Immunology and cell biology publication of the Year Award 2009

As in previous years, it is a great pleasure to announce the Immunology and Cell Biology Publication of the Year Award. Recipients of the award must be a first author on one of the following ICB manuscript categories: Original Article, Outstanding Observation, Theoretical Article or Brief Communication. They must also be a financial member of the Australasian Society for Immunology (ASI) by October of the year in which the article was published. The award is a AU$1000 scholarship provided by the Nature Publishing Group. This year a small committee, consisting of the Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editor of ICB, and the current ASI Vice President selected the best article based on scientific excellence. I am pleased to announce that Dr Cindy Ma was chosen by the committee as the winner of the 2009 ICB Publication of the Year Award. The winning paper of Dr Ma, which is an Outstanding Observation, is entitled ‘Early commitment of naı¨ve human CD4+ T cells to the T follicular helper (TFH) cell lineage is induced by IL-12’ and was published in the November/December 2009 issue of ICB. 1 TFH cells are a subset of CD4+ T cells that localize in B-cell follicles and have a key role in the development of antibody responses. Despite their importance in humoral immunity, little is known about the factors that favour TFH cell development. The award winning paper of Dr Ma clearly shows that in humans, interleukin (IL)-12, presumably produced by dendritic cells during early stages of CD4+ T-cell activation, has a key role in TFH cell induction. Earlier studies in mice have indicated that mouse TFH cells do not require IL-12 for their development. Dr Ma’s research thus indicates that human TFH cells behave differently from their mouse counterparts, a finding with important therapeutic implications.