The Journal of Leukocyte Biology (JLB) is proud to announce a special issue dedicated to Intracellular danger sensors fueling inflammation and autoimmunity. This issue will highlight the important role that host intracellular defense mechanisms play in driving pathogenic inflammation.  This will include investigations into host sensors that detect pathogen-derived as well as self-molecules. We invite all society members to submit original articles or review articles for this special issue. All accepted articles will be published together in a July 2019 issue of the journal, and will be referenced individually in PubMed.

In addition, a special one-time 50% discount in publication fees for accepted articles will be extended to the first 15 authors who respond to this email. To qualify for this special discount, you must be among the first 15 authors to respond to this email and you must submit your article online by November 1, 2018.

Along with research articles, a number of high-profile review articles will be included in this issue. We are pleased to confirm the following leading scientists in the field will contribute reviews:

* Jorge Henao-Mejia (U. Penn), who will examine long noncoding RNAs and the regulation of innate immunity

* Timothy Billiar (U.Pittsburgh), who will examine HMGB1 in intracellular DAMP sensing

* Valerian Kagan (U.Pittsburgh), who will focus on oxygenated phospholipids as signals: hydrolyzed vs esterified molecular species.

Please let us know as soon as possible if you plan to submit a research article or a mini-review (short critical review). If choosing to contribute a review, please submit a brief (1-2 sentence description) for pre-review by the editors. Reviews will not be accepted without pre-submission approval (editorswant to avoid duplication of content). All articles will be considered official submissions to JLB and subject to rigorous independent peer review, although the rejection rate is generally much lower (~20-30%) compared with regular submissions (up to 68%).

JLB views thematic issues such as this one as an asset to the field because they offer readers a collection of articles on a common interest. JLBalsohas the ability to highlight articles with editorial discussions, which are very popular with our readers and often are highly cited journal content. Over the years, JLB’s publication of clustered reviews has served as an important benchmark for our field. It is also worth noting that review or research articles in previous JLB cluster issues have received more citations than regular articles, evidence that these issues are important to readers looking to cite current content.

TIMELINE

• Submit by: Nov 1, 2018
• Review by: Dec 17, 2018
• Revise by: January 15, 2019
• Re-review by: April 1, 2019

Articles accepted by April 1 to publish in JULY 2019

We look forward to hearing from you soon with details of intended submissions.     

Sincerely,

Melanie J. Scott

Associate editor, Journal of Leukocyte Biology

SLB Publications Committee

University of Pittsburgh