Prof. Alessandro Moretta was a major contributor to Frontiers in Immunology, particularly in the domain of NK cells and innate lymphocyte biology. We would like to honor his memory with a special tribute edition containing a collection of reviews covering the various periods of his scientific career, which was long, although sadly not as long as it might have been. The authors will try to connect his discoveries with the history of these cells to date. Their memories of these exciting times, full of enthusiasm, will be a useful resource for all readers. We would like the authors to share with the readers their discussions with him concerning the topic reviewed, and his view of the field, where possible.
These reviews will address the early years of discovery when Alessandro Moretta was a pioneer in the immune field, together with his brother Lorenzo and their collaborators, even before he began working on NK cells. By focusing on this period, we will highlight the tremendous enthusiasm surrounding these discoveries.
The activation of NK cells via the so-called “natural cytotoxicity receptors” (NCRs) 2B4, NTB-A and DNAM-1 will be highlighted by Vitale et al. and Pende et al. will address the discovery of NK-cell immunomodulation through the identification of killer cell Ig-like receptors (KIR) and the developments leading to its clinical use essentially in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Translational studies in the field of cancer will be presented by Pesce et al. for ovarian cancer and Leclerc et al., for lung carcinoma. Di Vito et al. will address the ontogeny of NK cells specifically post-allostem cell transplantation.
The primary immunodeficiency studies will be handled by Tabellini et al. as well as Zimmer for TAP transporter.
We all three think that our colleagues have really presented important insights that would have delighted Alessandro.
Statements
Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank all Alessandro's friends for this celebration.
Conflict of interest
EV is the CSO of Innate Pharma. DO is the cofounder of Imcheck Therapeutics. The remaining author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Summary
Keywords
natural kill cell, transplanation, immune deficiency, infection - immunology, cancer biology
Citation
Olive D, Vivier E and Romagnani C (2020) Editorial: In Memoriam of Professor Alessandro Moretta. Front. Immunol. 11:439. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.00439
Received
09 February 2020
Accepted
26 February 2020
Published
13 March 2020
Volume
11 - 2020
Edited and reviewed by
Marina Cella, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, United States
Updates
Copyright
© 2020 Olive, Vivier and Romagnani.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Daniel Olive daniel.olive@inserm.fr
This article was submitted to NK and Innate Lymphoid Cell Biology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Immunology
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.