Cytokines, Growth Factors and Receptors -- SAB Bonus Question
The following are Science Advisory Board members' responses to the question "What will be the most promising cytokine-based therapy to treat human disease within the next five years?" Members are identified only by their screen name, job position, and geographic location.

A better understanding in the cross talk of cytokine as well as their mode of action in the immune system will definitely be a great help in the disease therapy. Unfortunately, many cytokine activities are shared by distinct cytokines; therefore blocking one cytokine may not be enough.
Louahed, Principal Investigator, Europe

Adhesion molecules will be shown to control all aspects of cell growth and development. The integrin-based cellular control of extracellular matrix molecules and adhesion molecules are orders of magnitude more biologically efficient in the progress of cellular differentiation and development than that of growth factors or other cytokines. A good example is BMP that was once heralded as the panacea of bone healing. Now it is found that BMP does not accelerate bone healing but accelerates inorganic apatite deposition. This causes brittle bone formation that is in many cases, more pathological than the existing defect. For you see bone is a composite structure...not rock.
W1zard!, CSO, North America

Although interleukins have not yet lived up to their potential, trumpeted in the early 1980's as the "golden bullet" for almost every disease. I think immunotherapy, modulation of the immune system, may finally become a reality in the next five years.
hbogerd, Staff Scientist, North America

Although recombinant peptides have been touted as showing great promise, the fact remains that peptides can have bioavailability problems and may result in secondary immune responses. Additionally, it has traditionally been difficult, if not impossible, to engineer peptides that cross the blood-brain barrier to treat cerebral inflammation. Accordingly, I believe that two classes of cytokine-related therapies have future promise: synthetic peptide analogues that have better bioavailability in a wide range of tissues, while minimizing immune reactions, and small molecules designed to mimic promoter-binding factors that either up- or down-regulate endogenous cytokine genes.
rwintle, Staff Scientist, North America

Angiogenic cytokines to treat peripheral and cardiac ischemia.
Jonathan, Principal Investigator, North America

Anti TNFa monoclonal antibody because it is a crucial molecule in the network of the immune homeostatic response and has already been used in the therapy of rheumatic diseases.
volos, Physician, Europe

Anti-angiogenesis because we need drugs in this area.
grip, Professor/Teacher, Europe

Antiangiogenic therapy for treatment of cancer.
MARS, Principal Investigator, Europe

Antibodies are main tool for identification and level of expression of cytokines in normal and diseased cells. Antibodies are also being used to check over-expression of genes like receptor tyrosine receptors in various types of cancers (e.g., breast and prostate cancers).
jayjay, Professor/Teacher, North America

Antibody based techniques that could block ligand signaling without affecting receptor expression.
Irene01, Staff Scientist, North America

Anti-tumor activity via increase in sensitivity to chemotherapeutic agents.
BioBrew, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

Anti-tumor response by tumor antigen specific antibodies conjugate with cytokines have shown promising therapeutic effect and therefore will be the most promising cytokine-based therapy to treat human disease in next five years.
pranaymeenu, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

As I understand, besides doses of agents, the success of suppression of cytokine action (e.g. anti-tnf-alpha agents) as well as therapy with cytokines is strongly dependent on the time point(s) the drugs are administered. Therefore, if time courses of action and, thus, time points of treatment are better understood, IL-10 might become a valuable TH1-suppressing agent. Thus, therapies for diseases such as Crohn's disease or (maybe) rheumatoid arthritis will be projectable.
catta, Post Doctoral Fellow, Europe

As the structure of more receptors is elucidated our ability to design modified cytokines and/or growth factors that act as antagonists becomes greater. This is particularly true in cancer. For example, there are many therapeutics directed to the EGFR under clinical evaluation in a variety of cancers. However, very few of them a truly rationally designed. Several recent publications have reported for the first time, the crystal structure of several members of the EGFR family in complex with their growth factor ligands. Now for the first time it is possible to design highly specific variants of these ligands that should act as antagonists. Such molecules have significant scope for improving our therapeutic options in cancer.
terrance, Principal Investigator, Australasia/Pacific

As the years go by they will find better treatment and that is a very big PLUS and they will have more information and different ways to better understand and have the knowledge to help.
jcwjr53, Nurse/Nurse Practitioner, North America

Asthma treatment will be greatly affected by cytokine-based therapies, since the delivery route is easy and poses no hazards to the patients. In addition, the sporadic occurrence of asthma attacks make a quick fix approach, as could be done through targeted cytokine delivery, very feasible.
kratzy, Principal Investigator, North America

Autoimmune disease. Because the mechanism of this kind of disease is clearly related to cytokines.
Chen, Professor/Teacher, Asia

BDNF for Parkinson's disease seems to be a promising arena within the next few years.
Padma, Staff Scientist, North America

Besides the typical application of cancer therapy, I can see two additional fields of growing importance for cytokine based therapy in human diseases, first treating auto-immune and chronic inflammable diseases and the other being viral infections. In civilized countries the numbers of patients from the first group is continuously increasing and viral infections are a worldwide threat anyway.
steschmi, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Europe

Better inhibitors of tumor-necrosis factor family members.
Richard85, Principal Investigator, North America

Bioengineering of human tissues, such as skin, cartilage and possibly neuronal and pancreas tissue, from adult type stem cells.
4gxqs, Professor/Teacher, North America

BMPs with their possibility to replace bone allo- and autografts is one of the most promising cytokine-based therapies. BMPs can be applied to a variety of musculoskeletal diseases, from bone fractures, spinal fusion to dental applications. The avoidance of grafting will mean simpler surgery and fewer complications. Taken together this will improve quality of life.
babette, CSO, Europe

By identifying the epitopes specifically involved in determined growth factor signaling pathways with wide implications in human diseases, such as achondroplasia, and other growth factor receptor inherited diseases, I believe we can develop small peptides (5 amino acids) with potential therapeutical use.
chivite, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

