Program
Tang Prize
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Experimental Biology 2022 is pleased to announce that 2020 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science Laureate
Charles Dinarello, M.D. will be speaking at this year’s meeting. Dr. Dinarello’s lecture is titled, “IL-1 as the
Master Cytokine for Inflammatory Diseases”. Dr. Dinarello starts his lecture with the historical background for search endogenous fever-producing molecule. He then explains the studies that confirm the ability of recombinant IL-1 to evoke disease in experimental models as well as the shift from using IL-1 to blocking IL-1 in humans with inflammatory diseases. Dr. Dinarello concludes that new therapies that reduce IL-1's activities
will become a new frontier in lifting the burden of disease.
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Registered attendees may watch the Tang Prize lecture online.
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About the 2020 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science
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The Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science recognizes original biopharmaceutical or biomedical research that has led to significant advances towards preventing, diagnosing and/or treating major human diseases to improve human health. The Laureates for 2020 are Charles Dinarello of the University of Colorado, Marc Feldman, University of Oxford, UK and Tadamitsu Kishimoto of Osaka University.
Development of biologic drugs, or biologics, has revolutionized the treatment of diseases. For 2020, the Tang Prize Foundation recognizes the development of biologics targeting three of a large family of proteins in our immune system called cytokines. Cytokines are secreted proteins that have profound multi-organ, multi-tissue and multi-cellular impact on cell signaling.
These proteins are produced by a broad range of cells, with immune cells being a major source and they act through cell surface receptors to deliver diverse intracellular messages. They are referred to as immunomodulating agents by being important in host immune responses to infection and are associated with the development and progression of a variety of diseases, including inflammatory diseases, autoimmune syndromes and cancer. Some cytokines are designated as interleukins, initially used to describe those expressed by white blood cells (leukocytes), deriving from (inter-) "as a means of communication" and (-leukin), to reflect the fact that many of these proteins are produced by leukocytes and act on leukocytes. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF), interleukin-1 (IL-1) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) are among the most extensively investigated cytokines by the scientific community and biologics targeting them are among the most widely used biopharmaceuticals.
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The Tang Prize awardees have all made transformative contributions in the discovery and/or therapeutic development targeting these three cytokines.
More about Charles Dinarello, University of Colorado
More about Marc Feldman, University of Oxford, UK
More about Tadamitsu Kishimoto, Osaka University
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