This work presents the proceedings of a conference held at Adare Manor, County Limerick, Ireland. It provides an updated, in-depth review of the biological role of eosinophils in allergic diseases, summarizing basic knowledge of these unique cationic proteins. The book features an annotated discussion of the conference's post-presentation question-and-answer session.

This book reviews the development, characterization and applications of aptamers in different areas of biotechnology ranging from therapeutics to diagnostics and protein purification. Hailed as chemical antibodies, these single-stranded nucleic acid receptors were predicted to supersede antibodies in traditional assays, such as ELISA, within a short time. While this has yet to happen, readers will find in this book a deep insight into the progress of aptamer technology and a critical discussion about the limitations that need to be overcome in order to find wider acceptance and use outside of the still relatively small aptamer-community. This book covers all aspects of aptamer generation and application for the aptamer-experienced reader and curious novice alike, with the addition of an industry perspective on the future of aptamer-use in biotechnology.

Key Features * Serves as a handy, practical reference guide to immunologic and allergic diseases both for patient care and as a study guide for examinations * Summarizes the clinical information in the field to make it easily accessible and user friendly for clinicians and students * Includes a unique section on the management of the disorder in pregnant women at the end of several chapters.

This authoritative, single-source reference provides comprehensive examinations of the complement system-offering recent findings in basic science on the structure, biology, physiology, and pathophysiology of complement proteins and the latest therapeutic approaches towards the control of complement-mediated diseases. Written by over 40 international experts from North America, Europe, and Asia, The Human Complement System in Health and Disease -describes the molecular architecture of the complement system -details the structure of complement genes -discusses gene organization as well as the topology and chemistry of ligand-binding sites and catalytic centers of complement proteins -analyzes complement organization and activation, including phylogeny and the newly discovered lectin pathway -elucidates the regulation of complement gene expression and the structure and function of bioactive peptides -explicates opsonic and immunoregulatory properties of complement fragments, endothelial responses, and interactions with viruses and bacteria -and more!

This book discusses novel concepts and discoveries concerning the regulation of innate immunity by autophagy and autophagy-related proteins. In the past decade, there have been major advances in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of autophagy and its physiological functions. This book highlights emerging studies on the underlying mechanisms of autophagy regulation of innate immunity, including inflammation, antiviral immunity and anti-bacterial responses and the signaling pathways that prompt or inhibit the initiation and progression of related diseases. It also offers new ideas and strategies for future drugs based on manipulating autophagy, especially selective autophagy mediated by cargo receptors. Providing a comprehensive overview of the autophagy regulation of innate immunity, it is a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers in the fields of immunology, cell biology and translational medicine.

Advances in Immunology, Volume 152, the latest release in a long-established and highly respected publication, presents current developments and comprehensive reviews in immunology, including chapters that cover Renal diseases and the role of complement in their pathogenesis, Factor H and Properdin and their regulation, Complement in neuronal diseases, Complement and the brain.

Recognizing the explosive growth in information on intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIGs), this exhaustive single-source volume surveys all available literature on the employment of IVIG preparations in clinical practice from pharmacoeconomics and pharmacokinetics to prophylaxis and management of infectious and autoimmune diseases.

This book illustrates, that the fungal cell wall is critical for the biology and ecology of all fungi and especially for human fungal pathogens. Readers will learn, that the composition of the fungal cell wall is a unique structure, which cannot be found in the human host. Consequently, the chapters outline, how the immune systems of both animals and humans have evolved to recognize conserved and unique elements of the fungal cell wall. As an application example, the authors also show, that the three-dimensional structures of the cell wall are excellent targets for the development of antifungal agents and chemotherapeutic strategies. With the combination of biological findings and medical outlooks, this volume is a fascinating read for scientists, clinicians and biomedical students.

