Systems Approaches for Studying Immunity

The immune system serves as our body’s internal surveillance system and is composed of numerous cell types that enable communication through the expression of cytokines, chemokines, and surface proteins. A failure in immune cell communication can lead to lethal or chronic infections, autoimmunity, cancer, neurologic disorders, and many other diseases. Historically, researchers have had to take reductionist approaches to understand the immune system in both health and disease. However, technological and informatics breakthroughs, coupled with a heightened awareness of the importance of quantitative training, have propelled more and more immunologists to attack problems using “systems” approaches, which are now considered almost mainstream. Indeed, these “systems strategies” already have produced answers to what were considered historically intractable questions about human responses to vaccines and pathogens, as well as how to better harness the immune system to combat cancer, autoimmunity, and other diseases. In this special issue of The Journal of Immunology...