Open Access: All research articles published in Medical Research Updates are completely open access, meaning they are readily accessible for reading, downloading, and sharing without any restrictions. Published articles are subject to a Creative Commons license that allows for their use, distribution, and replication in any medium, as long as it is not for commercial purposes, and the original work is appropriately cited. Our website allows for unrestricted downloading of articles without the need for any subscription or login. Upon initial publication, a complete version of the work and all supplementary materials are promptly deposited in a standard electronic format that meets the requirements. Because open access to research promotes worldwide knowledge exchange, this publication provides immediate access to its content. 

Peer-Review: The Editor-in-Chief (EiC), Associate Editors (AE), and Editorial Team review all manuscripts to ensure they meet the journal's goals and scope before peer-reviewing or rejecting them. Only manuscripts that appear to fit our editorial standards are sent for formal evaluation to assist authors and peer-reviewers. Editors quickly reject publications they deem weak or inappropriate without external review (although they may rely on informal input from field experts). The EiC or AE then assigns the work to 2–3 editorial board members or competent external reviewers. Reviewers must be from different institutions, not have published articles in the last 5 years with the manuscript's authors, and not have a conflict of interest with the manuscript's content. After reviewing the recommendations, the EiC or AE will decide whether to accept, revise, or reject them. We weigh the strength of each reviewer's and authors' arguments and may consider other information not available to either party in the final editorial decision. In circumstances where reviewers disagree or the authors believe they were misunderstood on facts, we may ask for more help. We value reviewers' technical criticisms. If only one reviewer opposes publication, we may ask the others if she/he is being too critical. Reviewer selection is crucial to publication, and we consider competence, reputation, particular recommendations, and our personal experience with a reviewer. Reviewers should treat these communications as proprietary. MRU uses single-blind peer review. Reviewers can remain anonymous or identify themselves by adding their names to our submission system. To continue reviewing, selected reviewers must indicate no conflict of interest. 

Authorship :The MRU journal assumes all authors agree on the contents, including the authors' list and contribution disclosures. The corresponding author must ensure all authors consent to the submission and manage journal-co-author contacts before and after publication. All authors must approve author list changes after submission.  No additional researchers should be listed as authors. Authorship acknowledges and holds researchers accountable. Since the Journal cannot investigate or adjudicate authorship disputes before or after publication, MRU publishes author contributions statements to promote openness. If writers cannot resolve their disagreements, the proper institutional authorities should be notified. The text must include a statement of responsibility listing each author's contribution. Authors should identify with their principal institution.

Corresponding Authors: The corresponding author handles journal and co-author communication exclusively. The corresponding author ensures that all authors are on the author list, that their order is agreed upon, and that they know the work was submitted before submission. The corresponding author must obtain explicit permission from the authors to mention unpublished information in the manuscript. When submitting the paper, the corresponding author must clearly identify any content (such as figures) that has been published elsewhere and obtain express permission from other authors and/or publishers to reuse it. The corresponding author receives the proof after acceptance and shares it with all coauthors and deals with the journal on their behalf. The journal will not correct errors after publication if they were on a proof that was not shown to coauthors. The corresponding author must ensure that coauthor names and affiliations are appropriately spelled in the proof. 

• The corresponding author's name and email address are provided in the paper. • Authors must promptly notify the journal of any corrections. Requests for corrections with written agreements from all authors save time. The coordinating author must include letters from dissenting authors if they disagree with the corrective statement. 

Licensing: This work is protected by the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For publications published on MRU, the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) is used. The (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license will be applied to your work if you submit your manuscript for publication to our journal.

To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. 

Plagiarism: We follow COPE and Council of Science Editors' Good Publication Practice rules for plagiarism and other unethical publication practices. These rules promote ethical and responsible article publishing. Our initial step is to undertake an early inquiry using our anti-plagiarism software. The Quillbot® and Grammarly® certified program checks all articles for plagiarism in our journal. Reviewer feedback and Editor observations are used to verify publications suspected of plagiarism or other unethical practices. Unfortunately, our anti-plagiarism engine cannot detect “salami slicing”. Thus, each case must be examined separately, and we do not recommend using one description of conduct to punish the perpetrator. As editors, we must assess if the author's activity was intentional or owing to a lack of ethical writing knowledge. This can happen to rookie authors or those with challenging English translations. There may be no words/phrases in that language that translate into English, and a growing trend is "borrowing" words, phrases, or sentences that authors think are appropriate. MRU opposes malpractice and unethical behavior.

Originality: MRU accepts only original, unpublished material. This regulation applies to content supplied elsewhere while the MRU contribution is considered. An author must state in the cover letter that portion of a material they want to submit to MRU has published or will appear elsewhere. An author must provide proof that the previous publisher or copyright holder gave authorization to republish a figure or figures in a submission. MRU editors assume that their journal has permission to publish all submitted material, including graphics.

Ethics: An Ethics Committee should have cleared human and animal experiments; however, the Editors can reject problematic articles. All investigators should follow the Declaration of Helsinki when planning, conducting, and reporting human research. Researchers must obtain approval from an impartial local, regional, or national review body (e.g., ethics committee, institutional review board). If there is dispute about whether the research followed the Declaration of Helsinki, the authors must explain their approach and show that the local, regional, or national review body specifically authorized the doubtful parts. Editors can judge the research's suitability even when a relevant review body approves. All human study requires IRB or local Ethics Committee permission. The main text or Supplementary Material should list all subjects' ages and genders. When reporting experiments on human subjects, investigators must follow ethical standards set by the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (revised in 2013). All participants in non-interventional studies (surveys, questionnaires, etc.) must be informed about anonymity, data use, the research purpose, and hazards. Before starting any human research, an ethics commission must approve it. If ethical approval is not needed, authors must offer an exemption from the ethics committee or cite local or national legislation that exempts this sort of study. The ethics committee that exempted a study should be listed in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ or ‘Ethics Approval Statement’ with a thorough explanation of ethical approval waiver.

Informed Consent: Authors who want to publish case details, personal information, or photos of patients and others must get consents, permissions, and releases. This is to comply with all privacy and security legislation. Patients' privacy should not be compromised without informed consent. Names, initials, and hospital numbers should not be released in written descriptions, images, or pedigrees unless necessary for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent. An identifiable patient must see the paper to be published for informed consent. After publication, authors should inform patients of any potentially identifiable content online and in print.