This book sheds new light on "inducible" lymphoid organs (ILOs): antigen presentation sites that are generated de novo in peripheral tissues under various pathogenic conditions. Accomplished immunologists demonstrate that the physiological role of these ILOs is completely different from that of central lymphoid organs, i.e., the lymph nodes or spleen. In addition to the central organs, the ILOs are considered essential structures for the efficient elicitation of adaptive immune responses in lesions. The respective chapters highlight examples from multiple sites, e.g. the skin, lung, intestinal tract, genital tract, the synovial membrane of the joints and artificial lymph nodes. Accordingly, readers will learn that ILO structure and function can vary substantially, depending on the context. Presenting the results of the latest immunological research, the book offers a fascinating and insightful read for both scientists and clinicians in the areas of infectious and immune-associated diseases.

This book highlights information derived primarily from clinical samples, with particular reference to theoretical and scientific aspects of the human immune system. This text will focus on topics that range from host-pathogen interactions in infectious disease to host immune response in cancer, allergic diseases, neuroinflammatory diseases, and autoimmune disorders. The reader will also have a well-rounded understanding of the behavior of the immune system with particular emphasis on the role of immunoproteomics in immunotherapy, neuroprotective immunity for neurodegenerative and neuroinfectious disease, leukemia-associated dendritic cell induction of adaptive immunity dysregulation, and the role of immune checkpoint inhibitors in cancer, infection, as well as neuroinflammation. Taken together, the contents of this book are intended for both clinicians and researchers in academia and industry.

This book draws together important facts, in particular areas of vascular biology, and allows the generation of hypotheses and principles that unite an area and define newer horizons. It is designed for scientists and physicians interested in immunology, inflammation and cardiovascular diseases.

Advances in Immunology, Volume 151, the latest release in a long-established and highly respected publication, presents current developments and comprehensive reviews in immunology.

Innate and adaptive immunity play important roles in immunosurveillance and tumor destruction. However, increasing evidence suggests that tumor-infiltrating immune cells may have a dual function: inhibiting or promoting tumor growth and progression. Although regulatory T (Treg) cells induce immune tolerance by suppressing host immune responses against self- or non self-antigens, thus playing critical roles in preventing autoimmune diseases, they might inhibit antitumor immunity and promote tumor growth. Recent studies demonstrate that elevated proportions of Treg cells are present in various types of cancers and suppress antitumor immunity. Furthermore, tumor-specific Treg cells can inhibit immune responses only when they are exposed to antigens presented by tumor cells. Therefore, Treg cells at tumor sites have detrimental effects on immunotherapy directed to cancer.

This book will address the growing roles of epigenetics in disease pathogenesis, and review the contribution of epigenetic modifications to disease onset and progression. The roles that epigenetics plays in facilitating effects of the environment on allergy and immunologic diseases will be reviewed. The book is divided into three parts - the first is an introduction to epigenetics and the methods that have been developed to study epigenetics, the second addresses epigenetics in allergic diseases and the third part will cover epigenetics in autoimmune diseases. With the rapid expansion of knowledge of how genes are regulated and how this regulation affects disease phenotypes, this book will be attractive to experienced researchers as well as those just launching an epigenetics research program. It will also be of interest to allergist, immunologists, rheumatologists and dermatologist who are engaged in clinical practice as a resource for understanding the basis for personalized and precision medicine. For example, the role that epigenetics plays in the pathogenesis in various allergic and autoimmune disorders and how this determines disease phenotypes will be covered extensively in this book. This book will thus help fill the gap in available resources on epigenetics in allergy and autoimmune diseases.

Biological immunity as we know it does not exist until the late nineteenth century. Nor does the premise that organisms defend themselves at the cellular or molecular levels. For nearly two thousand years "immunity," a legal concept invented in ancient Rome, serves almost exclusively political and juridical ends. "Self-defense" also originates in a juridico-political context; it emerges in the mid-seventeenth century, during the English Civil War, when Thomas Hobbes defines it as the first "natural right." In the 1880s and 1890s, biomedicine fuses these two political precepts into one, creating a new vital function, "immunity-as-defense." In "A Body Worth Defending," Ed Cohen reveals the unacknowledged political, economic, and philosophical assumptions about the human body that biomedicine incorporates when it recruits immunity to safeguard the vulnerable living organism.

