About the Journal

Aims and Scope

Recent discoveries in experimental and clinical research have led to impressive advances in our knowledge of the genetic and environmental mechanisms governing sex determination and differentiation, their evolution as well as the mutations or endocrine and metabolic abnormalities that interfere with normal gonadal development. Sexual Development provides a unique forum for this rapidly expanding field. Its broad scope covers all aspects of genetics, molecular biology, embryology, endocrinology, evolution, and pathology of sex determination and differentiation in humans and animals. It publishes high-quality original research manuscripts, review articles, short reports, case reports, and commentaries. An internationally renowned and multidisciplinary editorial team of 3 chief editors, 10 prominent scientists serving as section editors, and a distinguished panel of editorial board members ensures fast and author-friendly editorial processing and peer reviewing.

Journal Sections

Single Topic Issues
The journal will publish a series of themed issues. For these publications we are soliciting the assistance of one or more expert investigators to act as Guest Editors in the area that is particularly interesting and/or one in which there is a need for a thorough overview. The Guest Editors invite top researchers to contribute original research reports or reviews of a topic that is in their main area of interest. These manuscripts are peer reviewed the same way as the papers received for the conventional issues. Proposals clearly outlining a theme and nominating potential Guest Editors are welcome.

Article Types

Research Article

Research Articles report on primary research. They must describe significant and original observations. Consideration for publication is based on the article’s originality, novelty, and scientific soundness, and the appropriateness of its analysis.
Research Articles are reports of original work. Authors are asked to follow the EQUATOR Network for Research Articles.
Prior approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or an Ethics Review Committee is required for all investigations involving human subjects.

A downloadable template is available below.

Documents

Research Article (DOCX, 39 KB)

Research articles should contain a 200 word abstract.

Review Article

Review Articles are considered reviews of research or summary articles. They are state-of-the-art papers covering a current topic by experts in the field. They should give evidence on and provide answers to a well-defined aspect or question in a particular area. Review Articles must include a critical discussion of the reported data and give a clear conclusion with potential impacts on the standard of care.

A downloadable template is available below.

Documents

Review Article (DOCX, 32 KB)

Review articles should contain a 200 word abstract.

Brief Report

Brief Reports are short and/or rapid announcements of research results. They must contain data derived from cutting-edge research and be of potential interest to a large proportion of the readership. They are independent, concise reports representing a significant contribution to the field. Such communications should represent complete, original studies and should be arranged in the same way as full-length manuscripts with subheadings.

A downloadable template is available below.

Documents

Brief Report (DOCX, 36 KB)

Brief reports should contain a 100 word abstract, 2'500-word body text, approx. 20 references, and max. 2 figures and 1 table.

Commentary

Commentaries draw attention to a jointly published article, discussing the context or implications of the article and highlighting points of wider relevance to the field. Commentaries are presented from the author’s perspective and do not include original data. Commentaries are invited by the Editors and relate to an article in the same issue.

A downloadable template is available below. 
Documents

Commentary (DOCX, 33 KB)

Commentaries should contain a 1'500-word body text, max 1 figure and 1 table.

Methods Article

Methods Articles describe methods or protocols used to perform an experiment or carry out a research plan. They should not report research results. Authors may submit a Study Protocol outlining a research and/or statistical analysis plan for proposed, or ongoing, but incomplete, research studies, including but not limited to, clinical trials, population-based studies, clinical outcome studies, and service evaluations. Only study protocols that have received ethical approval will be considered and, where expected by community convention, study protocols must be pre-registered and the trial/study registration number should be provided in the manuscript. Manuscripts reporting study protocols must adhere to the relevant reporting guidelines for their study design, such as the SPIRIT, PRISMA-P or other relevant reporting guidelines as detailed on the Equator Network website

A downloadable template is available below.

Documents

Method Article (DOCX, 36 KB)

Method Article for Study Protocol (DOCX, 37 KB)

Contact Information

Should you have any problems with your submission, please contact the editorial office:
Claus Steinlein
Department of Human Genetics
University of Würzburg
Biozentrum, Am Hubland
D–97074 Würzburg (Germany)
Tel. (+49) 931 31-88091
Fax (+49) 931 31-84058
E-mail claus.steinlein@biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de

Editorial and Journal Policies

Getting Started

The presentation of manuscripts should follow the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). We recommend preparing the manuscript using the dedicated article template for the manuscript type.

