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About 10 years ago, it became evident that many types of cancer cells were causally related to irrevers-ible changes in their genetic makeup. Hence, elimina-tion of these malignant cells was the only possible ther-apy. Except for surgery, classical treatments like irradiation and chemotherapy are fairly unselective and have unpleasant side effects. Can molecular biology provide drugs and treatments hat are more selective and effective while being more biocompatible and less toxic? Only 5 years after its discovery, interferon was shown to have an antiproliferative effect on transformed cells (Paucker et al. 1962). Nevertheless, it took an awfully long time before the clinical potential of interferon was extensively tested, and the reasons for this slow prog-
Fiers et al. (Wed,) studied this question.