Volume 30, No 10, Oct 2020

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 30 Issue 10, October 2020: 827-828

EDITORIAL

A special collection of reviews on frontiers in immunology

Chenqi Xu^1,2,* , Hua-Bing Li^3,4,* , Richard A. Flavell^5,6,*

¹State Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China
²School of Life Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 200031, China
³Shanghai Institute of Immunology, Department of Liver Surgery, State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
⁴Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine-Yale Institute for Immune Metabolism, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
⁵Department of Immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA and 6 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, New Haven, CT, USA
⁶Howard Hughes Medical Institute, New Haven, CT, USA
Correspondence: Chenqi Xu(cqxu@sibcb.ac.cn)Hua-Bing Li(huabing.li@shsmu.edu.cn)Richard A. Flavell(richard.flavell@yale.edu)

During this challenging period in human history when SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 20 million people without any sign of an end in sight, we have never been so in need of a healthy immune system to shield ourselves against this highly infectious virus. The reality is that we are still lacking in immunological knowledge to quickly develop therapeutics, either a drug or a vaccine, to slow down the spread of the virus. However, past immunological research has successfully rewarded human society with various immunotherapies, such as the immune checkpoint blockade therapies that have treated numerous cancer patients. The immune system, which intersects with virtually every system in the human body, lies at the center of health and disease. The complexity of the human immune system reflects an ancient Chinese philosophy known as “Yin and Yang”. Immune function needs to be robust yet restrained to efficiently clean up external threats without causing self-damage. When there are “positive” types of immune cells, “negative” types of immune cells must exist simultaneously. At a molecular level, stimulatory and inhibitory molecules reciprocally interplay to elicit well-regulated immune responses. To understand the dynamic and complicated immune responses, immunologists have stepped out of their comfort zones to absorb knowledge from other fields and to apply the newest technologies in their research. Many new branches of immunology have emerged in recent years, including but not limited to, cancer immunology, immunometabolism, microbiota and immunity, neuroimmunology.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41422-020-00403-7

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