The next five years for Immunology

The first issue of Immunology was published in 1958, as an interdisciplinary journal covering the breadth of the field, in a time when many of the tools and concepts on which we now rely were not yet conceived. The first issue of the journal contained two papers by Peter Medawar about transplantation, the subject of his 1960 Nobel Prize. In its 61 years, the journal has continued to report on the cutting edge of immunological research, from these early developments in transplantation through to new fields including immunosenescence, immunometabolism, and immunotherapy.1

When John Marrack, the first editor, stepped down from Immunology, he was praised by Rosa Augustin in an editorial for ‘…his quite exceptionally wide knowledge of Immunology in all its aspects…’.2 It was also written that ‘Professor Marrack and Immunology have grown together.’ 2 The same can be said of my predecessor as Editor in Chief, Danny Altmann, a formidable immunologist to whom both I and the immunological community owe a great debt of gratitude for maintaining the journal's position in a highly competitive environment over the last 13 years. Thanks to Danny's leadership, Immunology can still be described as ‘essential reading for workers in all areas of immunological research.’3

Continuing this work, in a time of rapid political, societal, and technological change, is an exciting challenge for me. For those that don't know me, I am Professor of Immunology at the University of Glasgow, UK. I was awarded my PhD from Imperial College after completing an industry‐sponsored studentship in transplantation immunology. I then enjoyed postdoc jobs in Philadelphia and Oxford, where I developed my interests in antigen presenting cells and the immunology of the intestine. In the eleven years since I moved from Oxford to Glasgow, I have remained with these themes and have also undertaken more patient‐focused research. Where I have been successful, I have depended on collaborations with highly‐talented colleagues, and on the teams with which I work. Leading the strong team at Immunology, this collaborative approach will help the journal through this next phase of its evolution.

Immunology is a high‐quality journal for dissemination of immunological research with an international focus, including many submissions from a truly global network of valuable contributors. Immunology and its sister journal Clinical & Experimental Immunology also play key roles for the British Society for Immunology. The journals provide a significant proportion of the Society's income, which is used to support both the organisation's charitable remit and the immunology community with activities including their education and career programme,4 grants and prizes,5 the Regional and Affinity Groups,6 and high‐quality information about vaccinations.7 The success of both journals will help the Society to continue this work.

Immunology will continue to cover the breadth of our discipline. We invite contributions from all areas of cellular and molecular immunology. As described in our Aims and Scope,3 ‘high quality original articles describing mechanistic insights into fundamental aspects of the immune system are welcome’, and topics of particular interest include immune cell development, cancer immunology, systems immunology/omics and informatics, inflammation, immunometabolism, immunology of infection, microbiota and immunity, mucosal immunology, neuroimmunology, and translational immunology. We publish both original scientific articles and high‐quality reviews and will continue to commission and publish review series on emerging topics of broad interest to the immunological community.

With excellent support from our publishers at Wiley and our world‐class Associate Editors, we aim to deliver a timely, fair and transparent review process: our current average time to first decision is 19 days, and we typically publish accepted articles online within 5 days of acceptance. If you have an enquiry or wish to propose a review article or series for Immunology please contact the Editorial Office at: imm@immunology.org. To submit an original article, please go here: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/imm

We look forward to receiving your submissions!