Anti-Inflammatory & Anti-Allergy Agents in Medicinal Chemistry (Formerly Current Medicinal Chemistry - Anti-Inflammatory and Anti-Allergy Agents) - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2007

There has been fluctuating interest in gene therapy since the first therapeutic gene was successful delivered. However, gene therapy still offers substantial potential in modern medicine, as evidenced by clinical realisation of therapeutic gene delivery in those areas in which pharmacological interventions are lacking or failing. The possibilities of therapies are rather broad ranging from inherited disorders to emerging or re-em Read More

Natural killer (NK) cells have the capacity to recognize and kill a wide range of cancer cells. However, many cancer cells are resistant to NK cell cytotoxicity, mainly because they express molecules which inhibit NK cell activation. Previous studies have shown that enforced expression of chimeric receptors composed of single-chain variable domain of murine antibodies and human signaling molecules can redirect the spe Read More

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterised by persistent joint swelling and progressive destruction of cartilage and bone. The primary manifestations are pain, swelling, and limited joint motility due to inflammation of the synovial membrane. In addition to conventional therapies, biologicals targeting cytokines and their receptors have proven useful as specific therapies for RA. Although thes Read More

Antiviral drug therapy can effectively suppress HIV replication, but emerging viral resistance and drug toxicity limit long-term therapeutic efficacy. In addition, regeneration of the T helper cell repertoire is often incomplete. The current major challenges in the treatment of HIV infection are therefore the reconstitution of cellular immunity, and especially of the HIV-specific immune response, and the suppression of virus replic Read More

The ability of B cells to function as tolerogenic antigen presenting cells (APCs) in vitro and in vivo, makes them ideal targets for gene therapy strategies focused on the induction and re-establishment of tolerance. Current therapy methods employ retroviral vectors for infection of B cells or bone marrow cells and subsequent expression of the target antigen. Moreover, the efficacy of peptide-IgG fusion constructs which take Read More

Although animal studies have shown that tumor antigen (TA)-pulsed dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccines can mediate antitumor effects in vivo, human clinical trials utilizing this strategy have thus far had only modest success. In an effort to improve the efficacy of tumor vaccines, numerous investigators have explored the genetic engineering of DC to impart cytokine or TA-expression capability on DC. These efforts have focu Read More

Acute inflammation and the innate immune response to tissue trauma mark a critical pathophysiological challenge within the clinical course of severely injured and critically ill patients. Among the most potent cellular components of the innate host defense system are dendritic cells (DC). This highly effective network of antigen-presenting cells (APC) carries the ability to initiate and amplify diverse immune responses in res Read More

Although endothelial cells are not immunological cells in sensu stricto, they play an important role in controlling inflammation/immune responses. The endothelium is involved in a wide range of pathologies, the most common being vascular diseases and cancer, and they also are central to transplant rejection. Genetic modification of endothelium allows different strategies for inducing tolerance, modulating inflammation, sti Read More