CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

The organizers of the 10th Congress of the International Pediatric Transplant Association welcome you to submit an abstract. Please find below instructions to read before opening the submission page.

All abstract authors are asked to choose a scientific topic during the submission process

User Profile

• Before submitting an abstract, the submitter must create a User Profile.
• After an abstract has been created, modifications can be made until the submission deadline. 
• There is no limit on the number of abstract submissions from any one individual. However, we will apply a rule of two for abstract presenter (see details below).

The final deadline to submit the abstract(s) is November 5, 2018. Abstracts will not be able to be submitted online after this date. The submitting author will receive notification of acceptance in January 2019. At the time of the confirmation of acceptance of your abstract, presenters will be requested to register for the congress. Deadline for abstract confirmation of acceptance and presenter registration in February 2019.

Important Dates

Choosing a Topic

During the submission process, you will be asked to select the topic for your abstract. The topic is the general heading under which the abstract will be reviewed and later published in the congress materials, if accepted. The topic which best describes the subject of the abstract should be chosen. IPTA reserves the right to reassign the topic of the abstract for the purposes of programming.

Abstract Structure

All abstracts should be formatted into the following four sections:

• Introduction:  clarifies the motivation for the research presented.
• Methods:  provides sufficient detail for others to reproduce what is studied in the research project.
• Results: presents and discusses the results.
• Conclusion:  presents the outcome of the work by interpreting the findings and by relating these findings to the motivation stated in the Introduction. Explain the significance of your findings / outcomes and future implications of the results.

Abstract Guidelines

All abstracts must be submitted electronically through the Congress abstract submission website.

• Abstracts will be accepted in English only.
• There is no fee for submitting an abstract.
• There are no limitations on the number of abstracts that an individual can submit. However, one individual can only present two abstracts (oral, mini-oral or poster) presentations during the entire Congress. If you have more than 2 abstracts accepted, you will be obliged to identify alternate co-author for any abstract above the first two.
• The abstract text body is limited to 2,500 characters (Approx. 400 words) including spaces. A maximum of two figures/images (in JPG, GIF, or PNG with ideally 600 dpi) can be included. These will not count toward the word limit, nor will the information about authors, institutions and study groups. File size of 2 MB maximum for each figure.
• Tables: do not insert tables into the body of the abstracts, the system will not recognize the format of the table. Tables will need to be uploaded as image files into the body of the abstract.
• Abstracts accepted for oral, mini-oral or poster presentation will be published electronically in Pediatric Transplantation, the official journal of the International Pediatric Transplant Association. Abstracts not accepted for presentation will not be published. Abstracts will also be posted prior to the meeting in the detailed program section of the Congress website.
• Employees of Commercial Interests: IPTA recognizes that employees/spouses of commercial interests are often involved in research and discovery and encourages these employees to submit abstracts to facilitate the flow of new information. Employees of commercial interests should submit abstracts when the content is limited to basic science research (e.g., pre-clinical research, drug discovery) or the processes/methodologies of research, themselves unrelated to a specific disease or compound/drug, and the abstract is not related to clinical applications of the research/discovery or clinical recommendations concerning the business lines or products of their employer.
• Ensure that all co-authors approve of the abstract submission, publication, and potential presentation. Abstracts cannot be changed or withdrawn after November 13, 2018. Once an abstract has been scored by reviewers, no change in the body of the abstract will be accepted.
• Presenters of successful abstracts must confirm their acceptance, register and pay for the Congress by February 2019 (early bird deadline), otherwise the abstract will not be published.

Copyright Policy

Abstracts should not include libelous or defamatory content. Material presented in abstracts should not violate any copyright laws. If figures/graphics/images have been taken from sources not copyrighted by the author, it is the author’s sole responsibility to secure the rights from the copyright holder in writing to reproduce those figures/graphics/images for both worldwide print and web publication. All reproduction costs charged by the copyright holder must be borne by the author.

Resubmission Policy

IPTA welcomes the submission of abstracts that have been presented previously at regional, national, or international meetings in the two years since the last IPTA Congress (2017) given the highly specialized nature of pediatric solid organ transplantation and related themes. However, if a manuscript of the abstract has been published, submission will not be permitted.

Plagiarism

IPTA regards plagiarism as serious professional misconduct. All abstracts are screened for plagiarism and when identified, the abstract and any other abstracts submitted by the same author are rejected. In addition, the submitting author’s profile and scholarship application, in the case one has been submitted, will also be cancelled.

Ethics Compliance

To be eligible to submit an abstract, you must disclose that the authors/ scientists have not violated any aspect of The Transplantation Society Ethics statements and that this research conforms with the ethical statements noted.

Scientific studies and clinical activities should be performed in keeping with the ethical principles delineated in the following policy documents:

• the Declaration of Istanbul (DOI) ethics' statement
• the ethical statement on human research subject, Helsinki Declaration of The World Medical Association
• the International Xenotransplantation Association Ethics Committee Position Paper on The Ethics of Xenotransplantation (Xenotransplantation 10:194-203, 2003) For research involving human subjects -The Helsinki
• The Transplantation Society ethics statement
• Institutional Ethical Review for human and/or animal research as appropriate

The IPTA 2019 Scientific Advisory Committee may require further information on the ethical aspects when evaluating the abstracts.

Abstract Review

• All submitted abstracts will go through a blinded peer-review process carried out by an international review committee.
• All abstracts will be reviewed (blinded) by at least three international referees, selected by the organizing committee.
• Abstracts which do not meet the focus of the topic category as requested by the authors will be reassigned to another category.
• Scores assigned by all reviewers are averaged. The cut-off average score for acceptance is based on available oral and poster presentations. Rejections are further evaluated by the scientific program committee.

Format of Presentation

You may opt to submit your abstract to be considered for an oral presentation, a poster presentation, or either (at the committee’s discretion).

Notification of Acceptance or Rejection to Corresponding Author

Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to the submitting (corresponding) author by January 2019. Please note that only the corresponding author will receive the communication concerning the abstract and is responsible for informing all co-authors of the status of the abstract. Authors whose abstracts have been accepted will receive instructions for the presentation of their abstract.

Rule of Two

Each presenting author may present a maximum of two abstracts during the entire Congress (oral, mini-orals or posters). The number of submissions is however not limited. Should an author have more than two abstracts accepted for presentation, a co-author must be named as presenter for one or more abstracts.