Word: interleukins
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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This limited test is only the beginning. The NIH researchers and others elsewhere are planning to transplant genes that could actually help people fight cancer and other diseases. For example, scientists hope to give patients genes that will enable their bodies to mass-produce such anticancer agents as interleukin-2 and tumor necrosis factor. Anderson believes the day is not far off when it will be possible to transplant a gene containing instructions for the manufacture of CD4, a substance that combats the AIDS virus. Ultimately, researchers think they may be able to conquer some hereditary diseases by replacing defective...
...therapies arising from recent research involve the chemical signals, or lymphokines, that regulate the immune system. These extraordinary proteins have a bewildering array of names and functions. There are, for instance, three types of interferon -- alpha, beta and gamma. Alpha alone comes in more than a dozen varieties. Interleukins are similarly prolific. "We are already up to interleukin-7 and interleukin-8," says Immunologist Lloyd Old, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, "and one can expect that we will go on from there." Scientists have so far discovered at least five different colony-stimulating factors, which cause...
...Interleukin-2 has shown promising results in treating advanced skin and kidney cancers. In fact, says Gutterman, there appears to be "tremendous synergy" between alpha interferon and IL-2 in attacking cancer cells. While IL-2 works to make the killer cells more potent, he explains, they "have to recognize something unique on the surface of the cancer cell in order to kill it." That something is an antigen, and interferon seems to make it more "visible" to the killer cells...
...promising approach is the use of interleukin-2, one of the proteins called lymphokines, which are produced by the immune system. IL-2 is now being administered in various ways to stimulate the white blood cells that attack tumors. Expensive -- upwards of $80,000 for one course of treatment -- and dangerous, IL-2 is usually reserved for patients with advanced cancer. Amy Hance, 25, of Bloomington, Ill., reached that stage early this year. Melanoma, a deadly skin cancer, had spread to her liver, spleen, stomach and lungs. The determined Hance opted for experimental IL-2 therapy, even though side effects...
...most promising advances in treatment for the dread disease. Yet two articles published in last week's New England Journal of Medicine, while containing caveats, seemed reason for guarded optimism. Both dealt with a controversial treatment known as adoptive immunotherapy, which involves the use of a naturally produced substance, interleukin-2 (IL- 2), to bolster a patient's immune system. Both reported striking improvements in some patients with advanced cases of cancer...