Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting of ISIRFlorence, ItalyOctober 23,1989

The meeting was opened by Dr. Borden at 1:30 P.M. Monday, October 23,1989. Members of the Board of Directors Meeting present were Ernest C.Borden, Alfons Billiau, Kari Cantell, Ferdinando Dianzani, Ernest Knight, Jr.,Sidney Pestka, and Kathryn C. Zoon. Additional individuals who were asked toprovide reports at the Directors Meeting were Lois Epstein, Hans Strander andIon Gresser.

Dr. Dianzani presented a report of the current meeting status. Thisreport is given in detail under the 1989 annual meeting report. Dr. Dianzaninoted that he found major sponsors donating about $40,000 each to support themeeting.Secretary's Report

The secretariat has increased membership in the society from 746 to 894.In addition, during the year a Visa/Mastercharge account was established so

that members can pay through one of these credit cards in U.S. dollars if theywish. This will be continued in the future.

Support from corporate sponsors was almost doubled from $17,100 to$30,100. It is hoped that additional corporate sponsors will be obtained for1990.

A large number of inquiries were made to the Society by mail andtelephone, particularly with questions about travel awards for the meeting.The Society has established an electronic address, both Bitnet and Internet,by which messages can reach the secretariat. The addresses are: BITNET:PESTKA@BIOVAX; INTERNET: PESTKA@BIOVAX.RUTGERS.EDU. and PESTKA@ANCHOR.RUTGERS.EDU. The society may also be reached by telefax: US 201-463-5223.

Together with the president, the coordination of several new

international chapters were established in Czechoslovakia, Greece, Hungary,Poland, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan. Because of the difficulty in payment inseveral countries, special accommodations and arrangements were made toprovide for direct payment of dues to the national societies. Furthermore,mailings will be made to one member of the national societies who will thenphotocopy and distribute all mailings directly to members in those countries.

The new directory will be distributed to all members of the societywithin the month of November. Because of the move of the society from Floridato New Jersey during the year, mailings for dues and the directory were

delayed. New dues statements, in conjunction with a ballot for president ofthe society, were mailed in November, 1989, for the 1990 year.

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Finance Committee

This report was given by Dr. Knight. The detailed report of the FinanceCommittee is given later in this summary.

Meetings Committee

Meetings Committee Report was presented by Dr. Zoon. The detailedreport of the Meetings Committee is presented later in this summary. Thefollowing motions were made and passed after this report.

A motion to increase the difference in registration fees between membersand non-members was made by Dr. Zoon and seconded by Dr. Pestka. It was

passed unanimously by the Board of Directors.

A motion was made by Dr. Knight to eliminate the difference inregistration fees between academic and Industrial members. This was secondedby Dr. Dianzani and passed unanimously by the Board of Directors.

Another motion was made by Dr. Knight that proceeds from the annualmeeting should be turned over to the ISIR. Any alterations from this policyneed to be approved by the Meetings Committee and the Board of Directors. Itwas seconded by Dr. Zoon and passed unanimously by the Board of Directors.

Awards Committee

The Awards Committee Report was presented by Dr. Strander. The detailedreport of the Awards Committee is presented later in this summary. During thediscussion of this report a motion was made by Dr. Pestka that travel awardsbe given only to members of the ISIR. It was seconded by Dr. Dianzani andpassed unanimously by the Board of Directors. It was also emphasized that allindividuals applying for awards will receive letters noting the status oftravel award grants.

Publications Committee

The detailed Publications Committee report is given under the committeereports section later in this summary. During the discussion of this report amotion was made by Dr. Pestka and seconded by Dr. Knight that the Societyshould own the copyright to their Journal. This motion was passed unanimouslyby the Board of Directors. In essence, the Board of Directors decided itwould be in the best interest of the ISIR to own the copyright for theJournal. As will be seen later in this report, the entire Council, as well asthe editorial board of the Journal and the publications committee unanimouslyendorsed this proposal. To accomplish this, as well as to develop financialsupport for the Journal, a committee composed of Drs. S. Pestka, E. Knight,and P. Marcus, a subcommittee of the Board of Directors, was established toobtain information from Mary Ann Leibert so that we can relieve the financialconstraints that are now limiting Journal size. In addition, this committeewas instructed to develop a strategy for ownership of the copyright of theJournal of Interferon Research or another journal by the ISIR. The motiondirecting this was passed unanimously by the Board of Directors andunanimously supported by the entire ISIR International Council on October 24(see minutes of the Council Meeting).

