Myeloid cells are crucial to the human body’s responses to injury and infection due to their roles in the initiation and resolution of inflammation. For the same reasons, myeloid cells also play important roles in the development of age-related diseases, with disordered inflammation being implicated in the pathogenesis of diseases such as atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and various cancers. As such, understanding the functions of myeloid cells is critical in efforts to develop more effective therapies for such conditions, which represent a substantial portion of the global burden of disease.

Myeloid cells isolated from the tissues and peripheral blood of patients and healthy volunteers can be assayed to characterize disordered inflammation in disease or to evaluate experimental compounds aimed at modifying diseases. Assessments of critical functions of myeloid cells such as signal transduction, migration, phagocytosis and phagosomal maturation therefore need to be accurate and reproducible, particularly where repeat biological sampling from a patient or volunteer might not be feasible if an assay is unsuccessful. This Methods Collection aims to collate techniques, both innovative and established, to assay myeloid cell function with relevance to innate immunity and inflammation in health and disease across the lifespan.