Pozo Pérez, David

PubMed

idUS. Depósito de Investigación Universidad de Sevilla

Dear Editor,Our immune system constantly interacts with our internal environ-ment, protects us from our external environment and provides theinherent knowledge to sense the difference between friend and foe.Therefore, the immune system is one of the most dynamic bodycomponents in determining our state of health or disease. Theimportance of immune-based disorders is highlighted by the fact thatimmune-mediated inflammatory diseases are known to affect nearly20% of the U.S. population. These conditions, which include juve-nile-onset diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, asthma,systemic lupus erythematosus and acquired immune deficiency syn-drome, lead to chronic debilitation, life-long illness, protracted mor-bidity and result in great medical costs. The immune system also hasa major involvement in post-transplant rejection and in the body’sability to fight invading cancer cells. Despite of these seemingly unconnected diseases, basic immu-nologists are in a prominent position to apprehend a broader pictureunder a cohesive paradigm. This forefront of future therapeuticstrategies relies on the successful applications of genetic, molecu-lar and cellular immunology to prevent, treat and cure the problemscaused by immune-based disorders. The translational aspects ofresearch that are directly related to patient care require integrated,multidisciplinary strategies involving teams skilled in basic biologyand clinical investigation, ethics and regulatory issues. To take fulladvantage of such a global approach, it is essential to focusresearch programs on a limited number of well-validated basic con-cepts common to autoimmunity, allergy and organ transplantation.Thus, how to best enforce or end immune responses for the bene-fit of the patients is probably the most exciting attainable goal fortoday’s therapeutics [1].Starting with this issue, we are pleased to launch a new reviewseries in the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, devotedto present and discuss new approaches of potential relevance forthe development of translational immunology. Better treatments,prevention and a cure, are the ultimate goals of multiple sclerosis(MS) research, and perhaps no branch of investigation has provenmore fruitful towards these goals than the study of the immunesystem. In the first review article appearing in this issue, Quintana,Farez and Weiner at the Harvard University Center for NeurologicDiseases, explore MS when complex data from multiple experi-mental sources using interdisciplinary tools are integrated andanalyzed [2–4]. Current therapies for MS have emerged from ourgrowing understanding of how the immune system works andhow it can be manipulated to suppress or regulate immuneattacks. Here, they discuss how the development of computationaltools for the integration of multiple data into quantitative models[5, 6], represents one of the last frontiers in drug discovery pro-grams and the early detection of individuals at risk of sufferingMS. The series will go on with key questions with a clear empha-sis on translational issues. Some of them are as follows: What isthe future of novel biochemical pathways and lipid-derived mediators as anti-inflammatory modulatory agents? Which are thelimits posed by the immune system to different gene therapystrategies? What are the immune aspects of amyloidosis-baseddiseases? What are the immunological problems and the prospec-tive solutions for stem cell-based therapies? What can be learnedabout the immune regulation of human haematopoietic stemcells? What are the translational values of the immunomodulatorycapacities of mesenchymal stem cells? These, among otherissues, will highlight ongoing research to bring forth valuablepoints and new ideas for discussion. Your comments, suggestionsand contributions aimed to integrate basic and clinical immunology,will be warmly welcomed.‘Translational therapies of immune-based disorders’Review SeriesImmune-based disorders: the challenges for translational immunologyDavid Pozo *Guest EditorJ. Cell. Mol. Med. Vol 12, No 4, 2008 pp. 1085-1086© 2008 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2008 Foundation for Cellular and Molecular Medicine/Blackwell Publishing Ltddoi:10.1111/j.1582-4934.2008.00349.xEditorial Foreword*Correspondence to: David POZO,Department of Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,The University of Seville Medical School,Sanchez Pizjuan Ave, 41009, Sevilla, Spain.Tel.: +34-95-455 9852; Fax: +34-95-490 7048.Email: dpozo@us.esReferences1. Brent L, Cohen IR, Doherty PC, FeldmannM, Matzinger P, Ghost L, Holgate ST,Lachmann P, Mitchison NA, Nossal G,Rose NR, Zinkernagel R. Crystal-ball gaz-ing-the future of immunological researchviewed from the cutting edge. Clin ExpImmunol. 2007; 147: 1–10.2. Quintana FJ, Basso AS, Iglesias AH, KornT, Farez MF, Bettelli E, Caccamo M,Oukka M, Weiner HL. Control of T(reg)and T(H)17 cell differentiation by the arylhydrocarbon receptor. Nature 2008:doi:10.1038/nature06880.3. Quintana FJ, Hagedorn PH, Elizur G,Merbl Y, Domany E, Cohen IR. Functionalimmunomics: microarray analysis of IgGautoantibody repertoires predicts thefuture response of mice to induceddiabetes. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2004; 101:14615–21.4. Quintana FJ, Merbl Y, Sahar E, DomanyE, Cohen IR. Antigen-chip technology foraccessing global information about thestate of the body. Lupus 2006; 15: 428–30.5. Cohen IR. Modeling immune behavior forexperimentalists. Immunol Rev. 2007;216: 232–6.6. Cohen IR. Real and artificial immune sys-tems: computing the state of the body. NatRev Immunol. 2007; 7: 569–74.© 2008 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2008 Foundation for Cellular and Molecular Medicine/Blackwell Publishing Ltd1086

Immune-based disorders: the challenges for translational immunology

https://idus.us.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11441/17440/file_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Immune-based disorders: the challenges for translational immunology

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

idUS. Depósito de Investigación Universidad de Sevilla