Miscellaneous Items

It was moved by Dr. Pestka and seconded by Dr. Knight to establish twonew ad hoc committees of the Society: the Nomenclature Committee, which is

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now chaired by Dr. Paula Pitha-Rowe, and the ad hoc Committee on Antibodies,now chaired by Dr. Sidney Grossberg. This was unanimously agreed upon by theBoard of Directors.

The Board of Directors meeting was adjourned at 6:00 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Sidney Pestka

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF THE ISIRFlorence, ItalyOctober 24, 1989

The meeting was opened by Dr. E. Borden at 1:00 PM. Members of theInternational Council present were Günther R. Adolf, Sefik S. Alkan, SamuelBaron, Alfons Billiau, Velio Bocci, Ernest Borden, Ladislav Borecky, C. BuddColby, Sidney Pestka, Philip I, Marcus, Hanna-Leena Kauppinen, TomonoriMinagawa, Sigeyasu Kobayashi, Norman B. Finter, Peter Lengyel, Robert M.Friedman, Manuel Limonta, Bryan Williams, Ara G. Hovanessian, Bernard Lebleu,Ellen C. Zwarthoff, Hans Strander, Chris Tsiapalis, Charles E. Samuel, Heinz-Kurt Hochkeppel, Sidney E. Grossberg, Lois B. Epstein, Halvor Rollag, GeraldSonnenfeld, Kathryn C. Zoon, Ernest Knight, Jr., P. von Wussow, FerdinandoDianzani, Giovanni B. Rossi, Martyna Kandefer-Szerszen, Chris Tan, VladimirLackovic and Susan Krown. Members representing new chapters of the ISIR were

present as guests: Felix I. Yershov, Tatyana G. Orlova, Yelena G. Slavina,and Sergei B. Cheknev.

The minutes of the 1988 Council meeting which was published in theAugust issue of the Journal of Interferon Research was approved unanimously bythe Council, in a motion by P. Marcus, seconded by S. Baron.

The secretary provided a report of the state of the Society to themembers. (See secretary's report under Board of Directors meeting.)

Since no nominations were made for the next vice president andpresident of the Society by the National Councils, a list of members of theentire Council was distributed to the Council members from which they votedfor the next vice president who would become the succeeding president of theSociety. The three members who received the highest votes and who will be on

the ballot to the full membership of the ISIR are S. Baron, S. Epstein, and H.Strander. The ballots will be sent out to the members during November.

The president welcomed the three new national councils: one from Russiawith 87 new members; one from Singapore with 16 new members; and the thirdfrom Taiwan.

The Treasurer's Report was given by Dr. Knight to the Council (seeTreasurer's report).

A summary of the Director's Meeting and their decisions and motions wasmade to the Council.

Committee reports were presented to the Council by all the standingcommittees (see committee reports).

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The council endorsed the various motions passed by the Board ofDirectors. The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 P.M.

Respectively submitted,

Sidney Pestka

MEETING OF THE GENERAL MEMBERSHIPFlorence, Italy

Thursday, 27 October 1989

The meeting was opened by Dr. Borden at 1:15 PM and reports presented bythe secretary, treasurer, and all committee chairpersons. Seventy-six membersof the Society were present in addition to the officers. The decisions of theBoard of Directors and the Council were summarized for the general membership.A number of questions by the membership were answered and it was particularlynoted that if any specific questions for the secretariat come up during theyear, the secretariat may be contacted by mail, telephone, electronic address,or telefax.

In general it is clear that the Society is a vigorous one and growing instrength and importance. The general membership meeting was adjourned at2:30 P.M.

