Over the past ten years, a number of cytokines and growth factors haveproven to be as effective therapeutics. While these products havecertainly established recombinant biologics as a major pharmaceuticalgrowth sector, the continued interest in this class of drugs arises fromthe fact that today we have a far better understanding of the humanimmune response, both at a cellular and molecular level.This has resulted in a more methodical characterisation of these factorswhich has given clinical researchers an opportunity to plan Phase 1clinical trials that can provide substantial information on the activityof the cytokine in humans. Currently, a great deal of effort is alsobeing channelled into identifying cytokines from the various DNAdatabases.Our major objective for this book is to profile cytokines that have beenrecently identified. The therapeutic potential of these cytokines basedon their known properties will be discussed by the authors. The main aimof this book is to provide...
