At Nature Protocols, we aim to publish protocols for the best approaches to techniques from leading experts in each field. All of our protocols have been proven to work already and used to generate data published in a supporting primary research paper. Protocols are externally peer-reviewed and edited in-house to the highest standards. Each protocol contains a full list of reagents and equipment, timing information, and step-by-step instructions for performing the experiment, as well as information on designing and adapting the technique, its advantages and limitations compared to alternatives, troubleshooting, analysing data, and interpreting results. We also encourage authors to submit videos for steps that are technically challenging.
Nature Protocols aims to publish the protocols being used to answer outstanding biological and biomedical science research questions, including methods grounded in physics and chemistry that have a practical application to the study of biological problems. As the main audience for Nature Protocols articles is research scientists, we only publish protocols that have research applications; thus, we do not publish protocols where the main application is to make decisions that influence patient management and treatment.