Editorial Independence and Transparency

Editorial Independence

Cancer Biome and Targeted Therapy upholds the highest standards of editorial independence. Decisions on manuscripts are made solely based on scientific merit, methodological rigor, and relevance to the journal’s scope. Ownership, funding, or institutional affiliation do not influence editorial decisions.

Submissions by Editorial Board Members

Editorial board members are permitted to submit manuscripts; however, to ensure impartiality, they do not have access to, participate in the peer review, or the editorial decision process for their submissions. Manuscripts authored by board members are assigned to independent editors. External reviewers with no conflicts of interest are selected for these submissions. We actively monitor and restrict editorial board member authorship to ensure it remains below 20% of all published articles, to uphold editorial integrity.

Conflict of Interest (COI) Management

All editors, reviewers, and authors are required to disclose relevant conflicts of interest. The journal follows COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines for managing COIs. Reviewers and editors with conflicts are recused from handling or reviewing the manuscript. Authors are required to declare financial and non-financial COIs at submission. Editors with conflicts are recused from handling manuscripts where COIs exist. See our COI Policy.

Reviewer Independence

All manuscripts are subject to external peer review. Reviewers are selected for their expertise and independence. No manuscript is reviewed by someone who is: a co-author of the manuscript, a close collaborator, or a recent co-publisher with any of the authors (within the last 3 years), a member of the same institution or funding team as the author(s). See our Peer-review Policy.

Transparency Metrics

We track and regularly assess editorial contributions to published content to ensure compliance with ethical publishing standards. Metrics include: Proportion of articles with editorial board authorship, Peer review assignment independence, and COI compliance audits. These safeguards reflect our ongoing commitment to fairness, transparency, and scientific integrity.

Last updated: August 2025