Respectfully submitted,

Sidney Pestka

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Minutes of the Publications Committee

The meeting was called to order at 3:35 PM on the 22nd of October, 1989.Present for the entire meeting were Drs. Y. H. Tan, C. Jungwirth, 0. Haller,R. M. Friedman, and G. Sonnenfeld. Drs. A. Billiau and M. Tovey were alsopresent for parts of the meeting. Dr. P. I. Marcus was also present in his exofficio function.

The first order of business was a confirmation of the letter that HolgerKirchner had sent to members of the committee indicating his resignation as

chair and member of the Publications Committee, and his not being able toattend the Publications Committee meeting. Prior to the meeting, Ernie Bordenhad asked Gerry Sonnenfeld to serve as "acting" chair In order to allow themeeting to take place. The members were in agreement with this course.

The second order of business was a discussion of the problem that SidneyPestka had raised indicating that the membership of the committee was greaterthan provided for in the charter of the ISIR. Otto Haller offered to resign,if necessary. It was decided that Dr. Kirchner's resignation and the endingterms of several members resolved this problem.

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The third order of business was a report from Dr. Marcus on the Journalof Interferon Research. Two section editors, Dale Stringfellow and PeteKnight, have resigned. They were thanked for their meritorious service. Twonew section editors, Kathy Zoon for Molecular Biology and Jan Vilcek forCytokines, have been appointed. The editorial board is now constituted as

indicated in the abstract issue of the Journal. Mini-reviews have begun-issue 5 this year had M. Roberts on the trophoblast protein being interferon

and issue 6 will have A. Hovanessian on protein kinase. These mini-reviewsare invited and reviewed. The December issue will have Dr. Taniguchi'sMilstein Award manuscript included, and each following award lecture will bepublished. The scientific health of the Journal continues to be good. Therejection rate is about 41% and the manuscript flow is very good, and may leadto 9 or 12 issues per year in the future.

The final order of business was a discussion of concerns on thefinancial health of the Journal. The manuscript flow for the past severalyears has required more than 600 pages of text; this year alone over 800 pageswill be required. The subscription base of the Journal only supports 600pages; the publisher has stated by letter that she can no longer support theexcess pages. The Publications Committee discussed several possible optionsand passed the following motions for transmission to the Board of Directors ofthe ISIR.

1) By unanimous vote of the members present, the committee voted to

support a motion proposed by Dr. Friedman and seconded by Dr. Tan that thepublisher no longer supply free copies of the Journal to the editorial board.

2) By unanimous vote of the members present, the committee voted to

support a motion proposed by Dr. Friedman and seconded by Dr. Jungwirth thatsubscription to the Journal be tied in some way to membership in the ISIR.This was suggested since only 125 members of the ISIR are subscribers. Athree-tiered membership was suggested; Full membership with the Journal,Membership without the Journal at a slightly reduced rate, andStudent/postdoctoral membership at a nominal rate.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:30 P.M.

Respectively submitted,

Gerald Sonnenfeld

Minutes of the Awards Committee

The meeting was called to order by Dr. Strander on October 22, 1989.Present were H. Strander, Chairman, K. Cantell, 0. Haller, H. Kirchner,P. Lengyel, E. Zwarthoff, and E. Borden, ISIR President. Absent members were

T. Kishida and A. Morris.

Awards Committee Members : H. Kirchner and P. Lengyel were reelected as

members. Dr. Shudo Yamazaki, Tokyo, was elected for 1990-

1992 to substitutefor T. Kishida. Other members remain on the Committee during 1990.

Honorary Membership: Dr. Norman Finter, Wellcome Foundation, London,England, was unanimously nominated for the 1990 Honorary Membership of theISIR after approval of the Council. Dr. Finter has recently retired from hisposition at the Wellcome Foundation.

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All ISIR members are welcome to make suggestions for Honorary Membershipfor 1991. Nominations should be sent to the chairman of the Awards Committeeto be received by April 22, 1990. The Honorary Member gives an HonoraryMembership lecture at the yearly ISIR meeting.ISIR Travel Awards 1989: The various travel awards applied for and the finalselections were summarized by the chairman. There were 169 applications. Ofthese 39 were not considered for the following reasons:

a) several abstracts by one and the same author (20)b) applicant not presenting oral presentation or poster (10)c) local author (4)d) abstract missing (1)e) no abstract given (1)f) application not containing any request (1)

Sixty-two of the applicants received Travel Awards (36.7Z of totalapplications and 47. OX of the ones considered). One applicant received $900,one applicant $800, four applicants $700, ten applicants $650, one applicant$600, six applicants $550, two applicants $500, five applicants $450, sixapplicants $400, two applicants $350, five applicants $300, five applicants$250, two applicants $200, eight applicants $150, and four applicants $100.The 62 awardees received a total sum of $26,000. Any awardee not attendingthe meeting should send their checks back to the treasurer.

