Affiliations.

The title must be written in both English and Spanish languages (20 words maximum).

Author’s information:

1. a) Names of the authors as cited in the different publications or, alternatively, as he or

she prefers to be cited.

1. b) Highest academic degree of each author.
2. c) Institutional affiliations: it must contains the name of the institution, including city

and Country, and may also contain the position of every author.

1. d) Indicate who the corresponding author is, and his/her e-mail address, under the

phrase “Author to whom correspondence should be directed”.

- Abstract (single page)

Both, in the research articles and systematic reviews, it must be included a structured abstract of one single and concise paragraph, both in English and Spanish (300-350 words), with different and labeled sections denoted in bold uppercase. The abstract must be written in past tense, except for the conclusions. Do not cite references, tables, figures, or sections of the paper in the abstract. The abstract must fulfill the following criteria:

- Background: It establishes the context and justification of the study.

- Objectives: It fixes the aim of the study.

- Methods: It presents the most important aspects of the study, experimental design, sampling, data measurement, as well as the analysis and statistical procedures. The methods must allow the fulfillment of the objectives and be coherent with the results. In case of Systematic Reviews, it must present clearly the way to select and include the references.

- Results: It shows the most evident the most significant findings, along with the respective statistical proofs; the results must respond to the objectives and are coherence with the body of the manuscript.

- Conclusions: It should present at least one conclusion, supported by the results and be in agreement with the objectives.

Keywords

From three to five keywords must be included, both in Spanish and English; at least two of them must be listed in the Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS) that appears in the web page: http://decs.bvs.br/, or be MeSH terms. 

Structured Review article are documents where research results are analyzed, systematized and integrated in a scientific and technological field, with the intention of reporting advances and the tendencies in a research field. They are made by guest authors selected by the Editorial Board or eventually by the author initiative. The reviews present a general description of the field of interest and/or the systematization of the information, with a critical assessment using references from a period of time of no larger than five (5) years. These reviews must have a minimum of 50 references. The most recent reference must not be older than one (1) year from the date of publication.

The complete articles must present in detail the original results of completed research projects, which have not been previously published. When it is a matter of standardization and/or validation of analytical methods, it must follow the official rules of different sectors or guidelines of international entities. Research articles submitted to the VITAE Journal must have of a maximum extension of 25 pages including Tables and Figures.

Introduction: The context and background of the study must be presented succinctly. It includes the nature of the problem and its importance, citating to the most relevant works previously published. In this section, the aim objectives and hypothesis of the article are specified. Both the main objective (general objective) and the secondary objectives (specific objectives) must be clear and include previous relevant work. It must have appropriate citations, and must not include data or conclusions.

Materials and methods: It must contain the information and the necessary procedures for the reproducibility of the experiments or processes utilized, indicating the established methods in the literature and every substantial modification. It must include the aspects related to the design of the study or design of the experiments, sampling (or the selection and description of participants in the case of clinic studies), the criteria for inclusion and exclusion, data collection and the way of measurement of data and its analysis along with the statistical processing. This section must include an ethical statement of the study (including the approbation number for the use of animals/patients by an ethical committee), consent to participate, it there are not publishing identifying patient data, please write "Not applicable" in this section.

Results: It must present the most significant findings in a logical sequence, using tables and figures in order to synthesize the information, avoiding its interpretation. It is presented summarizing data, and it should not be restricted to the derived final results (such as percentages) and, therefore, it must include the numerical values utilized for the calculations, and specifies the statistical methods used in the analysis.

Discussion: It must stand out the novel results or the most significative contributions, contextualized in the set of available evidence, comparing the results with others reported in similar studies, establishing similarities and/or differences. Moreover, the explanations must be supported, standing out the strengths or novelty of the results, justification of the contribution to the investigation in the topic. It must end with a paragraph that exposes the main limitations of the research.