By my opinion the most promising cytokine-based therapy will be immunotherapy especially in transplantation as well as in the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
Predrag, Laboratory Technician, Europe

Cancer - with a better understanding of the immunological mechanism of the disease.
fphk, Professor/Teacher, Asia

Cancer because many of the cytokines are involved in different aspects of cancer including cell proliferation, transformation and angiogenesis.
Paula, Professor/Teacher, North America

Cancer diseases! Why? High specificity; low cytotoxicity.
yyli, Staff Scientist, North America

Cancer therapy, cytokines that can trigger apoptosis in cancer cells. Stem cell, to grow cells/tissues for neurodegenerative diseases, bone diseases, etc.
jianli, Principal Investigator, North America

Cancer vaccines using membrane-associated cytokines as adjuvants (Gene Ther 2002 Oct; 9(19): 1302-110).
K, Staff Scientist, North America

Cancer will be most promising cytokine-based therapy disease.
Jin GAO, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Asia

Cancer.
cljin, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

Cancer.
ABCD, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

Cancer: Once cytokine abnormalities are established and linked to specific cancers (for e.g. melanoma) treatment with IL specific and NFkB specific antibodies will eradicate the problem. In addition, Cytokine profile can be used as a diagnostic tool for various disease models.
mashvasr, Staff Scientist, North America

Careful controlled methods of cytokine detection can make progress in defining role of cytokines in various diseases. Specific cytokine profile may correlate with various physiologic or pathologic conditions or with particular therapeutic intervention and will become very useful in many human diseases.
Hakim, Professor/Teacher, North America

Cell therapy: In vitro modification and expansion immune cells for adoptive transfer.
yakselband, Principal Investigator, North America

Chemokines, because of their potential to induce antitumor immunity.
Acid, Principal Investigator, Europe

Cilliary Neurotrophic Factor in the treatment of obesity. Should this treatment prove successful, it will benefit large proportions of western populations and increase quality of life amongst numerous obese individuals.
Adam, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

Clearly both drug therapies as well as cytokines have multiple effects on different cell types. I expect that the most promising use of cytokine therapy will be in controlling either the positive or negative effects of other drugs (e.g. an anti-cancer cancer agent that might be more effective if the tumor cells are induced with cytokines to exhibit a specific antigen OR blocking the effects of an anti-cancer on normal cells by inducing normal cell growth with a cytokine).
Yoda, Staff Scientist, North America

Clearly, cytokines are involved in a multitude of normal and pathogenic processes. Of paramount importance is their role in inflammatory responses that lead to such disorders as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and autoimmune disorders. Understanding the roles of cytokines in these processes as well as therapies that modulate cytokine activity and/or expression to diminish the impact of inflammatory disorders will profoundly impact human health.
thadden, Principal Investigator, North America

Clinical phenotyping of high and low cytokine responders in response to inflammation and injury. This will help determine the response to therapy in this high-risk group of patients and also be an invaluable tool for patient prognosis.
sherhv, Professor/Teacher, Europe

Combination of effective cytokine combination to influence and control stem cell proliferation and differentiation.
goldconsul, President and Founder, North America

Combinations of anti-eotaxin or CCR3 antagonists and anti-IL8/Gro or CXCR1/2 antagonists are likely to prove valuable in the therapy of more severe forms of asthma, in which eotaxin plays a significant role in eosinophil chemoattraction and in which neutrophils play a significant role in airway inflammation.
gdent, Principal Investigator, Europe

Combined therapy for tumor reduction/killing utilizing cell specific targeting.
Islets1, Principal Investigator, North America

Complete analysis for growth factors where you can address levels of multiple forms as well as binding proteins in a single run.
Benacre, Principal Investigator, North America

Considering that current research has shown that diabetes I and II have an autoimmune component, I predict that personalized genomic medicine will be combined with cytokine therapy to identify individuals at risk for diabetes and to suppress the potential autoimmune functions.
Laurie Erickson, Staff Scientist, North America

Control of aging processes.
nahshon, Physician, Africa

Controlling amount and type of cytokine expressed at a challenge with viral product.
langford, Principal Investigator, North America

CYFRA 21-1 is a very specific tumor marker for lung cancer and any increase of the level after the surgery signal the recurrence of the disease.
znanstvenik, Principal Investigator, Europe

Cytokine gene therapy for developmental defect repair. It takes fewer amounts to start with and the effect could last long time for years.
eurotech, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, North America

Cytokine is one of the most promising upcoming fields in human disease therapy. It is evident from the number of publications and product patents for the immediate implications in drug development and as an immunomodulatory molecule to help increase the efficacy of combinatorial drug therapies.
Jitusk, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

Cytokine mimetics to treat neurodegenerative conditions such as stroke.
maclo, Physician, Europe

Cytokine will be helpful in cancer research within the next 5 years. By discovering how the cytokine structure works, drug developers will be able to manipulate the cell processes that facilitate cancer cells, slowing or reversing many cancer processes.
Jamesw154, Staff Scientist, North America

Cytokine-based immunotherapy using IL-2 against melanoma looks very promising. Clinical trials showed high-quality responses and freedom from relapse in some patients with advance stages of the disease.
bioinformer, Staff Scientist, North America

Cytokine-based therapies in the future will find the most promise in patient-specific application of a well-developed therapy. In other words, a patient needs to be thoroughly tested to identify not only the immediate problems but also their reaction to other cytokines/therapies, and only after a complete assessment of the patient is performed should a multi-pronged cytokine therapy administered.
idelgado, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

Cytokine-based therapies to treat chronic disorders of autism and attention deficit conditions will make a significant impact on human treatment, quality of life, and healthcare costs.
Virgil, Staff Scientist, North America

