Table 1.

Comparisons of basic experimental immunology and immunology-molecular pathological epidemiology (MPE)

	Basic experimental immunology	Immunology-MPE
Research subjects	Immune system in in vivo or in vitro models	Human populations
Exposure data (diet, lifestyle, medications, etc.)	Easily control and record exposure data	Possible to collect exposure data
Control of environmental or other conditions	Yes	Difficult; a targeted control can be done by randomised trials
Evaluation of the human immune system	Can be done using human immune cells. It is still a challenge to recapitulate the human immune system in experimental models. Encompassing the complexity of systemic and local tumour-related immunity is difficult.	Can be done. It is still a challenge to evaluate immunity status in the local microenvironment if access to tissue is difficult. Encompassing the complexity of systemic and local tumour-related immunity may be possible.
In vivo evaluation	Possible	Difficult; can be done by in vivo pathology or molecular imaging
Large sample size	Difficult	Possible
Insight into mechanisms	Possible	Immunology-MPE can provide mechanistic insights, which need to be verified by basic experimental research
Generalisability and validity in humans	Generalisability and validity of findings from model systems need to be examined in human populations	As research on human populations, immunology-MPE can be a validation method for findings from experimental research