Inflammation has become one of the most exciting and rewarding areas of medical research. Recent years have seen a revolution in our understanding of how blood and tissue cells interact and of the intracellular mechanisms controlling their activation. This has revealed the underlying inflammatory pathology of many diseases and provided multiple new targets for anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory therapy. The Encyclopedia of Inflammatory Diseases will cover the following areas:
- Inflammatory Processes and Cells
- Inflammatory Diseases
- Mediators of Inflammation
- Pharmacology of Inflammation
Since inflammatory diseases and their therapy cover a broad range of scientific and medical fields, the encyclopedia will be co-edited by four international experts, a clinician and three researchers from the disciplines of immunology, biochemistry, and pharmacology, in this way providing students, basic and clinical scientists and practitioners in academia, hospitals and industry with valuable interlinked information.
This living project will serve as a reliable and comprehensive data pool for everybody working in inflammation research. Owing to its dynamic nature, it will grow with time and future editions, becoming an indispensible source of information for academia, clinical practitioners and industry.
Michael Parnham studied pharmacology at London University, UK and obtained his PhD in pharmacology at Bristol University, subsequently performing postdoctoral work in inflammation at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He is currently Head of Preclinical Research in the Fraunhofer Institute of Molecular Biology & Applied Ecology, Project Group for Translational Medicine & Pharmacology TMP, Frankfurt am Main, Germany and since 1998 has been Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is also a Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society.
Prior to his present position, Dr Parnham was Visiting Scientist in the Hospital for Infectious Diseases Zagreb, Croatia and Director of Preclinical Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline, Zagreb. From 1998 to 2006 he was Head of Pharmacology & Toxicology and then Senior Scientific Advisor at PLIVA, Zagreb and was previously employed for a decade by A. Nattermann and subsequently Rhône-Poulenc Santé in Cologne, Germany, where he rose to become Head of General Biology.
Dr Parnham has researched and published extensively on inflammatory mediators and mechanisms, anti-inflammatory, antibiotic and immunomodulatory drugs, toxicology and the pharmacology of selenium. He was Managing Editor of the international journal Inflammation Research from 1992 to 2013 and is editor of several book series, including Milestones in Drug Therapy and Progress in Inflammation Research, and the textbook Principles of Immunopharmacology. He has helped discover and develop 6 compounds up to clinical trials, including 2 novel biologicals and a seleno-organic compound, for which he and his group received the Prix Galien Germany in 1990. Dr Parnham has run a pharmaco-toxicological consultancy in Germany for 8 years, has been involved in discussions with EMEA on drug safety and was a representative of the European Generics Association on the working group for biosimilar drugs. In 2015, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Association of Inflammation Societies.
