Dear Colleagues,

Obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, coronary artery disease, Alzheimer’s disease, aging, atherosclerosis, nephritis, myocarditis, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and several other conditions including but not limited to microbial infections, post-surgery, COVID-19, ARDS, and sepsis are considered inflammatory conditions. Most of these diseases are low-grade systemic inflammatory conditions, whereas sepsis, ARDS, and other similar conditions are considered acute inflammatory conditions. In all, there is a pivotal role for cytokines, free radicals, eicosanoids and macrophages, neutrophils, NK and T and B cells. Hence, understanding their role and actions may form a new approach in their diagnosis, prognosis, and improving the response to therapy. In this context, the critical positive and negative feedback control exerted by bioactive lipids is underappreciated. Deciphering the positive and negative feedback regulation among cytokines, free radicals, bioactive lipids, including but not limited to eicosanoids, is essential to understand the inflammatory process, its resolution and the restoration of homeostasis. The role of bioactive lipids in the regulation of the cGAS-STNG pathway and the inflammatory process seems to be of paramount importance in several inflammatory conditions and cancer. An improved understanding of this pathway could lead to development of new therapeutic strategies to prevent and manage not only inflammatory conditions, but also diseases of modern civilization such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and cancer.

Prof. Undurti Das
Guest Editor