For the 1990 San Francisco meeting the abstracts and applicationdeadline for travel awards is June 1, 1990. The chairman of the AwardsCommittee must receive application forms and abstracts from the organizers ofthe 1990 meeting by mid June 1990. Late applications will not be consideredby the Committee. The chairman will receive the scoring sheets from thecommittee members at the latest by August 15, 1990. The checks will be sentto the applicants at the latest by September 1, 1990, by the treasurer of theISIR in order to inform awardees at the latest two months before the SanFrancisco ISIR Meeting November 14

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19, 1990. The applicants not receivingany award will likewise be informed by a self-addressed label attached to theapplication form. Further announcements will be made in the meeting foldersand in the Journal of Interferon Research.

Any additional travel money provided by the organizers is not consideredby the Awards Committee.

Every abstract, even several from one laboratory, will be consideredseparately by the committee, provided that their contents do not overlap. Itwas decided by the Awards Committee that travel award sums for 1990 will runfrom $300 to $1000 per applicant. The final award sum also takes intoconsideration to some extent the distance the applicant has to travel to themeeting. All applications for the 1990 meeting should be sent to theorganizers and the abstract must be submitted together with the applicationform for travel awards.

Milsteln Award: Nominations for the 1990 Milstein Award should reach thechairman of the Awards Committee by April 22, 1990. Separate announcementsare made in the Journal of Interferon Research. Any ISIR member except forthe members of the Awards Committee can make such nominations. Nominationsshould contain a small summary of the nominees achievements. Reminders aboutnominations for the Milstein Award will be published in the San FranciscoMeeting folders and the Journal of Interferon Research.

The Awards Committee expressed its gratitude to Mr. Milstein and hiswife for attending the meeting in Florence where he personally presented theaward to Dr. Michel Aguet of Zurich, the Awardee of 1989.

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The guidelines for the annual Milstein Award were published in theMinutes of the Awards Committee Meeting at Kyoto, 1988, in Volume 9, No. 1 ofthe Journal of Interferon Research.

Next Awards Committee Meeting: This will take place at the 1990 San FranciscoISIR Meeting. The exact date and time will be announced later.

The chairman closed the meeting with thanks to committee members forgreat efforts and with expressions of gratitude for their most efficient andrapid collaboration.

Respectfully submitted,

Hans Strander

Minutes of the Finance Committee

The meeting was called to order on October 22, 1989. Present wereE. Borden, E. De Maeyer, E. Knight, Jr., S. Krown, and S. Pestka.

E. Knight, Jr., treasurer, presented the status of the ISIR finances asof October 1, 1989, and a proposed budget for 1990. An increase in membershipdues from $25.00 to $35.00 was discussed. It was recommended for adoption.

Corporate sponsorships were set at $1800 per year. The level ofcorporate versus academic registration fees for the annual meeting wasconsidered. The committee members recommended that the difference inregistration fee between academia/government and industry for the annualmeeting be abolished

The financial relationship with M. A. Liebert, publisher, Involving theJournal of Interferon Research was discussed as well as copyright status ofthe Journal. The members recommended that the Publications Committee discusswith M.A. Liebert, publisher, the relationship between the ISIR and theJournal of Interferon Research. (See minutes of Directors Meeting).

It was also recommended that the Awards Committee establish a higherminimum travel award than is currently in effect.

Respectfully submitted,

Ernest Knight

Minutes of the Membership Cnmmlrt-ee.