Conclusion: It must report the assertions about the development of the research associated to the objectives of the work, omitting those statements that are not supported by the results. Conclusions of economical nature must be avoided, except when the article includes these analyzes. It may include a new hypothesis supported by the results, but clearly describing them.

Conflict of interest: it must report if there are conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements: If pertinent, it must mention people and institutions that, without complying with the authorship requirements, have contributed to the execution of the research, either by economical or technical support.

Authors´contributions: The contributions of all authors must be described. It is expected that all authors will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their individual contributions. Contributions will be published with the final article, and they should accurately reflect contributions to the work.

Short articles present the preliminary or partial original results of a scientific or technological research that require a quick diffusion. Those works are related to the pharmaceutical, food and similar fields, in which the interest justifies the need of have information about the topic. They have a maximum extension of 15 pages, keeping the structure of the Articles of research results.

Editorial comments

Editorial comments

This type of manuscript is written by authors invited specifically by the Editor of the Journal; this manuscript publishes comments of renowned researchers related with research Articles due to its high relevance or interest in the pharmaceutical, food and similar fields. These comments are published in the same issue of the Journal in which the article is published. The writing must contain the following characteristics:

• Authors (3 maximum).
• The text must have a maximum of 1200 words, excluding tables and/or figures and references. It must be focused in the state of the art of the article topic commenting and standing out the most remarkable contributions to the state of the art, applications or practical utility of the results, as well as new questions or issues to be resolved.
• Tables and/or figures (3 maximum).
• References (10 maximum, one of them must refer to the commented article).

Letters to the Editor

This type of manuscript publishes comments of recently published articles in the Journal, and this publication is a priority and very fast. In case of being accepted, the letter will be sent to the authors of the referred article in order to, respond to the mentioned aspects in the text; both the letter and its reply are published in the same issue of the Journal. The writing must contain the following characteristics:

• Authors (3 maximum).
• Text (maximum 600 words, excluding tables and/or figures, and references). It must refer to issues related to the objectives, methods, results and main conclusions.
• Tables and/or figures (maximum 2).
• References (maximum 7, one of them must refer to the commented article).

Abbreviations: Define abbreviations upon first appearance in the text. Do not use non-standard abbreviations unless they appear at least three times in the text. Keep abbreviations to a minimum.

Tables and Figures: Each manuscript may be complemented with tables and/or figures (maximum 10), previously quoted in the text (e.g. on Table 1, etc), with a different consecutive Arabic number and the information should not be duplicated in the text, and should be placed immediately after the paragraph where it was quoted for the first time. The writing must contain the following characteristics:

• Tables include data used to synthesize or organize the information drawn with full borders.

• The Figures include graphics, pictures, photographs, drawings, maps and structures, limiting the quantity and trying to overlap them, without affecting the clarity

• The use of colors in the graphics is conditioned to the additional costs for the publication generated during the editorial process.

• The source of the tables and figures that are not created by the author must be citated.

• The title of the figures is written separately as a paragraph, located below the figures, and above the tables. The title must be brief and clearly describe its content.

• Figures must not be included within a table format.

Symbols and units: The author may use the guidelines of the International System of Units (ISO/IEC 80000), concerning to units, symbols and abbreviations.

Commercial Names: Commercial names must be avoided and generic names must be used instead. If trademarks are required they must have the ® symbol.

Names of equipment, instruments and reagents: The exact values of replicates as well as specific details that ease the material identification must be indicated. Further, reagents and culture media must have the supplier and country of origin written in parentheses.

Scientific Names: The scientific names must be indicated in italics, with first capital letter, and optionally  complemented with the “authority”. The strains and the variations of the specie, if relevant to the work must also be indicated.

The references in the text using an Arabic numbers in parenthesis, according to the order of appearance must be indicated. The complete references must be included at the end of the manuscript under the title of References, according to the ICMJE norm (Vancouver), which can be consulted at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=citmed.

