PR93292

TAIPEI, Nov. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

Following the inspiring opening speech, "Future Perspective of Cancer

Immunotherapy", delivered by Nobel Prize and Tang Prize laureate Prof. Tasuku

Honjo at the 14th Asia Pacific Federation of Pharmacologist Conference (APFP)

on November 26, the 2020 Tang Prize Laureate's Lecture for Biopharmaceutical

Science, co-organized by the Tang Prize Foundation and The Pharmacological

Society in Taiwan, took place at the 14th APFP at 1:30 p.m.(GMT+8) on November

27. Co-hosted by Dr. Wen-Chang Chang, chair of Taipei Medical University's

board of directors, and Dr. Yun Yen, chair professor at Taipei Medical

University, this special session featured lectures delivered by three winners

for the 2020 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science, Drs. Charles Dinarello,

Marc Feldmann, and Tadamitsu Kishimoto, providing valuable informaiton on the

role cytokines play in inflammation and the COVID-19 disease as well as

possible treatments.

The first lecture by Dr. Dinarello, titled "Interleukin-1: The Prime Mediator

of Systemic and Local Inflammation", began with his purification of leukocytic

pryogen from human white blood cells in 1971. It then took him six years to

identify two fever-producing molecules, later named IL-1α and IL-1β.

In 1977, the research outcomes were published in the Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences. The second speaker, Dr. Feldmann, shared his

views on "Translating Molecular Insights in Autoimmunity into Effective

Therapy". The emphasis of the first half of his lecture was on how he

discovered that anti-TNF can be effective in treating rheumatoid arthritis.

During the second half of the talk, he informed us that TNF has two different

targets: TNF receptor-1(TNFR1), which drives inflammation, and TNF receptor 2,

which does the very opposite. Therefore, they are "in the process of generating

tools" and has already blocked TNFR1 without change the function of regulatory

T cells. Presenting the third lecture on the topic "Interleukin-6: From

Arthritis to CAR-T and COVID-19", Dr. Kishimoto drew the audience's attention

to how IL-6 was discovered, why IL-6 is a pleiotropic molecule, and responsible

for both antibody production as well as inflammation induction. He also shed

light on IL-6's effects on autoimmune diseases and how IL-6 can trigger

cytokine storms.

To help the public gain a better understanding of the latest progress made in

biomedical sciences, the Tang Prize Foundation will make these three lectures

available on its official website(https://www.tang-prize.org) afterwards.

SOURCE: The Tang Prize Foundation