Immunology & Cell Biology Publication of the Year Awards 2015.

Abstract

The Immunology & Cell Biology Publication of the Year Awards have been established for outstanding studies submitted by first authors who are financial members of the Australasian Society for Immunology Inc. in the year of the article's publication. Articles vying for these awards can come from any of the journal categories including Original Article, Outstanding Observation, Perspective or Brief Communication. The ASI President together with members of the ASI Executive and Immunology & Cell Biology Editorial Board undertake rigorous review to identify the most outstanding original research articles based on scientific excellence. The winner of the Chris and Bhama Parish ICB Publication of the Year Award is awarded a AU$1000 scholarship provided by the Nature Publishing Group and the runner-up is awarded a AU$500 scholarship provided by Thermo Fisher Scientific. Every year an outstanding series of papers are submitted for consideration for the prizes and 2015 was no different with an exceptional standard of science reported in the papers. It is a great pleasure to announce the winners of the awards for 2015 which are, Chris and Bhama Parish ICB Publication of the Year Award: Dr Tim Johnson, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Department of Medical Biology, University of Melbourne and St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, Victoria. Thermo Fisher Scientific Publication Award: Dr Divya Ramnath, The Institute for Molecular Bioscience, the IMB Centre for Inflammation and Disease Research and Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre, The University of Queensland, Brisbane. The winning paper by Dr Tim Johanson is an Original Article entitled ‘A microRNA expression atlas of mouse dendritic cell development’ and was published in June 2015.1 In this study, Dr Johanson generated a comprehensive atlas of microRNAs (miRNAs) and miRNA biogenesis machinery found during dendritic cell development. Dendritic cells are sentinel cells in the immune system and undergo a complex series of steps to differentiate into a number of specialized subsets. Intriguingly, despite the different lineages diverging in their development to give rise to conventional and plasmacytoid dendritic cells, which have quite distinct functions, these subsets were indistinguishable based on their whether they expressed a particular miRNA or not. Instead, the different subsets were shown to vary quite considerably in the level at which these miRNAs were expressed resulting in specific and dynamic patterns of miRNAs that delineated the different subsets and subsequently regulated their functions. Furthermore, Dr Johanson's work also described the first characterisation of a miRNA-independent role for the ribonuclease Drosha in the immune system. Collectively, this detailed analyses provide a valuable encyclopaedic resource for the research community. Dr Johanson, recipient of the 2015 Chris and Bhama Parish ICB Publication of the Year Award. Dr Ramnath, recipient of the 2015 Thermo Fisher Scientific Publication Award. Dr Ramnath's Outstanding Observation ‘TLR3 drives IRF6-dependent IL-23p19 expression and p19/EBI3 heterodimer formation in keratinocytes’, was published in October 2015, is the winner of the Thermo Fisher Scientific Publication Award for 2014.2 Dr Ramnath investigated the role of an epithelial cell-specific transcription factor, interferon regulatory factor 6 (IRF6), in host defense and inflammation. She discovered that IRF6 regulates a subset of TLR3 responses in human keratinocytes. Intriguingly, Dr Ramnath showed that silencing of IRF6 expression enhanced poly(IC)-inducible IFN-β mRNA levels and inhibited poly(IC)-inducible IL-23p19 mRNA expression in primary keratinocytes. As Dr Ramnath expected, co-transfection of IRF6 increased poly(IC)-inducible IL-23p19 promoter activity, but it was not anticipated that it did not regulate IL12p40 but rather inhibited poly(IC)-inducible IFN-β promoter activity in reporter assays. Thus, Dr Ramnath was able to show for the first time that IL23p19 actually interacted with EBI3 to form the novel IL-12 family heterodimer p19/EBI3 (which is now called IL-39) and that this could be induced through IRF6. This work has uncovered that the TLR3-IRF6-p19/EBI3 axis identified in this work is likely to be critical in keratinocyte-mediated control of immune cell functions to restrict cell damage and promote wound healing in the skin. The award-winning papers of Drs Johanson and Ramnath highlight the outstanding quality of the work published in Immunology & Cell Biology. My very best congratulations are extended to the awardees on their success. I also thank our sponsors Nature Publishing and Thermo Fisher Scientific for their continued support of outstanding science and scientists and the journal. It is hoped that the outstanding quality of these awarded publications will also encourage others to consider Immunology & Cell Biology as a key journal for their cutting-edge research.