Only papers written in English are considered. The articles should be comprehensible to a reader who is fluent in English and should be edited prior to submission to ensure that standard English grammar and usage are observed. Use of a professional language editing service prior to submission can help avoid delays with the review process.

Research and Publication Ethics

When preparing a manuscript, it is important to review the editorial policies, including those on research ethics, consent, conflict of interest, data sharing and citation, text reuse and plagiarism, reproducibility and more. For full details, please visit the Publication Ethics and Editorial Policies page.

Karger Publishers is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Karger journals aim to adhere to the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines. Our policies on reporting and investigation of suspected misconduct in manuscripts and articles and how we handle potential errors in published articles can be found on the Publication Ethics and Editorial Policies page. Concerns regarding a manuscript in review or a published article should be raised to the .


Statements

All submitted manuscripts must contain a statements section after the main body of the text, but before the reference list. A summary of the required information is given below, for full details please refer to the article templates and visit the Publication Ethics and Editorial Policies page.


Acknowledgement (optional)

In the Acknowledgement section, authors may include individuals, who are not listed as authors, and organizations that have made substantive contributions to the research or the manuscript. An exception is where funding was provided, which should be included in Funding Sources.


Statement of Ethics

The Statement of Ethics must provide detail about the ethical approval process for the study reported in the manuscript, including the name and affiliation of the committee who approved the study and the decision reference number. For studies involving human participants, information must be provided about the consent provided to participate in the study. If information is included in the submission that may identify and individual or groups of individuals, specific consent to publish this information must be obtained and reported in the Statement of Ethics.

For complete information on our policies on Studies Involving Human Subjects, Identifiable Materials or Data or Studies Involving Animals, please see here.


Conflict of Interest Statement

Authors are required to disclose any relationship that could be perceived as a conflict of interest in the Conflict of Interest Statement. All forms of support and financial involvement which took place in the previous three years should be listed, regardless of their potential relevance to the paper. Nonfinancial relationships that may potentially influence the writing of the manuscript should also be declared. If there is no potential conflict of interest to report, please state this.

For complete information on our Conflict of Interest policy, please see here.


Funding Sources

Authors must give full details about the funding of any research relevant to their study, including sponsor names, written in full providing any associated grant numbers, and explanation of the roles of these funders in the study design, execution and analysis, and manuscript conception, planning, writing and decision to publish. If the sponsor or funder had no role in any of the above or if no funding was received for the study, please state this.

For complete information on our Funding Sources policy, please see here.


Author Contributions

In the Author Contribution statement, a short statement detailing the contributions of each person named as an author should be included. The CRediT taxonomy is a useful framework for preparing this section. Contributors to the submission who do not fulfil the ICMJE Criteria for Authorship should be credited, with their consent, in the Acknowledgement section.

For complete information on our Authorship and Contributorship policy, please see here.


Data Availability Statement

Authors are required to provide a Data Availability Statement that details whether data are publicly available and where the data supporting their study can be accessed. The journal’s data sharing policy strongly encourages authors to make all datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to editors, reviewers and readers without unnecessary restriction wherever possible. In cases where research data are not publicly available on legal or ethical grounds, this should be clearly stated along with any conditions for accessing the data.

For complete information about our Data Sharing policy, please see here.

Further Conditions

Authors should indicate which Section Editors they feel would be most appropriate for their report, and may also suggest up to three reviewers together with their e-mail addresses.

The editors are committed to ensuring a fast turnaround time of 3 weeks for the review process. The editors reserve the right to improve style and, if necessary, return the manuscript for rewriting to the authors. The editorial office reserves rights to reject manuscripts based on priorities and space availability in the journal.

Peer Review

Peer Review Policy

All Karger journals employ a rigorous peer-review process to confirm the validity and ensure scientific accuracy of published articles. Independent researchers with relevant expertise assess submitted manuscripts to help journal editors determine whether a manuscript should be published in their journal. All articles, except for Editorials and some Correspondence articles, are externally peer reviewed, typically by at least two individuals with expertise in the manuscript content area and/or research methods, before a final decision is made about acceptance for publication.


