Interferon: The Dawn of Recombinant Protein Drugs (Ernst Schering Foundation Symposium Proceedings, 5)

Forty years of Interferon I wish to dedicate this short introduction to the memory of Alick Isaacs (1921-1967), and to that of Sir Christopher Andrewes (1896-1988). Let us go back more than 40 years. In 1956 Isaacs was in charge of the Wodd Influenza Centre. Andrewes was head of the division of bac­ teriology and virology, and deputy director of the National Institute for Medical Research in London. When researchers are faced with a seemingly new phenomenon, ex­ planations are easy to come by. These explanations fall into two broad categories: the phenomenon in question is either due to something or to the lack of something. I apologize for the primitive way in which I ex­ press this, but I am going to give three examples, scattered over 100 years, of what I mean. First example: in 1880 the great French microbiologist Louis Pas­ teur was involved in work on chicken cholera. He was struck by the following observation: if a suitable chicken broth was inoculated with the bacterium, the organism grew profusely and the liquid became tur­ bid. If he now freed the fluid, by sedimentation or filtration, from the bulk of the organisms and re-inoculated it with the same bacterium, no growth occurred. Front Matter....Pages I-XIV Is There Life Without Interferon?....Pages 1-14 What Constitutes Therapeutic Success? The Interferons (1978–1998)....Pages 15-31 The Prehistory and History of the Uses of Interleukin-2 in Cancer Therapy....Pages 33-68 Interferon-α: From Pass Interference to Cytokine Networking....Pages 69-88 A Biosemiotic View of Interferon: Toward a Biology of Really Living Organisms....Pages 89-106 The Clinical and Social Impact of Interferon-β: The First Approved Therapy in Multiple Sclerosis....Pages 107-119 Interferon: The Dawn of Recombinant Protein Drugs....Pages 121-134 Back Matter....Pages 135-138 This book describes the discovery, the production and the clinical development of interferon, one of the first genetically engineered proteins and one of the most innovative and successful drugs of all time. The authors all played either a key role in this process or are highly reputed historians of science. This volume is a must for everyone who appreciates the enormous cultural and social implications of scientific endeavor This text describes the discovery, the production and the clinical development of interferon, one of the first genetically engineered proteins and one of the most innovative and successful drugs of all time.