Cytokine-based therapy was and still is a great hope from many years. However the progress is quite slow. There are 2 reasons. First cytokines are very potent mediators and blocking them or using them as drugs gives immense side effects. Second reason is that cytokines functions are overlapping and the cytokine net is always balancing any abnormal situation. (i.e., anticytokina therapy in allergic diseases although from theoretical point of view, should work, was not effective). I think the most promising area is hematology. Growth factors and growth inhibitors.
Demkow, Principal Investigator, Europe

Cytokine-based tumor vaccines could provide a therapy of choice to treat tumors. The ongoing rapid identification of both tumor-associated antigens and the requirements for the induction of an immune response, the development of recombinant cytokines and cytokine gene transfer techniques will provide a new form of noninvasive treatment free from side effects to activate a strong immune reaction in a tumor growth area. Cytokine-based vaccines could also eventually be used in preventive medicine to immunize healthy persons with a high risk of cancer to prevent the onset of tumors.
anuta, Staff Scientist, North America

Cytokines are a big family with some redundancies. Thus, whether increasing or decreasing one specific cytokine would have some beneficial therapeutic effects in human remains to be determined, particularly for long-term treatments for which the risks of developing compensatory mechanisms that by-pass the original cytokine-based therapy or the risks of developing side effects (i.e. lymphoproliferative diseases) are potentially not negligible.
Neuroimmunology Lab. Research, Principal Investigator, North America

Cytokines that induce immune cells to fight infection and cancer.
p-mu, Post Doctoral Fellow, Europe

Dendritic cells cultured in certain cytokines are a promising way to treatment many human diseases. For DCs are the most potent APCs.
wuyoyo, Physician, Asia

Despite our best efforts and the amassing of information regarding signaling pathways, it seems we've only scratched the surface in understanding the interrelationships among these pathways. Within 5 years we may still be naive enough to believe that a single cytokine-based therapy is an attractive approach to treat human disease.
socalsmithers, Staff Scientist, North America

Diabetes therapy.
ishita, Physician, North America

Disease-specific cytokine modulation; the ability to specifically target the factors underlying disease in an individual patient will allow customization of treatment which will improve the efficacy of treatment while reducing the side effects.
jnyhus, Staff Scientist, North America

Due to the development and understanding in recent history, cytokine/chemokine role in cancer biology regulation would be the most promising cytokine based therapy in cancer treatments.
Haeri, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

Due to the increasing number of infectious diseases that are relapsing (specially in developing countries) and the clinical need to monitor those patients.
rogeriosaad, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Central/South America

EGF-R.
jhony, Professor/Teacher, Central/South America

Either treatment of cancer (by increasing the destruction of tumor cells) or autoimmunity (by regulating the self immune response).
Mathilde, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

Expansion of cells responsive to TGF-b signaling with regulatory properties because they offer the potential to control autoimmune disease.
TLSumpter1, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, North America

For my opinion, cytokines will be important as an adjuvant therapy in cancer. Cytokines will activate different cells, preparing them to specific anti-cancer therapies.
aidil, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

Gene therapy, because it would ideally provide for a permanent solution, and probably because it would be the most cost-effective one.
Riesgo, Principal Investigator, Europe

Gene-therapy and electroporatioon.
zero, Principal Investigator, Europe

Genetic engineering of stem cells to provide pertinent cytokines, because stem cells can, in principle, deliver large amounts of cytokine continuously over a long period of time, to pre-selected target sites.
rsidman, Professor/Teacher, North America

Granulocyte colony stimulating factor and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor by bone marrow suppression (radiation, chemotherapy) - interleukine plus cytostatics as combination chemotherapy.
herko, Department Head , Europe

Growth factors (and blockade of inhibitors) that can be used to treat spinal cord injuries are a very important therapeutic approach because of the devastating effect that these injuries have on people. Christopher Reeves serves as a very visible spokesperson in this area. His case serves to stimulate research in this area.
linhall, Principal Investigator, North America

Growth factors and cytokines are pleotropic may increase cellular proliferation, inhibit apoptosis, and induce differentiation. These actions may occur in both normal and neoplastic cells. If the differentiating effects of cytokines could be selectively enhanced over their other activities, then it is possible that they could be used as anti-tumor agents, as the induction of terminal differentiation would lead to replicative senescence and halt the production of new tumor cells. There is increasing evidence to show that growth factors preferentially induce tumor cell differentiation in vitro when combined with anti-proliferative agents. Currently, this approach is also being studied in early clinical trials. If effective, the clinical use of cytokines as anti-tumor therapies would be a major advance in the treatment of cancer patients.
wmatsui, Principal Investigator, North America

Growth factors and cytokines, such as VEGF, that promote tumor growth and/or metastasis, are a reasonable target for anti-cancer therapy. The same therapeutic agents may also find use in other disease states involving vascular growth, such as Kaposi's sarcoma and macular degeneration. There is tremendous potential in these areas that would benefit from control of vascularization.
jfidler, Principal Investigator, North America

Growth factors have been implicated in therapy for various neurodegenrative diseases. This is a very promising one. For sure in next few years GF based therapy would be available for neurodegenrative diseases.
padhu, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

Growth factors in wound healing - 1. Decreasing costs of post-operative care and decreasing risk of post-operative infection. 2. Aged population is increasing, so prevalence and cost of leg ulcers and pressure sores is increasing. The quicker they heal, the better for patient QOL and costs to the healthcare services.
Amanda, Laboratory Technician, Europe

Growth of adult bone marrow-derived stem cells for cellular therapies tailored to the individual. The redirected fate/ transdifferentiation of such cells will rely on cytokines for these effects.
w.otto, Chief Scientific Officer, Europe

Heart failure - an emerging area implicating cytokine involvement.
Pyrex, Professor/Teacher, North America

I am skeptic about the delivery systems to the body. Very often we are aiming for local effects and not wide spread in the body. We still lack good delivery vehicles.
hakvoort, Staff Scientist, Europe

I believe anti TNF therapy has the most promise because of its involvement in most inflammatory disease.
Kashman, Principal Investigator, North America