Peer Review Type and Process

Sexual Development uses a single-blind peer review system where reviewers know the names of the authors, but the authors do not know who reviewed their manuscript. For full details, including information about peer review policies and appeals process, please visit the Peer review – Karger Publishers page.

Article Preparation

Formatting

  • The preferred word processing program for manuscripts is Microsoft Word. Page and line numbering should be activated, and the level of subheadings should be indicated clearly.
  • Footnotes should be avoided. When essential, they should be numbered consecutively and appear at the foot of the appropriate page.
  • Abbreviations (with the exception of those clearly well established in the field) should be explained when they are first used both in the abstract and in the main text.
  • Units of measurement should be expressed in SI units wherever possible.
  • Generic names of drugs (first letter: lowercase) should be used whenever possible. Registered trade names (first letter: uppercase) should be marked with the superscript registration symbol ® or ™ when they are first mentioned.
  • The manuscript text, tables and figures must be submitted in separate files. Figure legends should be included at the end of manuscript text, not in the figure file. Table headers should be included above or below the table in the table file.
  • Use of original images and materials whenever possible. If a submitted manuscript contains third-party copyright material(s), it is the authors’ sole responsibility to obtain permission from the relevant copyright holder for reusing the material(s), including any associated licensing fee.

For full technical specifications, including those regarding tables, figures, and illustrations, please refer to Karger’s Technical Instructions to Publish a Paper.

Further Formatting Instructions

Plain Language Summary

A plain language summary may be submitted for Research Articles and Review Articles. The summary should not exceed 250 words and be written in plain English avoiding the use of technical language. If a technical term must be used, then authors must explain it the first time that it is used. The summary must be distinct from the abstract and provide readers with an easy-to-understand description of the manuscript. Authors should avoid the use of personal opinions and/or speculation on the results of the manuscript. No page charges will be incurred by the inclusion of the plain language summary. Use neither bibliographic references nor references to figures or tables in the summary.

Documents

Plain Language Summary Template (DOCX, 20.59 KB)


Gene Symbols

Human gene symbols

Only official gene symbols of the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) are accepted. Authors must obtain or verify the official gene symbol of the gene(s) mapped and indicate that they have done so in the manuscript submitted. This can be accomplished for human genes by contacting:

HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC)
European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI)
Wellcome Trust Genome Campus
Hinxton, Cambridgeshire
CB10 1SA, UK
Fax +44 (0)1223 494 468
E-Mail hgnc@genenames.org
Website: www.genenames.org

Guidelines set forth by the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee are available at http://www.genenames.org/guidelines.html.

New symbols and names for genes can be requested electronically through the online gene symbol request form at www.genenames.org/contact/request

Animal gene symbols

Authors submitting material on mouse and rat genetics should obtain correct genetic nomenclature before publication.

Contact:

Dr. Lois Maltais
MGD Nomenclature Coordinator
The Jackson Laboratory
600 Main Street
Bar Harbour ME 04609 (USA)
Tel. +1 (207) 288 6429
Fax +1 (207) 288 6132
E-mail nomen@informatics.jax.org
MGD home page: www.informatics.jax.org

Guidelines set forth by the International Committee on Standardized Genetic Nomenclature for Mice are available at www.informatics.jax.org/mgihome/nomen/gene.shtml

New symbols and names for genes can be requested electronically through the online symbol registry form at www.genenames.org/contact/request

Gene mapping data for the mouse should also be submitted to the Mouse Genome Database (MGD) following the guidelines at www.informatics.jax.org/submit.shtml

The assigned MDG accession numbers should be included in the manuscript for publication. Assistance with submissions can be obtained by by sending an e-mail to submissions@informatics.jax.org.

Manuscript Arrangement

Title Page

The first page should contain a short and concise title plus a running head of no more than 80 characters. Abbreviations should be avoided. 

