Immunity

Immunity (immunity)

Journal positioning

Immunity is Cell Press's flagship immunology journal, publishing mechanistic studies that define how immune cells develop, are activated, regulated, and mediate host defense or inflammatory disease — grounded in in vivo biology. The readership is the global immunology community: basic immunologists, immunopathologists, and translational researchers studying autoimmunity, infection, cancer immunology, and immune-mediated disease. Papers must reveal a mechanistic principle that reshapes how the field understands an immune process; descriptive immunophenotyping or cataloguing without mechanism does not reach the bar.

This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the Cell Press site or submission system.

When to trigger

• The author names Immunity as the target venue.
• A mechanistic immunology study is choosing between Immunity, Nature Immunology, Science Immunology, or Journal of Experimental Medicine.
• A manuscript in cancer immunology or infection immunology needs to assess whether the immunological mechanism — rather than the cancer or pathogen biology — is the primary advance.
• The author needs Immunity's specific desk-reject triggers and a ranked alternative list.

Scope & topic fit

• T cell biology: differentiation, exhaustion, memory, effector programs, regulatory circuits — mechanistically driven by in vivo models or human translational data.
• Innate immunity: pattern recognition, inflammasome biology, innate cell lineage specification and activation, trained innate immunity mechanisms.
• B cell biology, antibody responses, germinal center reactions, and humoral memory — at the mechanistic level.
• Cytokine and co-stimulatory signaling: receptor proximal signaling cascades, transcriptional regulators, epigenetic control of immune-cell identity.
• Cancer immunology when the immune-cell mechanism is the central advance, not the tumor biology.
• Autoimmunity and inflammatory disease mechanisms: tolerance breakdown, tissue-resident immune cell function, regulatory T cell failure modes.

Method & evidence bar

• In vivo validation is essentially mandatory: genetic mouse models (conditional knockouts, fate mapping, bone-marrow chimeras), adoptive transfer, or infection models are the standard.
• Mechanistic depth expected: identify the pathway, the transcription factor, the epigenetic modification, or the receptor-ligand pair, and validate with epistasis or rescue.
• Single-cell genomics (scRNA-seq, ATAC-seq) and multi-omic data are expected to be hypothesis-generating inputs, not standalone deliverables; functional validation in vivo is required.
• Human translational data — patient cohorts, ex vivo stimulation, or clinical specimens — substantially strengthens papers and is expected for disease-relevant studies.
• STAR Methods required; data deposited to GEO, Sequence Read Archive, or equivalent; flow-cytometry data deposited per community standards (MIFlowCyt).
• Statistical rigor: replicates (biological not technical) specified, appropriate multiple-comparison correction, and experimental group sizes justified.

Structure & house style

• STAR Methods mandatory; key resources table covering antibodies, mouse strains, cell lines, oligonucleotides, and software.
• Declarative, mechanism-first title; structured abstract with "in brief" / highlights summarizing the immunological advance.
• Figures build from genetic and cellular phenotype through mechanistic dissection to in vivo disease relevance; the narrative arc should be complete within the main figures.
• Graphical abstract required (Cell Press standard); source data for all quantitative plots.
• The introduction situates the study within the mechanistic immunology literature — not epidemiology of disease burden — and closes with a clear statement of the advance.
• Data/code availability statement; any custom analysis code should be deposited in a public repository.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
• Search "Immunity author information" on the Cell Press site and follow the current version.
• Re-check article types (Article vs. Short Article), length and figure limits, and supplemental policy.
• Confirm STAR Methods and key resources table requirements.
• Re-check animal ethics (IACUC/equivalent) and human-subjects approvals, consent, and institutional review documentation.
• Verify flow-cytometry data deposition requirements and sequencing data deposition.
• Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contributions, and AI-use disclosure requirements.
• Confirm preprint policy and open-access/license options.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• One sentence stating which mechanistic immunological principle is established by this paper.
• The advance is a mechanistic insight into an immune process, not a phenotype catalogue or disease association.
• In vivo evidence is central; the genetic perturbation is validated with at least one orthogonal approach.
• Human translational data or patient-cohort validation is included or its absence is justified.
• STAR Methods, key resources table, flow-cytometry and sequencing data deposition are prepared.
• The framing positions the advance against the current mechanistic canon in this immune process.

Common desk-reject triggers

• Immunophenotyping study — detailed flow-cytometry characterization of an immune compartment — without a mechanistic molecular explanation.
• Single-cell atlas or transcriptomics data without functional validation; the data is interesting but the biology is not resolved.
• In vivo work entirely in cell culture with immunological readouts but no model organism validation for the mechanistic claim.
• Cancer immunology paper where the tumor biology, not the immune mechanism, is the primary advance — better suited to cancer-cell.
• Descriptive correlation between an immune parameter and a clinical outcome without mechanistic insight.

Re-routing decision

• Equivalent mechanistic depth with stronger translational/clinical story → nature-immunology (often favors highest-profile mechanism + translational impact) or science-immunology (AAAS, broad-significance immunology).
• Classical mechanistic immunology at slightly lower overall significance → journal-of-experimental-medicine (Rockefeller; rigorous in vivo immunology).
• Mechanistic immunology in infectious context → cell-host-and-microbe if the host-pathogen interaction is the primary frame.
• Solid mechanistic work below Immunity significance → elife, plos-biology, or Journal of Immunology / European Journal of Immunology.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Immunity
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <does the in vivo mechanism + validation clear Immunity's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type/length / STAR Methods / flow-cytometry data / animal & human ethics / disclosure>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>

Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → English-NaturalScience-Journal-Skills/skills/immunity/SKILL.md