Sepsis: Basic, Clinical and Therapeutic Approaches Volume II

Sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by the host's uncontrolled response to infection, impacting millions of people worldwide and killing between one in three and one in six of those it affects each year. COVID-19-induced sepsis is a classic example.

The pathogenesis of sepsis is very complex, involving multiple systems and organs. The immune system plays a core role in sepsis, presenting as an early cytokine storm and late immunosuppression. At present, sepsis treatment still adopts comprehensive treatment such as administering intravenous fluids, vasoactive substances, and antibiotics to eliminate the pathogen. Although some drugs targeting inflammatory response and immunity, such as anti-cytokine antibodies and glucocorticoids, have entered clinical trials, some of which are actually in clinical use, their effects are not satisfactory and even lead to increased mortality. Therefore, new approaches are needed.

Sepsis: Basic, Clinical, and Therapeutic Approaches (Volume I) is involved in discovering new strategies and drugs for the treatment of sepsis. This Research Topic attracted the attention of the scientific community, and ten manuscripts have been published within it over the course of the last year, thereby enriching the literature on new drug research and drug reevaluation of sepsis.

Previous studies have paid more attention to the excessive inflammatory response but ignored the disorders of the body's immune state, such as immunosuppression. Focusing only on one phase is not enough, resulting in a very narrow drug treatment window. Therefore, Volume II will focus on the immune-regulation mechanisms of sepsis to discover new targets and new drugs with immune-regulating effects.

We welcome the following topics, but this is not a definitive list:
• Investigation of new drugs targeting both early cytokine storm and late immunosuppression.
• Investigation of sepsis's immune-regulation mechanisms, such as signal transduction pathway, and the discovery of new potential drug targets.
• Evaluation of the current status of sepsis treatment and drugs based on immune-regulation mechanisms.

Keywords: Sepsis, Immunology, Drug, Drug Discovery, Therapeutic Approached, #CollectionSeries

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.