Below the title, list all the authors’ names as outlined in the article sample, which can be downloaded under Article Types.  Each listed author must provide an affiliation, which comprises the department, university, or organization and its location, city, state/province (if applicable), and country. The affiliation listed for an author in a manuscript must be the affiliation where the author was based when the work described in the manuscript was carried out. For more information on our Authorship policies see our Publication Ethics and Editorial Policies page. Corresponding author information: Please supply the first and last name as well as an e-mail address at the bottom of the title page.   

Keywords relevant to the article should be listed below the corresponding author information. 

Body

Please refer to the Article Types section of the Guidelines for Authors for information on the relevant article structure, including maximum word counts and downloadable samples.

References

In-Text Citation

References in the text should be identified sequentially using Arabic numerals [in square brackets].

Reference List

The reference list should include only those publications which are cited in the text, arranged numerically in the order in which they are cited. Please number the reference list as shown below (i.e., without using full stops, brackets, etc.). The authors’ surnames should be followed by their initials with no punctuation other than a comma to separate individual authors. A maximum of 6 authors should be listed (followed by “et al.” if there are more than 6 authors). Material submitted for publication but not yet accepted should be referred to as “unpublished data” and should not be included in the reference list. Other pre-published or related materials with a DOI, e.g. preprint manuscripts, datasets, and code, may be included. More information on good referencing practice, as well as further examples, can be found in National Library of Medicine Style Guide for Authors.

Examples

Articles published in journals: 1 Sawant KV, Xu R, Cox R, Hawkins H, Sbrana E, Kolli D, et al. Chemokine CXCL1-mediated neutrophil trafficking in the lung: role of CXCR2 activation. J Innate Immun. 2015;6(7):647–58. (Journal names should be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus.)

Articles published only with DOI number: 2 Chen C, Hu Z. ApoE polymorphisms and the risk of different subtypes of stroke in the Chinese population: a comprehensive meta-analysis. Cerebrovasc Dis. DOI: 10.1159/000442678.

Monographs: 3 Matthews DE, Farewell VT. Using and understanding medical statistics. 5th ed, revised. Basel: Karger; 2015.

Edited Books: 4 Cohen SR, Gardner TW. Diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema. In: Nguyen QD, Rodrigues EB, Farah ME, Mieler WF, Do DV, editors. Retinal pharmacotherapeutics. Dev Ophthalmol. Basel: Karger; 2016. Vol. 55; p. 137–46.

Websites: 5 Karger Publishers [Internet]. Basel: Transforming Vesalius: The 16th-Century Scientific Revolution Brought to Life for the 21st Century [cited 2013 Feb 4]. Available from: https://www.vesaliusfabrica.com/en/new-fabrica.html.

Figures and Tables

The figure legend should be placed at the end of the article, after the reference list. The figure legend should not be part of the figure file. Tables require a heading above or below the table in the table file. For more details please download the relevant article template from the section “Article Types”.

Online Supplementary Material

Online Supplementary Material may be used to enhance a publication and increase its visibility on the Web. Supplementary files (directly relevant but not essential to the conclusions of the paper) will undergo editorial review and should be submitted in a separate file with the original manuscript and with all subsequent submissions. The Editor(s) reserve(s) the right to limit the scope and length of supplementary material. Supplementary material must meet production quality standards for publication without the need for any modification or editing. For ease of reader access, we strongly recommend that files be less than 10 MB. Authors wishing to associate larger amounts of supplementary material with their article should deposit their data in an appropriate public data repository. Figures must have legends and tables require headings. All files must be named clearly. Acceptable files and formats are Word or PDF files, Excel spreadsheets (if the data cannot be converted properly into a PDF file), and multimedia files (MPEG, AVI, or QuickTime formats). All supplementary material should be referred to in the main text. Authors providing a reporting checklist as part of their submission are asked to upload it as supplementary material, and refer to it in the manuscript as such. A DOI number will be assigned to supplementary material, and it will be hosted online at https://karger.figshare.com under a CC BY license.

Author Services

Karger Publishers offer a range of services to assist authors with the preparation of their manuscript, including discounts for language editing services offered by third parties.


More information is available on the Author Resources section of the Karger homepage.


When submitting a manuscript, authors can add their ORCID number to their Karger account to ensure that their paper is accredited to them correctly.