Inspired by Michel Foucault's writings about biopolitics and biopower, Cohen traces the migration of immunity from politics and law into the domains of medicine and science. Offering a genealogy of the concept, he illuminates a complex of thinking about modern bodies that percolates through European political, legal, philosophical, economic, governmental, scientific, and medical discourses from the mid-seventeenth century through the twentieth. He shows that by the late nineteenth century, "the body" literally incarnates modern notions of personhood. In this lively cultural rumination, Cohen argues that by embracing the idea of immunity-as-defense so exclusively, biomedicine naturalizes the individual as the privileged focus for identifying and treating illness, thereby devaluing or obscuring approaches to healing situated within communities or collectives.

This volume provides a thorough overview of current knowledge of stress proteins in both normal and disease physiology. It draws upon current stress protein research to evaluate the potential for developing new diagnostic, prophylactic and therapeutic approaches to control human disease.

This book contains twelve chapters contributed by prestigious international experts who are at the forefront of B cell research, and aims to provide a cutting-edge and comprehensive overview of all aspects of B cells, including B cell development, maturation and activation, germinal center reaction, memory and plasma cell differentiation, and antibody-mediated positive and negative regulation of humoral immune responses. There are also three chapters describing human diseases caused by B cell abnormalities, including primary antibody deficiencies, autoimmune diseases, and B cell malignancies. We hope that this book will become a standard and routine reference for both basic researchers and clinicians.

Hot Topics in Infection and Immunity in Children IV contains chapters based on lectures given by speakers at the "Infection and Immunity in Children" course, held in June 2006 at Keble College, Oxford. It was the fourth annual course of this name and this is the fourth book in the series as well. Together the courses and books have become important components of the training available to paediatricians with an interest in this specialty and have become increasingly popular each year. This book covers topics in infectious diseases in children and is intended for Pediatric Infectious Disease trainees, trainers, and all those who manage children with infections.

Paediatric Infectious Diseases is now a recognised specialty in Europe with established training programmes and training centres, overseen by the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases. This book and the course that precedes each edition will continue to play useful parts in the development and knowledge of specialists throughout the continent and beyond.

The editors of this volume Dr. Andrew Pollard, Dr. George McCracken, and Dr. Adam Finn are all leaders in the fields of paediatric medicine and infectious disease.

Although respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has been a high priority for vaccine development for over 50 years now, still no vaccine is available and none has yet demonstrated sufficient promise to move to licensure. The success of RSV immune prophylaxis and the availability of ever more powerful tools to study the immune response and pathogenesis of disease, combined with the ability to construct a wide variety of vaccines using different vaccine platforms, give us grounds to believe that an RSV vaccine is within reach. This book brings together in one source what is currently known about the virus: its clinical and epidemiologic features; the host response and pathogenesis of the disease; vaccines, vaccine platforms, and treatment; and animal and tissue culture models of RSV infection. It is designed to organize the critical information relevant to RSV vaccine development, facilitate the assimilation of data, and speed progress toward producing a safe and effective vaccine.

This book, written by members of the European network PROTEOSTASIS, provides an up-to-date review of the research regarding protein homeostasis in health and disease. With new discoveries contributing to the increasing complexity of this topic, the book offers a detailed overview of the pathways regulating protein homeostasis, including autophagy and the ubiquitin protein family. Following a basic introduction, it explains how defects in protein homeostasis contribute to numerous pathologies, including cancer, neurodegeneration, inflammation and a number of rare diseases. In addition, it discusses, the role of protein homeostasis in cellular development and physiology. Highlighting the latest research in the field of protein homeostasis and its implications for various clinically relevant diseases, the book appeals to researchers and clinicians, while also offering a reference guide for scholars who are new to the field.