I believe that for many years the cytokine area was devoted to cancer research. This gave some limited success with some of the cytokines (TNF, INTERFERON and so on). I area that was less developed is the ability to determine cytokine therapy to viruses disease like AIDS, Influenza or evey, why not, SARS. There plenty of potential and in my opinion it should be tested.
kopf, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Africa

I believe that small molecule immunostimulatory drugs could prove to be a great advancement for cytokine therapeutics. Rather than administration of recombinant produced cytokines to patients, these small molecules could instead allow the patient to produce their own endogenous cytokines to fight disease or infection. Recently, the interferon inducerimiquimod have been shown to activate toll-like receptors 7 and 8 supporting the idea small-molecules can activate complex signaling pathways via receptor interactions. Development of orally bioavailable cytokine inducers would greatly facilitate administration, patient compliance and perhaps pharmacokinetic properties of cytokine-based therapies.
Ron, Staff Scientist, North America

I believe that small molecule therapies such as the imidazoquinolines (i.e., Aldara) will become a highly versatile tool in the treatment of many diseases. Enhanced viability of one's innate immune response has the potential to be efficacious in viral and tumor-based therapies, but understanding cytokine modulation will be the key to unlocking the body's full potential to fight off these diseases.
aswaller, Staff Scientist, North America

I believe that the administration of IL-10 during the onset of cell-mediated autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes, has the potential to impede disease progression. IL-10 will favor the generation of a Th2 response over a Th1 response, and therefore a halt to disease progression.
tbthorn, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, North America

I believe that the use of cytokines for the expansion of stem cell populations (especially hematopoietic stem cells) will be the most promising cytokine-based therapy. Although this is an indirect use of cytokines, the use of hematopoietic stem cells for gene therapy and for direct treatment of malignant and non-malignant hematologic diseases is already well established. Determining the optimal cytokines to allow for the degree of ex vivo expansion necessary to support human therapeutics will be a critical step in making this a practical treatment option.
scblackman, Physician, North America

I believe that understanding the role of inflammation in disease progression will completely alter our perceptions of treatment and prevention of many disease processes ranging from atherosclerosis to aging. Cytokines clearly play a major role in this process and will become natural targets for therapeutic intervention. Finding discrete targets with limited side effects will open vast new horizons for treating cardiovascular and other chronic diseases.
dataylor, Principal Investigator, North America

I believe with more accurate assessment of growth factors regulating the expansion of tumor vasculature (various tumors express various growth factors) more accurate therapies ca be provided to inhibit the proliferation of the endothelial cells and therefore starve tumors or their lifeline. To date anti- vegf therapies have not been successful and that is due to the under- appreciation of complexity of the cytokine profile in the vasculature.
Taiko, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

I do not believe in any particular therapy to be better than another!! Never did. The whole organism is such an intricate, complex system with redundancy and complementarity, all is important and nothing is truly "extra" (unnecessary).
gianina, Staff Scientist, North America

I don't think that cytokine-based therapy will be wildly used in the future; also results were excellent in vivo (in mice). Cytokines are toxic when are given in high dose but don't have any biological effect in a low dose. They also may induce an inflammation etc. Mice are just a model, not real life.
Svetiana, Principal Investigator, Europe

I expect anti IL-6 and anti IL-8 will have in future an important role in the treatment of inflammation.
Stienstra, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Europe

I hope to see drugs or treatments aimed at targeted disruption of the fractalkine cell signaling/cell adhesion system. Such a system may be able to prevent or reverse atherosclerosis and may be of benefit to other problems involving deleterious immune responses such as diabetes and graft rejection.
John, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

I personally think that in the future there will be at least two promising directions in which cytokines will become very important. The first is the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases using neurothrophic factors. The second is the fate control of stem cells that will enable us to expand and maintain and/or specifically differentiate different sources of stem cells for cell-based therapies.
tittibau, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, North America

I think cytokine-based therapy for multiple sclerosis patients has a great potential to dramatically slow down the pathophysiological process. Especially the potential use of well-designed therapeutics in first-attack patients would be of interest to study.
Braindrain, Professor/Teacher, Europe

I think that agonists/antagonists of the pulmonary chemokine receptors like CCR3 and others will offer a good chance to treat asthma.
emaronde, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Europe

I think that sophisticated delivery systems will be the future. At this moment we have no perfect control on concentration and location of the cytokine in the cell. In principle you want them to counterpart a certain cell type; as these cells divide, the cytokine needs to find the cells and match the amount of cytokines to the number of cells (e.g. in vivo control of cytokine release).
bergberg, Staff Scientist, Europe

I think that the manipulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-10 (IL-10) to address cardiovascular disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and infectious immunopathologies will be the most promising cytokine-based therapy for human disease within the next 5 years. The role of inflammation in a broad range of diseases as well as the central role that IL-10 production levels can play in susceptibility to pro-inflammatory diseases is becoming ever more apparent. Finding ways to appropriately tip the balance away from chronic inflammation offers great promise for some of the most prominent human diseases.
mgrant, Principal Investigator, North America

I think that the most promising cytokine-based therapy to treat human disease will most definitely be the use of recombinant cytokines to treat different types of cancers. Hopefully, the use of inhibitory cytokines can modulate a tumor's progression and thus prevent metastasis.
GAATTC, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, North America

I think that the use of BMPs (bone morphogenetic proteins) will be the most promising, since both clinicians and researchers have the tools to make this kind of therapy succeed. More so than other growth factor or cytokine research, I have seen strong interest and collaborations between clinicians and researchers to develop methods for BMP use in bone formation. Bone formation may not necessarily be helpful for the bigger diseases, such as cancer, but its potential to work certainly makes up for its lack of glamour. I also have to hope it will be promising, since I work on it.
bernagrace, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, North America

I think that the value of cytokine-based therapy for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases might be underestimated because cytokines could be an important tool to treat DEGENERATING neurons and to prevent them to become DEGENERATED neurons.
Thorsten, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

