Book excerpt: Our understanding of the complex innate immune response is increasing rapidly. Its role in the protection against viral or bacterial pathogens is essential for the survival of an organism. However, it is equally important to avoid unregulated inflammation because innate immune responses can cause or promote chronic autoinflammatory diseases such as gout, atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes or certain aspects of the metabolic syndrome. In this book leading international experts in the field of innate immunity share their findings, define the ‚state of the art‘ in this field and evaluate how insight into the molecular basis of these diseases could help in the design of new therapies. A tremendous amount of work on the innate immune response has been done over the last fifteen years, culminating in the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine awarded for the discoveries of Toll genes in immunity in flies, membrane-bound Toll-like receptors in mammals, and dendritic cells as initiators of adaptive immunity.