Letter from the Editor: 2022

It is my pleasure to begin this year’s letter by announcing the appointment of Dr. Aimin Jiang as Associate Editor of Immunological Investigations. Dr. Jiang earned his Ph.D. at the University of Washington where he studied signal transduction pathways in B cells, and subsequently completed his post-doctoral training at Yale where he became interested in the biology of dendritic cells. He subsequently became an Assistant Professor at the Roswell Cancer Institute where his lab continued to study dendritic cell function in the context of anti-tumor immunity, and is currently an Associate Scientist in the Center for Cutaneous Biology and Immunology at Henry Ford Health System. It has been very enjoyable for me to work with Dr. Jiang, and I am highly appreciative of his contribution in managing our editorial pipeline. I would like to thank our previous Associate Editor Dr. Ernesto DeNardin for his many years of service to the journal. It was a pleasure working with Dr. DeNardin, and I am glad that he is continuing to serve on the editorial board.

Immunological Investigations had an impact factor of 3.04 in 2021, and the ~53,000 article downloads represented a 4% increase over the previous year. In particular, the most highly downloaded article was “Pharmaceutical Aspects and Clinical Evaluation of COVID-19 Vaccines” (Hofman et al. 2021). Other highly downloaded articles include: “SARS-CoV-2: Unique Challenges of the Virus and Vaccines” (Mahmoodpoor et al. 2021), “Association of TNF-α G-308 a Promoter Polymorphism with the Course and Outcome of COVID-19 Patients” (Saleh et al. 2022), “Intranodal Administration of Neoantigen Peptide-loaded Dendritic Cell Vaccine Elicits Epitope-specific T Cell Responses and Clinical Effects in a Patient with Chemorefractory Ovarian Cancer with Malignant Ascites” (Morisaki et al. 2021), “Contribution of Pre-Existing Neoantigen-Specific T Cells to a Durable Complete Response after Tumor-Pulsed Dendritic Cell Vaccine Plus Nivolumab Therapy in a Patient with Metastatic Salivary Duct Carcinoma” (Ichimiya et al. 2022), “Successful Treatment of Covid-19 Associated Cytokine Release Syndrome with Colchicine. A Case Report and Review of Literature” (Mansouri et al. 2021), “COVID-19 Infection: Concise Review Based on the Immunological Perspective” (Lotfinejad et al. 2022), “NLR: A Cost-effective Nomogram to Guide Therapeutic Interventions in COVID-19” (Kerboua 2021), “Combined anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgA, IgG, and IgM Detection as a Better Strategy to Prevent Second Infection Spreading Waves” (Nuccetelli et al. 2022), and “B Cell Response to Vaccination” (Luo and Yin 2021).

The most cited Immunological Investigations articles this past year include: “Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles: A Novel Cell-Free Therapy” (Jafarinia et al. 2020), “NLR: A Cost-effective Nomogram to Guide Therapeutic Interventions in COVID-19” (Kerboua 2021), “Association of TNF-α G-308 a Promoter Polymorphism with the Course and Outcome of COVID-19 Patients” (Saleh et al. 2022), “ Overexpression of lncRNA HULC Attenuates Myocardial Ischemia/reperfusion Injury in Rat Models and Apoptosis of Hypoxia/reoxygenation Cardiomyocytes via Targeting miR-377-5p through NLRP3/Caspase1/IL1beta Signaling Pathway Inhibition” (Liang et al. 2021), “Comparative of the Effectiveness and Safety of Biological Agents, Tofacitinib, and Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in Ulcerative Colitis: Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis” (Zhou et al. 2021a), “Effect of Class Switch Recombination Defect on the Phenotype of Ataxia-Telangiectasia Patients” (Amirifar et al. 2021), “Bovine Milk Exosomes Affect Proliferation and Protect Macrophages against Cisplatin-Induced Cytotoxicity” (Matic et al. 2020), “Neutrophil Extracellular Trapping Network Promotes the Pathogenesis of Neutrophil-associated Asthma through Macrophages” (Chen et al. 2021), “Successful Treatment of Covid-19 Associated Cytokine Release Syndrome with Colchicine. A Case Report and Review of Literature” (Mansouri et al. 2021), “Association between IFN-lambda 3 Gene Polymorphisms and Outcome of Treatment with Direct Acting Antivirals in Chronic HCV-Infected Egyptian Patients” (El-Garawani et al. 2021), and “Combined anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgA, IgG, and IgM Detection as a Better Strategy to Prevent Second Infection Spreading Waves” (Nuccetelli et al. 2022).