I think the IGF research is very promising in the field of cancer research.
borchert, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

I think the most promising cytokine-based therapy for human disease will be the use of cytokines to promote survival, proliferation and differentiation of human embryonic and /or adult stem cells for the purpose of cell therapy.
kiani, Physician, Europe

I think the most promising cytokine-based therapy will be found in the family of IL-10-related cytokines. Indeed, in this family, at least two cytokines could be developed as therapy: first, the use of anti-IL20 or anti-IL2ORa antibodies could be helpful to treat the psoriasis. Second, IL-24 based therapy could become a major anti-tumoral (particularly against melanoma) therapy.
DianeL, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

I think the most promising cytokine-based therapy will be used to treat arthritis and other chronic inflammatory diseases. Arthritis involves recruitment of inflammatory leukocytes, presumably through the action of cytokines and chemokines. Regulating the levels and kinds of these mediators could significantly impact the inflammatory response and, ultimately, the disease process.
mquinn, Principal Investigator, North America

I think treatment of cancer based on the expression of cytokines with several antimural activities as: stimulation of the immune response, antiangiogenic activity etc.
aseguinolaza, Staff Scientist, Europe

If the secretion of the pro-inflammatory cytokines can be controlled, cardiac surgery requiring cardiopulmonary bypass will be improved.
rlabow, Principal Investigator, North America

IFN-gamma for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, because of promising phase III data and treating a disease for which there are no other treatment available.
Sigurd, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Europe

IGF related based therapy stems implications as broad as atherosclerosis to cancer. From apoptosis to cell proliferation, IGF related effects could be measured both in vitro and in vivo. Many pathways are stimulated by IGF-IR mediated responses and their downstream eefectsare a widening branch of cellular and molecular biology.
Shannon, Staff Scientist, North America

IL-10, both for its inflammatory and anti-inflammatory activities.
elle, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Europe

IL-13 for infectious diseases and asthma IL-28 and 29 may replace IFN therapy Chemokine modulation will be a target for many inflammatory autoimmune diseases.
Kalyan, Professor/Teacher, North America

IL-1-receptor antagonist.
DrZee, Principal Investigator, North America

IL-2, IL-6 and IL-10 will have an important impact in relation to some disease progression and patients followed up especially in the chronic virus infection like, HBV, HCV and HIV.
abdelzekri, Professor/Teacher, Africa

I'm afraid that 5-year period may be too short to obtain a real insight into regulation of cytokine network in human and to design a cytokine-based therapy. So far cytokine-based therapy interferes with one particular cytokine and doesn't influence the other cytokines, which form a network of interactive signals. Taking into account the current state of knowledge concerning regulation of cytokine network, I am skeptical that it is possible to design really effective cytokine-based therapy within next 5 years.
tom1973, Physician, Europe

I'm excited about engineered cytokine-related compounds that bind the natural receptor but have a novel effect (inhibition or increased activity of the receptor).
mycophage, Principal Investigator, North America

In blocking angiogeneiss factors to treat cancers.
mhari, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

In case of Cancer therapy, cytokines will play a greater role in future. Reason is that chemotherapitic agents right now in use poses greatest threat of side effects.
Dr.P.Suresh, Production/Manufacturing, Asia

In my opinion, two areas of intensive research associate with cytokines have been the mainstay - malignancies and some contagious diseases. Therefore, it would be great to uses cytokine-based therapy to boost immune system and thereby suppress malignant proliferation or spreading of viruses.
Emil, Professor/Teacher, Europe

In my research area, I think we need to investigate the relationship of complement activation and cytokine expression, to clarify the mechanisms of the treatment effect of complement inhibition in glomerulonephritis.
lhbio, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

In tumor therapy since it is less toxic in some cases and could be injected to the site and this will attract killer cells.
Sukla, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

In vivo gene transfers of cytokines in cancer treatment. Reducing angiogenesis will be done via affecting to different cytokines.
jaanar, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

Inflammatory cells are able to produce enormously varied responses and in a clinical setting these responses are often inappropriate. It is the contextual information provided by local cytokines and growth factors that primes and directs many of these inflammatory responses. Understanding the molecular signals in a combinatorial fashion will allow us to therapeutically modify these inflammatory signals in a clinical setting.
cawells, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Australasia/Pacific

Inhibition of BAFF (TNF family) in autoimmune and tumoral diseases.
jpkolb, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Europe

Inhibitors of cytokine receptors, as cytokines are pleimorphic and many use the same receptor for signaling.
Atlanta, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

Interferon for multiple sclerosis. Already showing great promise.
robynap, Professor/Teacher, North America

Interferon therapy has wider applications in many human disorders including cancer and some genetic diseases.
gheda, Staff Scientist, North America

Interferon treatments for viral disease - it has showed promising results in initial studies, and is one of our best natural lines of immune defense.
kr7, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, North America

Interleukin therapies will become more and more important as treatments because of their roles in promoting proliferation of cells of the immune system to fight against tumors and other such diseases.
lfpetersen, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

Interleukin/VEGF regulation systems to control angiogenesis in a wide range of pathologies.
ias30, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Australasia/Pacific

iRNA (RNA interference). Due to the possibility of down modulate cytokines and other molecules in a relatively good specific way.
M.Cecilia Marcondes, Staff Scientist, North America

It is very hard to answer such a broad question. However, The Connective Tissue Growth Factor or CTGF seems to be promising. I believe that it will soon be used as an anti-fibrotic agent (will be very helpful for diabetes and angiogenesis...). We have got with users very promising results.
Sonia Saad, Post Doctoral Fellow, Australasia/Pacific

It takes years to bring a drug on the market, so they should already be testing this approach. Companies do keep everything confidential, so I am not likely to know. Personally I believe that targeting of oncogenic signaling in cancer cells is very promising. Especially inhibitors of oncogene related signaling. The beta catenin APC pathway and the growth factor (EGFreceptor family), RAS, RAF, MAPK, AP1 pathways seem excellent candidates.
PRAPD, Physician, Europe

