Call for Papers

Oxford Open Immunology regularly invites submissions for special themed issues. Browse our open call for papers below and consider submitting your research. Previous calls for papers are still accessible under the “Closed” heading.

For more information on article types published by Oxford Open Immunology and for guidelines on preparing your manuscript, see our Instructions to Authors.

Manuscripts should be submitted to Oxford Open Immunology’s submission site, indicating where asked that your submission is for a specific Special Collection. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal, and made available rapidly online.

Pre-submission enquiries, or questions regarding submitting to the journal should be sent to [email protected].

AI-Driven Immunology: Accelerating Discovery and Innovation

Guest Editor: Adriana Tomic, Boston University

Summary and scope

Oxford Open Immunology is pleased to launch a Special Collection focused on the intersection of AI and immunology. Emerging from the challenges and lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, this collection seeks to highlight how AI technologies are reshaping our understanding of immune response, disease trajectory, and treatment innovations. Submissions are open for contributions in various cutting-edge areas, from the evolving field of immunological research areas amplified by AI to innovative technologies in informatics, imaging, and cytometry. Our aim is to shed light on the potential of AI in areas such as disease progression modelling, personalized medicine, vaccine optimization, and novel immune target identification.

This collection encourages contributions on the following broad-ranging themes:

1. Role of AI in advancing predictive abilities in vaccine and immunotherapies efficacy, ensuring personalized medicine approaches, and optimizing vaccine and immunotherapy design.

2. Use of AI in identifying novel immune targets, immune cell subsets, and biological markers associated with disease resolution and successful therapeutic outcomes.

3. Contributions of AI in predicting disease progression and informing treatment strategies, particularly for infectious, chronic, and autoimmune diseases.

4. Harnessing AI to explore the integrated and interactive nature of immune responses across different biological scales.

The purpose of this Special Collection is to collate a comprehensive overview of how AI is radically changing the landscape of immunology, catalyzing significant advances in both research and clinical applications.

Keywords

Artificial Intelligence, AI, machine learning, ML, systems immunology, systems vaccinology, precision medicine, multiomics, integrative analysis.

Submissions accepted through April, 2025

Harnessing Patient Knowledge: A Research Imperative

No one has more motivation to advance clinical discovery than patients themselves. However, for too long, patient-led research has been dismissed as subjective or of poor quality. This occurs reflexively, irrespective of the scientific rigour of the work submitted and the qualifications of those involved. Such gatekeeping is detrimental to the open science we aspire to and ultimately harms innovation - especially amongst underfunded, rare, or even stigmatised clinical areas.

The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a paradigm shift, however. After concerted patient research, advocacy and awareness campaigns, the diagnosis of Long COVID was officially recognised and adopted into clinical guidelines. This syndrome is now embedded in the public consciousness and is increasingly prioritised within national health agendas; patient-led research collaboratives have been given hard-won seats at the table of policy making and equal billing in high-impact journals.

While these are achievements to be celebrated, the momentum around patient-led research is still extremely fragile. More must be done to see Public Patient Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) centred across the whole research arc and not just viewed as a box-ticking exercise. Historical wrongs still need to be made right: from the suppression of ACT UP to the dismissal of scientific contributions from Lyme and ME/CFS groups, there must be sincere reflection as to why the patient voice has been so alienated by the industrial research complex until now.

Oxford Open Immunology is launching a dedicated special issue to spotlight these topics and the very best science that patient research collectives have to offer. We are calling for the following papers:

1. Original patient-led or direct-to-patient research
2. Relevant literature reviews into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing patient-led research as well as future ways of working within mainstream research
3. Relevant opinion-pieces, including historical analyses of the changing relationship between patient-led research and academia.

Submissions will be accepted through September 1, 2025

Closed:

Climate Change Impacts on Infection and Immunity

Guest Editor: Laura Rivino, University of Bristol, UK

Summary and scope

The distribution and burden of infectious diseases is strongly impacted by climate change. Mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, zika, chikungunya, and malaria threaten to expand globally due to global warming which is increasing the mosquito habitat areas. Extreme weather conditions lead to more frequent flooding, which favours outbreaks of diarrheal infections such as cholera and typhoid. These events are affecting vulnerable regions of the Global South, home to most of the world’s population.

Submissions closed in February 2025. Browse the Climate Change Impacts on Infection and Immunity collection

From immunity to fungi and fungi to immunity: How host-fungal interactions are shaped by immune life history

Guest Editors:

• Fabian Salazar, University of Exeter
• Claire Pearson, University of Oxford
• Katrina Mar, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
• William Horsnell, University of Cape Town

Summary and scope

Fungal infections are major causes of human morbidity and mortality. Opportunistic fungi, including Aspergillus, Candida, Pneumocystis, and Cryptococcus, can cause severe fungal infections that can lead to life-threating invasive disease. These infections primarily affect immunocompromised individuals; but could also affect immunocompetent individuals. Heterologous immunity refers to the ability of one microbe (commensal or pathogenic) to modify the immune response to a related or unrelated microbe that could weaken or boost protective immunity, induce immunopathology, or break tolerance. Accumulating evidence suggest that an acute or chronic infection affects the innate and adaptive immune systems as well as their regulatory mechanisms that contribute to an individual’s susceptibility to fungal infection. For instance, individuals suffering from severe respiratory pneumonia due to an underlying pulmonary infection (mainly caused by viruses or bacteria) exhibit damage and dysfunction of epithelial barriers, and failure to mount an efficient immune response against fungi. Thus resulting in an increased risk of developing a fungal coinfection. Equally, an increasing body of data have shown that fungi and the mycobiota play a big part in modulating heterologous immunity to subsequent microbial challenges. Importantly, heterologous immunology is not limited to microbial interactions. In fact, vaccine-induced immunity can also drive cross-protection against pathogens other than the primary target. Furthermore, fungal colorization can shapes anti-tumor immunity as well as influences the development of inflammatory diseases, such as allergies and autoimmune diseases. An in depth understanding of how these interactions influence infectious diseases and the interplay of the mycobiota will pave the way to develop therapeutics against newly identified targets aimed at preventing and treating these emerging infections.

Submissions closed in February 2025. Browse the From immunity to fungi and fungi to immunity collection . 

Long COVID and Autoimmune Disease Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Oxford Open Immunology is delighted to invite you to submit papers for a Special Collection on Long COVID and autoimmune disease sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This collection aims to highlight various areas related to SARS-CoV-2 including genetic factors associated with the severe and mild symptoms, how it contributes to the differences in immune response to combat infection and implication of SARS-CoV-2 infection in onset of new immunological disorders. The intent is to focus on in-depth understanding of the disease pathogenesis, mechanism triggering the hyperinflammatory and immune response and how to overcome these complications post-infection. We are pleased to invite contributions including experimental research studies, review articles including systematic review and meta-analysis, short communications, and rapid reports focusing on - but not limited to – the following topics:

• Long Covid biomarkers and pathogenesis
• MIS-C
• Immunothrombosis

Submissions closed  May 21, 2023. Browse our collection-in-progress page.

Germinal Centres and the Immune Response to Vaccination

Guest Editors: Michelle Linterman and Alice Denton

Oxford Open Immunology launched a new special collection, featuring research and reviews on vaccine response and antibody induction. Vaccination has been one of the most effective medical interventions for preventing infectious disease. This special collection covers the immunological mechanisms that underpin efficacious responses to vaccination. 

Submissions closed December 31, 2021. Read the collection here.