About the Special Issue

The immune system is indispensable for the defense against microbes, but on the other hand a deregulated immune function can be directed against the body’s own structures leading to an estimated 80-100 different diseases. They can be located nearly everywhere in the body ranging from mild to severe, e.g., lupus erythematosus, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes mellitus type 1 to mention but a few. Autoimmune diseases can severely hamper the quality of life. 

Despite tremendous efforts to understand the pathogenesis and to improve clinical therapy and outcome, a causative cure for these diseases still does not appear at the horizon, although much progress has been made to manage the symptoms of autoimmune diseases (e.g., NSAIDS, glucocorticoids, DMARDS) More recently, therapeutic antibodies, antigen-specific immunotherapy, regulatory T-cell therapy etc. came into the focus. 

We welcome manuscript from diverse fields such as immunology, all related disciplines in medicine as well as pharmacology (of synthetic and natural compounds), medicinal chemistry, molecular biology, systems and network pharmacology, etc. dealing with autoimmune diseases. 

The aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the current understanding and to span a bow from basic to translational and clinical aspects. This special issue should enable the reader to gain the fundamental knowledge of current cutting-edge research.  

Keywords: Immunology, immune therapy, monoclonal antibodies, targeted therapy

Call for Papers