Volume 21 Issue 2, February 2021

In this World View article, eminent immunologist Peter Doherty suggests that we should consider the COVID-19 crisis as a training run for future, potentially worse pandemics and organize accordingly.

Wieland et al. report that the tumour microenvironment of human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive head and neck squamous cell carcinomas contains HPV-specific B cells that actively secrete HPV-specific antibodies.

A recent study in Science Immunology describes a new approach to selectively eliminate pathogenic CD4⁺ T cells in inflammatory bowel disease by activating them in the presence of metabolic checkpoint inhibition.

Two studies from the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine team describe the immune responses that develop in healthy adults following a single dose or two doses of their adenovirus vector-based COVID-19 vaccine.

Two preprints describe a role for the RNA editor ADAR1 in recognizing Z-RNA to prevent spontaneous activation of the type I interferon pathway.

This preprint further characterizes a superantigen motif identified in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and evaluates a monoclonal antibody targeting this region that can neutralize live virus.

A vaccine based on liposome-formulated uracil-modified mRNA shows promise in mouse models of multiple sclerosis.

As the world races to develop vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, Dai and Gao highlight which viral targets are best to include in a vaccine and how this impacts the induced immune response and, ultimately, the safety and efficacy of a vaccine.

This Review, aimed at a broad scientific audience, provides an introductory guide to the history, development and immunological basis of vaccines, immunization and related issues to provide insight into the challenges facing immunologists who are designing the next generation of vaccines.

Genetic models of dendritic cell (DC) development in mice have aided our understanding of the redundant and non-redundant functions of DC subsets and enabled translation of these findings to human DCs.

In this Review, the authors describe how dysregulated protein translation in cancer cells is an important source of tumour-specific peptides for immunosurveillance and how MHC class I antigen-processing and presentation pathways are manipulated by tumours for immunoevasion — information that will inform cancer immunotherapy approaches.