The model of some references is presented next:

Scientific articles: Authors. Article title. ISI abbreviation of Journal name. Date of publication, Volume (Issue): Pages.

Restrepo A, Cortés M, Márquez CJ. Uchuvas (Physalis peruviana L.) mínimamente procesadas fortificadas con vitamina E. Vitae. 2009 May-Aug; 16 (2): 19-30.

Keyzers R, Daoust J, Davies-Coleman M, Van R, Balgi A, Donohue E, et al. Autophagy-modulating aminosteroids isolated from the sponge Cliona celata. Org Lett. 2008 Jul 17; 10 (14): 2959-2962.

Printed Books and monographs:
Authors. Title. Edition. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year. Pages.

Gibaldi M, Perrier D. Farmacocinética.Barcelona, España: Reverte; 2008. 352 p.

Thesis and degree work: Authors. Title. [Document type]. [Place of Publication]: Editor. Date. Pages.

Monsalve AF, Morales SP. Aumento de capacidad del recurso restricción en la empresa Laproff S.A. [Trabajo de pregrado]. [Medellín, Colombia]: Universidad de Antioquia: 2009. 39 p.

Electronic Material: Authors. Title. [Type of Medium]. Place of Publication: Publisher: Date.

ASME. Aseptic Fill & Finish for Biopharmaceuticals. [CD-ROM]. San Diego (CA): ASME: 2007.

Website: Authors. Title. [Type of medium]. Place of Publication: Publisher. Publication. [Date of Citation]. Available from: URL.

Habib MAB, Parvin M, Huntington TC, Hasan MR. A review on culture, production and use of spirulina as food for humans and feeds for domestic animals and fish. [Internet]. Rome, Italy: FAO. 2008 [Consulted: 18 august of 2009]. Available from: ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/011/i0424e/i0424e00.pdf

The Editorial Board may reject a manuscript without going through a peer reviewing process, the paper is outside the scope of the Journal, or if it is poorly written or formatted, meaningless, or lack of novelty. For this purpose, the editorial board could ask for an opinion of an expert.

The Editorial Board seeks the scientific advice of two Peer Reviewers (minimum), who are active in the research field related to the manuscript. The Reviewers will perform the evaluation process and will assign a written assessment through the Open Journal System platform. The Peer Reviewers act only in an advisory capacity, and the final decision is the responsibility of the Editorial Board, and as a result manuscripts may be approved or rejected definitely. In case of approving the publication, the Editorial Board asks for corrections and improvements, and the authors must send back a new manuscript version within 14 (fourteen) calendar days since the date of notification through the Open Journal System platform. The article will be published online after reception of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication with an assigned DOI. Once the printed version, is released the paper can also be cited with an issue and page numbers. Authors whose manuscripts are published in the Journal will be expected to review manuscripts submitted by other researchers from time to time.

The open access publishing is not free of costs. The Vitae Journal defrays these costs through the article-processing fees because Vitae does not request for subscription fees. These fees are designed to cover partially the cost for editorial work required to prepare the submissions prior publication. The Vitae Journal publication fee is five hundred thousand Colombian Pesos ($500.000 COP) for domestic transactions, or two hundred and fifty dollars ($220 USD) or € 200 Euros for international transactions –except for the letters to the editor and the editorial comments–. This amount is paid once the manuscript is approved for publication. The printing of graphics, figures or color photographs is optional and requires the payment of a fee of one hundred Colombian Pesos ($100.000 COP) per required page for domestic transactions, or sixty-five dollars ($65 USD) for international transactions.

The Vitae Journal works under the Open Access license, and the published manuscripts remain available for the public, both on the Journal’s website and in databases, under the “Creative Commons license”, “Noncommercial Attribution” and “No-derivative Works” systems, adopted in Colombia. Hence, when the authors fill out the document of the Open-Access License (F-8516-25 V2), they also give the copyrights to the VITAE Journal and the University of Antioquia, without the right to economic retributions on publications and reproductions through different diffusion media.