The Scientist Staff | Jun 7, 1992 | 2 min read
S. Akira, T. Hirano, T. Taga, T. Kishimoto, "Biology of multifunctional cytokines: IL 6 and related molecules (IL 1 and TNF)," FASEB Journal, 4:2860-67, 1990. Shizuo Akira (Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology, Osaka University, Japan): "Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a pleiotropic cytokine that plays a central role in defense mechanisms, including the immune response, acute phase reaction, and hematopoiesis. Since our success in the cloning of the IL-6 cDNA in 1985, our group has been study