The immune system is a complex network of cells with a high level of specialization that are distributed through our entire anatomy and have the ability to establish a coordinated response to dangerous cues with the ultimate goal of maintaining homoeostasis. An important aspect of the immune system that is beginning to be appreciated is that individual responses are influenced by prior exposure to a broad variety of environmental factors (from viruses to microplastics). This environmentally induced immunological imprinting can have large consequences for the development of diseases, in particular, chronic diseases such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and cancer. With the development of single cell technologies in recent years, we are now able to address immune heterogeneity and function with an unprecedented level of detail. Tapping on this information has yielded numerous insights in a variety of immune-mediated diseases and is helping develop very useful tools for personalized medicine in patients treated with the growing arsenal of immune-modulating agents (collectively known as immunotherapies). We hypothesize that building an integrative approach to immune characterization based on the multilayered combination of single cell technologies and proteomics will help in identifying signatures, which we call immunotypes, that can be used as biomarkers in chronic diseases. In this consortium we are bringing together a team of academics with expertise in immune monitoring, proteomics, and bioinformatics, clinicians that treat patients with chronic disorders, a team of experts in life-style interventions, epidemiologists, the Dutch Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL), ImmuneHealth-XL (which agglutinates patient organizations such as Diabetes Fonds, MLDS, or Hart Stichting), a University of Applied Sciences, different single-cell analysis companies, and an art gallery focused on the interface between Science and Art to, together, make a significant long-term scientific, educational, and societal contribution where the general public takes a center stage.
