In almost all diseases, including infectious and non-communicable diseases, the immune system and its responses play a critical role. The inflammatory response is a vital part of the immune system and is involved in the pathophysiology of many diseases. Mediators of inflammation are encoded by their genes as proteins and, from the viewpoint of molecular anthropology, these polymorphic genes are biological signatures of different ethnicities. We now know that genetic polymorphisms are associated with cytokine levels and disease susceptibility. Other than encoding genes of cytokines, human leukocyte antigens (HLA) and killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) are two highly polymorphic gene clusters studied in immunogenetics. Another point is that the formation of a phenotype is not limited to the genotype, but the environment may have an effect. For example, in allergies and airway problems, diesel exhaust particles have been shown to play an important role along with genetics. Therefore, environmental anthropology has a great importance alongside medical anthropology.

Recent studies have shown that ethnicity can be associated with variations in disease susceptibility, prognosis, diagnosis, and treatment. There are many challenging questions and gaps in the evidence relating to this topic. Prevalence and prognosis of certain diseases can vary among different ethnicities, as can the response to different treatment regimens. In addition, a disease may have a different molecular etiology in two differing populations. There may be different levels of biomarkers of the immune system in individuals of different ethnicities, and these findings may be associated with immune system-related genes. Interestingly, a disease can be associated with hyper-inflammation in a patient, while in another patient it can be associated with weakness of the immune system. Therefore, some patients are treated by immune suppression whereas others are best treated by immune stimulation. Other than the above items, it is important to consider how the environment can affect the phenotype expected from a genotype.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect research and review papers with a multidisciplinary approach including anthropology and genetic epidemiology. We also encourage immunogenetic studies of the abovementioned findings, in particular those which incorporate genetic epidemiology, a multidisciplinary field combining personalized medicine and evidence-based medicine (EBM). We welcome both original research and review articles.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Genetic association studies of cytokine encoding genes in different ethnic groups
• Disease association studies of HLA and KIR for inflammatory diseases
• Biomarkers of inflammation in the diagnosis and prognosis of diseases with a personalized medicine approach
• Reports on genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and Mendelian randomization (MR) studies in inflammatory diseases.
• Common inflammatory diseases of specific ethnic groups and solutions to disparities between groups
• Designing regional guidelines for inflammatory diseases according to regional data
• Expert discussion on the role of evidence-based medicine (EBM) and statistical modeling in precision medicine
• Classification of populations based on the biological signature of their immune system.
• Meta-analysis of evidence-based medicine in inflammatory diseases.
• The effects of the envirome and exposome on the immune system and their interactions with genetics.
• Longitudinal epigenome-wide, envirome-wide, and exposome-wide association studies (LEWAS) and environment-wide association studies (EWAS) on diseases of the immune system
• Multidisciplinary approaches to immunogenetics and inflammatory responses