The topic of this year’s annual thematic issue is “Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy”. Several articles published in Immunological Investigations over the past three years related to this topic include “The Interleukin-33/ST2 Axis Enhances Lung-Resident CD14+ Monocyte Function in Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer” (Wang et al. 2022), “USP7 Enables Immune Escape of Glioma Cells by Regulating PD-L1 Expression” (Li and Wang 2022), “Lack of Association Between PDCD-1 Polymorphisms and Colorectal Cancer Risk: A Case-Control Study” (Lin et al. 2022), “PCSK9 Suppresses M2-Like Tumor-Associated Macrophage Polarization by Regulating the Secretion of OX40L from Hepatocellular Carcinoma Cells” (Hu et al. 2022), “Contribution of Pre-Existing Neoantigen-Specific T Cells to a Durable Complete Response after Tumor-Pulsed Dendritic Cell Vaccine Plus Nivolumab Therapy in a Patient with Metastatic Salivary Duct Carcinoma” (Ichimiya et al. 2021), “The TIM-3 Rs10053538 Polymorphism Is Associated with Clinical Prognosis of Colorectal Cancer” (Liu et al. 2021), “Predictive Role of AURKA rs1047972 Gene Polymorphism and the Risk of Development of Hepatocellular Carcinoma” (Farid et al. 2021), “Interleukin-10 Levels are Associated with Doxorubicin-Related Cardiotoxicity in Breast Cancer Patients in a One-Year Follow-Up Study” (Alves et al. 2022), “Expression and Clinical Significance of KLRG1 and 2B4 on T Cells in the Peripheral Blood and Tumour of Patients with Cervical Cancer” (Guo et al. 2022), “Higher TIGIT(+)CD226(-) γδ T cells in Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia” (Jin et al. 2022), “Upregulation of microRNA-155 Enhanced Migration and Function of Dendritic Cells in Three-dimensional Breast Cancer Microenvironment” (Yang et al. 2021), “Analysis of the Clinical Efficacy of Dendritic Cell -cytokine Induced Killer Cell-based Adoptive Immunotherapy for Colorectal Cancer” (Xu et al. 2021), “Upregulation of TIGIT and PD-1 in Colorectal Cancer with Mismatch-repair Deficiency” (Zhou et al. 2021b), “Soluble MICA and anti-MICA Antibodies as Biomarkers of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Disease” (Ben Chaaben et al. 2020), “IL-6 and IL-8 as Prognostic Factors in Peritoneal Fluid of Ovarian Cancer” (Rodrigues et al. 2020), “Study of Toll-Like Receptor 4 Gene Polymorphisms in Colorectal Cancer: Correlation with Clinicopathological Features” (Moaaz et al. 2020), “Lymphocytes in Peritumoral Stroma: Evaluation in Epithelial Ovarian Neoplasms” (Lima et al. 2020), and “Impact of Toll-like Receptors 2 (TLR2) and TLR 4 Gene Variations on HCV Susceptibility, Response to Treatment and Development of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Cirrhotic HCV Patients” (Neamatallah et al. 2020).

In addition to the authors of the current thematic articles that are introduced in the following article (Adler 2022), I would like to thank the members of our Immunological Investigations Editorial Board as well as the many outside referees who have donated their time and expertise in conducting peer reviews. We also thank the investigators who have chosen to publish their outstanding research in Immunological Investigations, and extend an invitation to our readers to submit their own work. We look forward to reading about your exciting discoveries in the coming year!