Gene therapy has expanded rapidly over the last decade. The number of clinical trials reported by 2001 included 532 protocols and 3436 patients. Phase I trials predominate with 359 trials of 1774 patients versus Phase II (57 trials with 507 patients) and Phase III (3 trials of 251 patients). The disease overwhelmingly targeted by gene therapy is cancer: involving 331 trials with 2361 patients. Despite the somewhat disappointing results of clinical trials to date, gene therapy offers tremendous promise for the future of cancer therapy. The area of gene therapy is vast, and both malignant and...

A cutting-edge collection of readily reproducible molecular techniques to better understand, classify, and treat lymphoma. Among the highlights are methods to use immunoglobulin gene rearrangements as markers of clonality, to exploit patterns of somatic mutation in the variable regions to indicate at which stage transformation occurred, and to apply gene arrays to the question of biological heterogeneity in morphologically similar diseases. Research methodologies that are highly likely to become routine practice in the future, such as DNA microarray and immunoglobulin V-gene rearrangements,...

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-? is a pleiotropic cytokine involved in a va- ety of physiological and pathological processes. After initial discovery of its ability to induce cell death and animal cachexia, it was soon realized that this cytokine played pivotal roles in the regulation of homeostasis and inflam- tory-immune responses. This led to an explosion of interest in basic and tra- lational research activities on the role of TNF in many diseases, such as cancer, septic shock, rheumatoid arthritis, and infectious diseases of the central n- vous system. Because of its potential therapeutic...