Phagocytosis is the engulfment of particulate matter by cells. It is a fundamental (and probably "primitive") cell biological process which is important in single celled organisms such as amoeba; multicellular animals including coelenterates; and in higher animals. In humans and other mammals, specialised immune cells (phagocytes) utilise phagocytosis in their crucial role of engulfing and destroying infecting microbes. Yet, surprisingly, the biophysics and biochemistry underlying the process has only become clear recently with the advent of genetic manipulation and advances in single cell imaging. In this volume, the aim is to bring together recent fundamental advances that give a clear picture of the underlying mechanism involved in phagocytosis. Not only is this an important topic in its own right, but a full understanding of the process will have a potential impact on human medicine, since as antibiotics become less effective in fight infection, researchers are looking at alternative approaches, including enhancing the "natural" immunity brought about by immune phagocytes. The aim is to provide a comprehensive volume on the topic, with separate chapters on identified recent advances, each written by the major contributors in each area. In addition, the volume will attempt to give a wider overview than is often the case in single author reviews, with an emphasis here on the cell biological understanding of phagocytosis using biophysical approaches alongside the biochemical and imaging approaches.

Advances in Cancer Research, Volume 152, the latest release in this ongoing, well-regarded serial, provides invaluable information on the exciting and fast-moving field of cancer research.

This volume covers advances in the field of respiratory diseases, reflecting the recent and dramatic expansion of knowledge regarding the determinants of respiratory health, screening tests for early pulmonary lesions, therapeutic interventions for respiratory infections and strategies for prevention. It examines indoor and outdoor environmental sources of respiratory diseases, including levels of pollutants, air conditioning, indoor air quality and airborne allergens. Exploring ways to promote the respiratory health of both the individual and the community, Prevention of Respiratory Diseases covers areas including: the role of most of the known extrinsic and potentially preventable determinants in respiratory diseases; developments in epidemiology and children's respiratory health; the relationship between respiratory diseases and occupations; individual sensitivity or susceptibility to the effects of air pollutants; genetic, epidemiological and immunological markers, markers for bronchial cancer and the protease-antiprotease system; and the connection between tobacco smoke and respiratory diseases.;This resource is intended for pulmonologists, clinical immunologists and allergists, oncologists, physiologists, infectious disease specialists, respiratory therapists and graduate and medical school students in these disciplines.

This book systematically reviews the most important findings on cancer immune checkpoints, sharing essential insights into this rapidly evolving yet largely unexplored research topic. The past decade has seen major advances in cancer immune checkpoint therapy, which has demonstrated impressive clinical benefits. The family of checkpoints for mediating cancer immune evasion now includes CTLA-4, PD-1/PD-L1, CD27/CD70, FGL-1/LAG-3, Siglec-15, VISTA (PD-1L)/VSIG3, CD47/SIRPA, APOE/LILRB4, TIGIT, and many others. Despite these strides, most patients do not show lasting remission, and some cancers have been completely resistant to the therapy. The potentially lethal adverse effects of checkpoint blockade represent another major challenge, the mechanisms of which remain poorly understood. Compared to the cancer signaling pathways, such as p53 and Ras, mechanistic studies on immune checkpoint pathways are still in their infancy. To improve the responses to checkpoint blockade therapy and limit the adverse effects, it is essential to understand the molecular regulation of checkpoint molecules in both malignant and healthy cells/tissues. This book begins with an introduction to immune checkpoint therapy and its challenges, and subsequently describes the regulation of checkpoints at different levels. In closing, it discusses recent therapeutic developments based on mechanistic findings, and outlines goals for future translational studies. The book offers a valuable resource for researchers in the cancer immunotherapy field, helping to form a roadmap for checkpoint regulation and develop safer and more effective immunotherapies.

This book introduces many new technologies and clinical applications of hematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal stem cell transplantation for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and inflammatory diseases. Presented in two parts, Part 1 focuses on stem cell therapies for autoimmune disease treatment; Part 2 focuses on stem cell therapies and their application in the treatment of common inflammatory diseases, including chronic knee osteoarthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, liver cirrhosis, Crohn's Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, and more. This book is an essential source for all advanced students and researchers involved with these diseases, stem cells, or both. Stem Cell Transplantation for Autoimmune Diseases and Inflammation and the other books in the Stem Cells in Clinical Applications series are invaluable to scientists, researchers, advanced students and clinicians working in stem cells, regenerative medicine, or tissue engineering as well as cancer or genetics research.