Role of Drosophila in Human Disease Research

Dear Colleagues,

Numerous cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying biologically relevant functions of cell and animal development are highly conserved between insects and vertebrates, including humans. Since nearly 75% of human-disease-causing genes have functional homologs in the Drosophila genome, and extensive and powerful genetic tools and resources are readily available, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has become an excellent model to study human pathological conditions. Drosophila disease models have been generated to study various human disorders, including neurodegenerative diseases, metabolic syndromes, cancer, aging, and infectious diseases caused by pathogenic viruses.

With the aim of identifying the etiology of human diseases, research using Drosophila has allowed key advances, from human disease modeling to the dissection of cellular mechanisms and morphogenesis.

For this Special Issue, we welcome original research articles and up-to-date review that provide novel insights into the current use of Drosophila and its impact on the study of complex pathways relevant in biomedical research.

Dr. Silvia Bongiorni and Dr. Francesca Cipressa

Guest Editors

Manuscripts should be submitted via our online editorial system at https://imr.propub.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to start your submission. Manuscripts can be submitted now or up until the deadline. All papers will go through peer-review process. Accepted papers will be published in the journal (as soon as accepted) and meanwhile listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, reviews as well as short communications are preferred. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office to announce on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. Please visit the Instruction for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) in this open access journal is 2500 USD. Submitted manuscripts should be well formatted in good English.