The goal of many immunologists is to see their research translated into the clinic, and this month, four articles discuss topics with direct clinical implications.

Haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) is used to treat a wide variety of diseases, including leukaemia and lymphoma. After HSCT, individuals are markedly immunosuppressed, leaving them susceptible to bacterial and viral infections. On page 9, Paul Moss and Alan Rickinson describe the developments in basic immunology that have enabled clinicians to design new adoptive-transfer approaches (for example, the isolation and transfer of virus-specific T cells), and they discuss the current limitations of these methods.

As reviewed on page 31, several preclinical studies have indicated that α-galactosylceramide, which activates invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells, has potential as a therapeutic for T-helper-1-type autoimmune diseases. However, as Luc Van Kaer points out, there are still obstacles to be overcome before α-galactosylceramide is used in the clinic.

One complication for patients who are infected with HIV-1 is neurological damage. In the brain, HIV-1 infects perivascular macrophages and microglial cells, and on page 69, Francisco González-Scarano and Julio Martín-García discuss our current knowledge of the contribution of individual cell types and viral proteins to the neurodegeneration that is associated with HIV-1 infection. How this information can be applied to develop therapeutic approaches is also discussed.

Finally, on page 83, David Hafler and Philip De Jager describe how the discovery that large segments of DNA (known as haplotypes) are unbroken by recombination might help to define alleles that are associated with susceptibility to inflammatory diseases.