Advancing Precision Immunology Through Diagnostics

Recent key publications

Crossroads between autoimmunity and cancer: underlying mechanisms and clinical implications. 
Physiol Rev. 2026 Apr 1;106(2):891-933. doi: 10.1152/physrev.00012.2025. Gjyrezi A, Skarlis C, Mavragani C, Giannakakou P.

Link to full article:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41428387/

The immune system can fail in two directions, attacking the body's own tissues or allowing tumours to escape detection, and these apparent opposites share more biological machinery than is commonly recognised. This review traces common ground in checkpoint biology, cytokine signalling and inherited genetic risk, while examining the documented link between conditions such as Sjögren’s disease and lymphoma development. As checkpoint inhibitors and CAR-T cell therapies become routine, understanding why some patients develop autoimmune complications while others experience disease progression has grown urgent. Rheumatology and oncology are asking the same mechanistic questions, and this synthesis reflects that reality.

Elevated lipid peroxidation biomarkers in autoimmune diseases: A systematic review and meta-analysis. 
Autoimmun Rev. 2026 Mar;25(3):104008. doi: 10.1016/j.autrev.2026.104008. Luo Y, Hua S, Song Tet al.

Link to full article:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41707766/ 

Ferroptosis has drawn growing interest as a potential contributor to autoimmune disease, though large-scale clinical data have been slow to follow. This meta-analysis brings together 175 studies spanning ten autoimmune conditions and finds consistently elevated lipid peroxidation markers, malondialdehyde in particular, when patients are compared with healthy individuals. The strongest signal came from rheumatoid arthritis, and in both Graves’ disease and psoriasis, oxidative damage tracked closely with disease activity. Recent experimental work targeting ferroptosis in lupus and diabetes models adds biological weight to these findings. Taken together, the results position circulating lipid peroxides as a shared disease feature worth pursuing as a biomarker and open a credible path towards therapeutics aimed at this cell death pathway.

Genome-wide association analyses of autoimmune hypothyroidism reveal autoimmune and thyroid-specific contributions and an inverse relationship with cancer risk. 
Nat Genet. 2026 Mar;58(3):550-559. doi: 10.1038/s41588-026-02521-1. Reeve MP, Kanai M, Graham DBet al.

Link to full article:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41748903/

A genome-wide study of autoimmune hypothyroidism drawing on more than 81,000 cases has identified 418 independent genetic signals and separated the condition into autoimmune and thyroid-specific components. Functional work on a Finnish-enriched ZAP70 missense variant points to partial loss of T-cell receptor signalling, connecting reduced-function alleles to autoimmune susceptibility. Perhaps the most striking finding is that the same genetic architecture predisposing individuals to hypothyroidism is inversely associated with skin, breast and prostate cancers, suggesting that inherited variation in immune surveillance shapes both autoimmune risk and the capacity to resist tumour development. Given that immune checkpoint inhibitors now routinely produce thyroid-related side effects in clinical practice, this dataset offers a population-scale genetic basis for understanding the tension between autoimmunity and cancer protection.

Human Systems Immunology in the Omics Era: Challenges, Methods, and Emerging Directions. 
Eur J Immunol. 2026 Mar;56(3):e70164.doi: 10.1002/eji.70164. Riemann L, Förster R.

Link to full article:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41830074/ 

High-throughput omics have reshaped how human immunity is studied but translating large and complex datasets into actionable biological knowledge remains genuinely difficult. This review offers a practical guide to designing, analysing and combining multimodal immune data from cohort studies, with direct attention to problems that routinely compromise results: batch effects, missing data, small sample sizes and the substantial variation that exists between individuals. The authors also address the growing role of single-cell and spatial technologies, as well as artificial intelligence approaches including foundation models applied to immune set-point inference. For researchers working at the boundary of computational methods and human immune biology, the framework presented here is aimed at producing findings that hold up across studies and carry real relevance for vaccinology, autoimmunity and cancer immunotherapy.

5) Extracellular Vesicles in Autoimmune Diseases: From Diagnostic Biomarkers to Engineered Therapeutics. 
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2026 Mar;13(18):e21802. doi: 10.1002/advs.202521802. Wu Y, Ma H, Zhu Tet al. 

Link to full article:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41677384/

Extracellular vesicles have opened new directions in autoimmune disease treatment, but mammalian and plant derived platforms have rarely been evaluated side by side. This review addresses that gap by examining how each type is produced, what cargo it carries, and how readily it can be engineered for therapeutic use. Mesenchymal stem cell derived vesicles show promise for restoring immune balance in lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, while nanovesicles extracted from ginger and ginseng offer a scalable option with low immunogenicity for managing intestinal inflammation. The first EV based therapies are now entering clinical trials for dry eye disease and graft-versus-host disease, making source-specific comparisons increasingly relevant. Researchers working on targeted immunomodulation or liquid biopsy applications will find the comparative analysis here a useful starting point.