In 2002, the British Medical Journal published a paper in which LaPorte suggested that we are experiencing a dramatic metamorphosis of the tools of scientific communication.
The shape of journal communication has been unquestionably accepted for 300 years as the gold standard in the scientific community. With modern information technology, for example the internet, the journal middleman can be eliminated and we may have much leaner and efficient systems for updating our knowledge.
Expert Review of Clinical Immunology targets a wide range of healthcare professionals. First, its innovative and user-friendly online format with key box, hypertext and commented biblio-graphy is a useful tool for a rapid consultation. Second, beside reviews elaborated by authors of proven experience, the online journal includes sections that analyze new drugs, describe promising therapeutic strategies and introduce expert opinion on emerging themes in clinical immunology.
In this first issue you will find, besides the editorial by Salvatore Albani on ‘Immunomics in clinical developments’, and coverage of the 3rd EAACI Davos meeting by Van Zele and Van Cauwenberge, three collections of articles under the titles Drug Profiles, Reviews and Perspective.
In Drug Profiles, Michael Farkouh introduces the problems related to the safety profile of lumiracoxib, a novel, highly selective inhibitor of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 that has been approved in the UK for analgesic therapy in chronic and acute pain. This interesting article takes the doubts that appeared this year concerning the long-term use of COX-2 inhibitors into consideration.
Also in Drug Profiles, Wolfang Baeumer provides an overview of the clinical and immuno-logic effects of cilomilast, a new PDE4 inhibitor under investigation for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This drug, besides its clinical effects, has shown its capability to decrease neutrophil, CD68+ monocyte and CD8+ lymphocyte densities in the subepithelial layer of bronchial biopsies of COPD patients. These observations are very interesting as these molecules are involved in COPD pathogenesis.
The first issue of Expert Review of Clinical Immunology covers a large variety of allergologic and immunologic reviews.
Gauvreau and Denburg discuss the hemopoietic cell network involved in allergic inflammation and support the modern concept that allergic target organ manifestations are the expression of a systemic disease. Nicolas and colleagues illustrate the contribution of different subtypes of T-cells in the pathogenesis of hypersensitivity and allergic contact dermatitis. Stevens and colleagues provide a complete review of hymenoptera venom allergy; in fact, this group analyze the utility of both recombinant allergens and other techniques such as flow cytometric analysis of in vitro-stimulated basophils to improve diagnosis of hymenoptera venom allergy and the mechanism of action of immunotherapy.
Also, the paper proposed by Cullinan concerning the occupational asthma and work-exacerbated asthma disease caused by more than 300 possible agents and that involves 10% of asthmatic patients, is of great interest.
Another intriguing allergologic issue presented by the Levi-Schaffer group includes the advantages and disadvantages of triptase as an inflammatory marker in asthma.
Adverse reactions to food are very common. Bahna and colleagues review the pathophysiologic mechanism, the clinical features and the promising approaches to this relevant allergologic problem.
Giovanni Passalacqua focuses on the field of alternative medicine in the treatment of allergic disease. The author underlines that the recommendations on therapeutic approaches should be based on well-documented proofs. However, looking at the available literature, the clinical studies of complementary/alternative medicines in asthma and rhinitis are of overall low methodologic quality, and the results are often conflicting.
The immunologic reviews presented in Expert Review of Clinical Immunology are of great interest and the emerging quantity of data in immunology is huge. This is the reason why immunoinformatics, computational methods and resources that are used in the study of immune function, have become crucial. Brusic and Petrovsky suggest an overview of this topic that lies at the intersection of experimental and computational sciences and encompasses domain-specific databases, computational models and strategies drawn from artificial intelligence.
Immunologic mechanisms are currently recognized as the cause of several diseases – Leonard reviews the immune hypothesis of schizophrenia that has developed from an understanding of the genetic, environmental and infectious sequelae of the immune system.
Novel approaches in the treatment of immunologic diseases are proposed by Robert Sharkey and Alan Tyndall. Sharkey presents the possible utility of radioimmunotherapy and Tyndall and Farge analyze the role of profound immunoablation with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in the treatment of severe, refractory autoimmune disease. Both approaches are very promising, however, further investigations are required.
The aforementioned contents support the scientific relevance of Expert Review of Clinical Immunology and we finally have a new tool to update our knowledge and to open our mind to the future.