Recent advances in our understanding of the immunological processes underlying numerous pathologies characterized by elevated levels of proinflammatory and anti‐inflammatory cytokines and chemokines have shaped the current approach to development of novel therapeutics for chronic inflammatory disorders. These evolving concepts in cytokine biology have progressed dramatically with the discovery of chemokines and their receptors as an integral component and regulator of inflammation, which have led to a better understanding of the roles these cytokines and chemokines play in orchestrating a variety of rheumatic, skin, vascular, and infectious diseases. At the same time, these findings have set the stage for successful testing and development of biological therapies in the current treatment regimens for many of these inflammatory diseases. Nonetheless, significant gaps remain in our understanding of how these cytokines and chemokines work, which is partly why some of these novel therapies are not completely effective. This demands that further research be performed aimed to test novel insights into the existing mechanisms of the established inflammatory mediators and discovering the possible role of silent or new players in the phenomenon of acute or chronic inflammation.

This special issue invites investigators to contribute to this area of research in the form of original research articles or reviews that will further strengthen the efforts to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of cytokine and chemokine‐mediated inflammation in disease pathogenesis. We are particularly interested in papers that provide novel understanding of the role of cytokines, chemokines, or their receptors in disease pathogenesis and testing of therapeutic strategies in cell/tissue culture systems, animal models, or in the clinical evaluation of inflammatory diseases. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Identifying new cellular and molecular mechanisms of inflammation involved in the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory diseases of rheumatic, skin, or vascular tissues
• Development and testing of new models for human diseases induced by the administration of cytokine/chemokine to understand disease pathogenesis and the benefit of cytokine/chemokine blockade in the amelioration of disease
• Providing insights into defining novel drug targets for suppression of cytokine/chemokine mediated inflammation using microRNAs, siRNA, and other tools of proteomics
• Testing of new small molecule inhibitors for the amelioration of inflammation in preclinical in vitro systems and animal models of disease

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal’s Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/mi/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/mi/cytok/ according to the following timetable: