Since the discovery of the circulating 'fibrocyte' in 1994 as a collagen-producing cell of the peripheral blood, the physiologic and pathologic role of this unique cell population has grown steadily. This text provides a review of the role of fibrocytes in wound repair, granuloma formation, and antigen presentation.

Malaria is one of the most important "emerging" or "resurgent" infectious diseases. According to the World Health Organization, this mosquito-borne infection is a leading cause of suffering, death, poverty, and underdevelopment in the world today. This book collects the many important milestones in malaria control and treatment.

This volume provides a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary overview of the aging lung, written by the main researchers in the field. Current physiological, cellular and molecular understanding of how the lungs age and the relationship to age-associated lung diseases will be presented. The contents are aimed at a broad audience of scientists and clinicians with an interest in the respiratory system, pathogenesis of age-associated lung diseases and clinical implications.

The recent explosion of information in innate immune pathways for recognition, effect or responses, and genetic regulation has given impetus to investigations into analogous pathways in the human immune response, which in turn has produced attendant insights into both normal physiology and immunopathology.

The role of the cytokine macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) in the immune response and in the immunopathogenesis of different inflammatory, autoimmune, and infectious disorders is now well-established.