Local substain release therapy will be the most viable form of therapy. This will maintain a locally high (therapeutic) concentration while avoiding possible systemic side affects. It will also help minimize the cost for the cytokine, as less will be need compared to systemic delivery. Gene or protein can be delivered locally.
dave77, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

Metabolism targeted cytokine agonists/antagonists to combat obesity and diabetes.
Hejsan, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

Modulation of intracellular signaling - may use disease inhibing reactions of the at lesion sites without elicting the unwanted side effect of active cytokines elsewhere in the body.
neuroimmunology, Staff Scientist, Europe

More monoclonal antibody combination for veterinary cytokine assays is needed. Cattle and pigs are facing infections by FMDV, and PRRSV and Circovirus infect pigs. These infections are well known to be serious. Making vaccines against these pathogenic viruses will confer protection for these animals. The basis of protection can be better understood via characterization of cellular responses involving cytokine assays.
csia, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

Not a single cytokine-based therapy, but rather stem cells in conjunction with cytokines for a dictatorial-buffet "what-you-need-is-what-you-get" style program.
Henry, Principal Investigator, North America

Obesity is the major curse of Western civilization and underlies a number of conditions and pathologies, including cardiovascular complications, diabetes and so on. Thus obesity management has become a key topic in many human health issues. The discovery of several cytokines playing key roles in determining obesity (leptin, leptin-like factors, ciliary neurotrophic factor-CNTF, TNF-alpha, Il-6 . . .) has opened the door to new unconventional approaches for efficient treatment of obesity. It belongs to the future to show us if this will happen through gene therapy, cellular replacement therapies, simple peptide-therapy, small-molecule drug effectors or approaches still not thought of . . . My conviction is: cytokine-based obesity treatments are bound to develop - its only a matter of WHEN.
Michel, V.P., R&D, Europe

Oncologic diseases.
horama, Department Head , North America

One of the most exciting areas of current research I believe is in the area of autoimmune diseases. As we learn more about the molecular mechanisms behind diseases such as diabetes, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's, more effective and less toxic treatments will help patients with these debilitating conditions. The knowledge gained by studying the appropriate cytokines and growth factor pathways will enable the physician to modulate the immune system in very powerful ways. Small molecule inhibitors will, I believe, be potent therapeutics for the above-mentioned diseases.
Telomere, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

One therapy that is currently underway and is being refined is the use of TNF antagonists to treat a number of forms of arthritis. Additional work in this field may allow for treatment of other inflammatory diseases.
panther, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

Oral inhibitors of cytokine release in inflammatory disease.
beletskii, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

Oral therapy based on small organic molecules. Anti-TNF and anti-IL-1b therapies have been shown to be extremely efficacious in several autoimmune diseases. However they are expensive and treatment is i.v. or s.c.
Paolo, Head of Pre-clinical res., Europe

Pinpoint targeting drug delivery system, which definitely exclude the side effects. There are so many cytokines and growth factors developed for therapy, however, side effects are the big problem nowadays and limit their potential. Therefore, the drug delivery system that can targets specific organ and/or cells through the simplest way such as injection; respiration or dietary should be the best candidate for therapy with cytokines.
senom, Professor/Teacher, Asia

Please see above. There's nothing to be added. I believe this is the one major common denominator bugging (almost) everybody working with rec. factors. As to my five-year prognosis, it would appear that yet-to-be-improved antitumor "vaccination" protocols employing dendritic cells - and relying on appropriate cytokines and cocktails during the cells' in-vitro phase - should by then have reached a stage (after having passed many international multicenter studies) where they may be called the most promising cytokine/cell-based therapies.
Robert, CSO, North America

Possibly a cellular targeted signal blocking cytokine for cancer. An example would be a functional EGF but would not stimulate growth. Possibly the best cytokine to come about would be an inhibitor of IgE production for allergies. We need more research as to why this is caused by so many different pathways and possibly a better targeted drug then antihistamines.
stev434, Staff Scientist, North America

Proinflammatory cytokines are a very important group of glia/neuron- derived compounds that can inflict damage in Parkinson disease (PD) and one of several causes suspected to be involved in the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons. Some among these, including tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFa), interleukin-2 (IL-2), interleukin-4 (IL-4); interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-1b (IL-1b) are increase both in animal models of PD and in cerebrospinal fluid of PD patients. These cytokines may express deleterious effects through several different mechanisms and they can act in PD on at least two levels. First, they can stimulate other glia and amplify and propagate the glial response and glial-related injury to neurons, and second, they can bind to specific neuronal surface cytokine receptors (e.g. TNFa receptor) and act directly on DA-ergic neurons.
sabera ruzdijic, Principal Investigator, Europe

Recombinant IL-12, IFN-g for the treatment of cancers and even HIV has the most promising cytokine based therapy in near future.
Sunil, Professor/Teacher, Asia

Recombinant osteoprotegerin will have a major impact on the treatment of osteoporosis.
hms64, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

Regulation of inflammatory & pro-inflammatory cytokines, based on the present results using Mab's and the number of chronic conditions involving dys-regulation of these.
pax, Principal Investigator, Europe

Regulation of wound healing, because dose and time schedule in burns and other injuries have to be worked out so precisely in order to get the right responses. We can improve and will improve in nature's own response. The reason for this is that the first reaction in wound healing relates to closure, to avoid blood letting and (primitively) was a biological response to reduce predation, and improve chances of survival at the expense of all other considerations including function in some cases (where scarring causes contraction and immobilizes parts of the body) But in human society, we tend for the injured and time can be telescoped out so that healing is good, cosmetically better, and function can be retained. We have to learn how to do this, and cytokines will be the key players in a wonderfully choreographed protocol to achieve the best possible results.
wheatley, Professor/Teacher, Europe

RNAi-based therapy with an appropriate delivery system would be very promising due to its ease of use, high specificity, and relatively transient nature.
Guy, Staff Scientist, North America

siRNA reasons: specific; controllable, sophisticated tool.
himbeereis, Post Doctoral Fellow, Europe

Soluble receptors as competitors for inflammatory cytokines. Since they have the same affinity for the cytokine as the cell bound receptors they should be effective competitors. This approach combined with tissue targeting should prove to be an effective approach.
Ed Rosloniec, Principal Investigator, North America

Specific targeting of for instance cancer-cells by promoting differential cytokine-regulation to make these cells more prone to immunological clearance. [How is to be determined in the (near) future].
bossers, Principal Investigator, Europe

Stable frameworks of Abs that may even have the feature only to knockout single protein domains. Specific targeting.
Sumo, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

Stem cell expansion and differentiation(mesenchymal and Esc).
Masoud, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Asia

Stem cell expantion for gene targeting therapy.
alex025, Principal Investigator, North America

Targeting cells for programmed destruction.
Turtle26, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, North America

Targeting the growth factor receptors in cancer.
tkazimierzpawel, Professor/Teacher, Europe

TGF-beta - this molecule appears integral to many host responses to pathogens.
C Icenhour, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

TGF-beta treatment of cancer as it is a tumor inhibitor for many types of tumors.
drdong, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

That's a very difficult question to answer. Cytokine-based therapies and antagonists will be important not only for the treatment of various cancers, but also in the fields of autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases, as well neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's.
rlh88, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

The cytokine secretion assay from Miltenyi Biotec allows you to isolate live antigen specific T cells. The abillity isolate these specific cells provide a unique method for treatment of many diseases. By itself it may not cure any diseases, but I believe that used in conjunction with other treatments, it will be very successful addition to cellular therapy treatments.
Kevyn, Staff Scientist, North America

The first BMP products are now on the market for orthopedic applications. Although these are aimed at surgical techniques (spine fusion), the next series of products will be aimed more at tissue regeneration.
Brian, Principal Investigator, North America

The future holds tremendous promise for treatment of diseases such as psoriasis, Crow's disease etc. with inhibitors of T-lymphocyte co-stimulatory molecules. Inhibition of these co-stimulatory signals with resultant decreases in the T-cell produced inflammatory cytokines will be pivotal in the treatment of these and many other T-cell mediated disorders.
bdraper, Physician, North America

The human body is a mass of millions network of cytokines and other molecule that act and interact in a fashion makes it difficult to prioritize one molecule over the other. However, erythropoietin and its receptor still seems to be the most promising cytokines that can be used safely in wide variety of human therapy from simple chronic anemia to most complicated anemia of cancer as well as for preconditioning for most complicated brain and heart surgeries.
mtdna, Principal Investigator, North America

The Interleukin group of cytokines, which have specific up- or down-regulation to sub-population of cells of the immune system.
Ratanachaiyavong, Department Head , Asia

The most promising cytokine based treatment will be inhalation therapy for the treatment of asthma by using agents that will block the effects of IL-13. By specifically targeting the lungs, the treatment will be self-administered, have little in the way of systemic adverse effects and shut down the signaling pathways triggered by IL-13.
youngh, Principal Investigator, North America

The most promising cytokine-based therapy has to be related with protein microarrays. Fast, reproducible and extremely sensitive it is going to be the "ELISA" of the next century.
katsman64, Staff Scientist, Europe

The most promising cytokine-based therapy is a specific induction of apoptosis in cancer cells. This therapy could be very specific and not such harmful as irradiation and chemotherapy.
Naryzhny, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

The next wave of targets after the TNF family and other inflammatory cytokines may very well be the chemokines, particularly those which attract monocytes (ex. Mcp-1). The importance of these proteins has been appreciated at the level of expression and animal modeling studies, and we will see increasing interest as human trials get underway and efficacy is demonstrated.
prennert, Principal Investigator, North America

The treatment of cancer is highly dependable on cytokine and growth factor (C&GF) research. Novel therapeutic approaches based on these C&GF are indispensable in near future. This is in virtue of the involvement of various abnormalities associated with C&GF in almost all types of cancers. This is a real challenging area for the oncologists.
kvsrao, Professor/Teacher, North America

The use of cytokines to enhance autologous stem cell growth has the potential to alleviate suffering through, for example, regeneration of diseased tissue, such as neurons.
Markh, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Australasia/Pacific

The use of interferons in the development of a vaccine for HIV. Some of the studies already done seem to be promising.
nhi793, Post Doctoral Fellow, Europe

Therapeutics that modulate (both increase and decrease) expression of groups of cytokines, such as Th1 related cytokines; or therapeutics that modulate discrete subsets of these cytokines.
jlunney, Principal Investigator, North America

There are many suppliers for cytokines and growth factors. There are also many antibodies available for the either the cytokines or their receptors. What is missing here is the functional package, which includes the cytokine, the antibodies blocking the function, as well as agonistic antibodies. Commercialization of these functional packages will greatly facilitate the research fields related to cytokines.
brca1, Staff Scientist, North America

There are several candidates. In my opinion that cytokines that are critical bone biology such as TRANCE will be promising for several immunopathologies.
dr_mlee, Professor/Teacher, North America

There is some very exciting work being done in modulating the immune system with cytokines to prevent the progression to diabetes in predisposed mice. If we can elucidate the immunological basis of these effects, we may see a treatment that, given early, can prevent the destruction of islet cells. Also, I think that particular cytokines can have a great influence on vaccine development. As we progress into the era or gene therapy and DNA-based vaccines, these genes will be invaluable assets.
andyp, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, North America

There will be many in five years, primarily in cancer and heart disease.
zardeneta, Principal Investigator, North America

Things change too rapidly to allow this kind of forecasts.
ascanio, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, Europe

Those related with cancer vaccines, as: GM-CSF, IL-2, IL-12, and IL-15. Promising results in animal models and clinical trials.
F�lix, Principal Investigator, Europe

TIMPs therapy of stroke.
arek, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

Tissue engineering utilizing growth factors. Are already beginning to produce products and are now learning and overcoming the clinical challenges.
Sean, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

Tissue repair, regeneration and engineering: This broad area of research encompasses cutaneous wound healing to organ regeneration from stem cells. The use of cytokines and growth factor in wound healing is already in practice, whereas discovering the molecular formulation for stem cell differentiation is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, as many other areas of research that has learnt from nature, we hold high hopes for the promise of "biomimetics", mimicking biological processes and following the cellular, molecular and developmental rules of differentiation. Cytokines and growth factors are instrumental extracellular signals driving normal developmental events. They will be the key to bioengineering as well.
Shum, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

TNF inhibitors for rheumatic diseases. I think that no other cytokine-based therapies may be found within 5 years as efficient as anti-TNF therapy in rheumatic conditions.
alacava, Principal Investigator, North America

TNF or that kind of drugs is a good source of treatment for poxvirus infection.
lucyz, Laboratory Technician, North America

TNF.
rjhutz, Principal Investigator, North America

TPO/GM-CSF based stem cell mobilization of peripheral blood stem cells will greatly enhance the effectiveness of stem cell transplantation.
Neil, Principal Investigator, Europe

Treat heart diseases with anti-angiogenic cytokines, because the results look very promising and the field is well understood.
Gudruna, Staff Scientist, Europe

Two areas: 1) Peptides from endogenous proteins; 2) fully-humanized antibodies to endogenous growth factors.
bess, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

Tyrosine kinase inhibitors in order to block cytokine function. Our results suggest that the delivery to target organ and ability to access cytokines delivered in cell-cell contacts are the major advantages, Also TKI are important as research tools. In other words as an active therapeutic tool to treat human disease. Antibodies and fusion proteins may serve as a good therapeutic option in order to minimize negative side effects of endogenous and exogenous mechanism's regarding optimal tissue regeneration, and limit toxic side effects of malignant disease. Adenoviral vectors expressing cytokines in order to optimize tissue regeneration.
Christian, Principal Investigator, Europe

Use of refined anti-tumor necrosis factors for granulomatous infection.
dfisher, Professor/Teacher, North America

Use of small interfering RNAs to treat diseases such as ulcerative colitis. These RNAs are highly specific and active at low concentrations. Delivery to the specific target cell is always a problem but can be overcome.
pthomas, Principal Investigator, North America

Usually (and unfortunately not commonly accepted), cytokines do not act systemically but locally. "In vivo" high amounts of cytokines are produced "in situ", act there and are degraded very soon. This is one of the reasons, why systemic cytokine treatment is accompanied by severe undesired effects. Therefore in my opinion cytokines for local treatment will have a future.
stambuk, Principal Investigator, Europe

Vaccines and modulated drugs that will enable immunomodulation and thus the ability to alter cytokine and immune cell profiles to enable a better patient outcome.
Auriolw, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

Vascular and degenerescences diseases Growth and biological regulatory factors.
bhpc, Staff Scientist, Europe

Vascular growth and inhibition, due to its involvement in cancer as well as wound healing and heart disease.
ctemm, Principal Investigator, North America

VEGF interruption / antogonists to control solid tumor associated angiogenesis...because the market sees potential profit in this area.
geno, Lab Director/Supervisor/Coordinator, North America

VEGF-C therapy to cure forms of lymphedema that are caused by the absence or hypoplasia of lymphatic vessels. Why do I believe in that? It is an inspiration for my own work. Even if it won't work in the end. And maybe we find a better therapeutical approach during our research. And if none of this happens, one thing is for sure: we will learn a great deal about how our body is functioning!
mjeltsch, Graduate Student/Research Assistant, Europe

Very fast and early identification of inflammatory processes. Quick diagnosis and fast possibility to react in treating "sepsis".
wdeppert, Post Doctoral Fellow, Europe

We believe that within five years it will be likely to regulate the immune system for the treatment of long-term autoimmune diseases and for transplant patients.
Trina, Staff Scientist, North America

While efforts are currently directed towards immunotherapies for HIV, cancer and allergies, I believe that longer-term strategies will be aimed towards manipulation of the immune system to offer greater protection against succumbing to these illnesses in the first place. The global population is ageing and it would be economically prudent to keep as much of that population healthy for as long as possible. As we come to realize the influence of diet on immunity, it is likely that manipulation of the food we eat will be used to boost/maintain immunity. This may be not only in the form of available supplements but also in genetic modification of crops and probiotics to enrich/deplete nutrients, to influence what we eat, when and how we do it.
ivoryk, Post Doctoral Fellow, Europe

Within the next five years, the most promising cytokine-based therapy will likely involve stem cell research. I can imagine the use of combinations of cytokines to differentiate stem cells into various cell types, which can then be introduced into patients in the treatment of a variety of diseases ranging from cancer to heart failure.
mayclone, Post Doctoral Fellow, North America

Within these next five years, the most promising cytokine based therapies will be neutralizing antibodies against growth factors active in cancer and autoimmune diseases. My reasoning is that these "biologics" or "biopharmaceutical" agents have only begun to the reach the market, with antibodies such as Enbrel (anti-TNF) and second generation antibodies linked to toxic compounds such as Zevalin (anti-CD20 fused to yttrium-90). There are even more interesting antibodies in development, currently representing 25% of the total entities in R&D comprising biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. If I were to suggest a single line of therapy, which will have the most success, it would have to be the EGF family of antibody-based inhibitors against Cancer.
decipher07, Staff Scientist, North America

Wound care - novel therapeutic aganets which modify wound environments to improve or facilitate wound healing especially in those with poor healing (e.g. elderly, diabetics).
wilko, Professor/Teacher, Australasia/Pacific

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