The membership committee met in Room 103 from 3:30 p.m on October 22,1989. The meeting was chaired by Dr. Lois Epstein and the members presentwere Drs. Heinz-Kurt Hochkeppel, Paula Pitha-Rowe, Sigeyasu Kobayashi, Petervon Wussow, March Wathelet, and Howard Young. Dr. Hou Yun-te was absent.

The committee first discussed progress made in enrolling new membersover the past year. One hundred and forty-eight new members joined the

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International Society for Interferon Research this year, representing a 20%increase thus bringing the total memberships to 894. This resulted from thededicated efforts of Edith Kaplan, senior administrative officer to Dr. SidneyPestka, who personally contacted 773 scientists listed in Current Contents whowere authors of manuscripts on interferon, 64 of whom agreed to join. Thispositive outcome was enhanced by the efforts of Dr. Hochkeppel who wrote a

personal letter to every industrial, academic, and hospital institution inSwitzerland encouraging membership and by the efforts of Dr. Kobayashi who, atthe meeting of the Japanese Society for Interferon Research, encouragedmembership in the International Society.

The committee then discussed additional methods to increase membershipin the International Society and the recommendations are as follows:

1. Continue to get periodic computer print-outs on authors ofinterferon research and contact all authors who are not yetmembers to encourage membership.

2. Contact all drug companies involved with interferon clinicaltrials to encourage corporate memberships, and obtain lists ofinvestigators at the companies and their clinical collaboratorsworld-wide to encourage membership.

3. Contact all national interferon societies for membership lists andsend a letter from the membership committee encouraging membershipin the international society as well; encourage payment ofmembership dues as a group with one check.

4. Have a three-tiered membership with full fees to be paid by mostmembers, but half price for postdoctoral fellows and only $5.00for students. The committee was unanimous in tying fullmembership to having a subscription to the Journal of InterferonResearch, provided that the increase in dues would not exceed anadditional $25/year. The committee was divided as to whetherJournal subscription should be linked to dues if the increase(because of publication costs) had to be more than an additional$25/year. Everyone agreed that the integrity and scientificexcellence of the annual meeting should be the first priority ofthe international society, but that continued improvement of theJournal of Interferon Research was essential to its linkage to

membership. An additional $25/year on the part of the 894 currentmembers would result in $22,350 additional revenue to the Journal.These recommendations were presented to the Board of Directors andare being considered by that body at the present time.

5. The following benefits for membership were suggested and approvedunanimously:

a) That travel awards should be given only to members, whetherthey be at the senior postdoc, or student level. This was alsoapproved by the Board of Directors.

b) That awards called the Young Investigator Awards, in theamount of $100.00 be awarded to that postdoctoral fellow memberand to that student member who have the best abstract selected bythe Abstract Selection Committee, and announced at the annualbanquet. This is being considered by the Board of Directors.

c) That job descriptions and job seekers in the interferon fieldwho are members of the international society be allowed to

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advertise either in the Journal of Interferon Research or in a

newsletter sponsored by the international society. This is beingconsidered by the Board of Directors.

d) That if funds and manpower are available, a newsletter shouldbe created for members of the international society. It would besimilar in format to the newsletter of the German ImmunologySociety. It should be an informal document containing scientificand social information including new appointments, new promotions,new awards, grants awarded or available to members of theinternational society, minireviews, lists of ongoing clinicaltrials which employ interferon and their eligibility requirementsfor patients. The latter would be of particular benefit tophysicians in clinical practice who could be made aware ofclinical trials in this manner. The committee recognized that allor some of the functions of this newsletter could also be subsumedby the Journal. This is being considered by the Board ofDirectors.

One additional consideration raised by Dr. Pestka at the Board ofDirectors meeting, when this membership committee report was being considered,was that abstracts be submitted by members only

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or at least that one authorof each publication should be a member. This is currently under discussion bythe Board of Directors.

Respectfully submitted,

Lois B. Epstein

Minutes of the Nomenclature Committee

The meeting was called to order on October 22, 1989. Members presentwere N. Finter, S. Pestka, P. Pitha, and J. Testa. Members absent were K.Zoon, P. Lengyel, M. Roberts, M. Revel, D. Goeddel, and H. Schellekens.

Recommendations were made for nomenclature changes and consistency formouse and human interferons. For designation of a new interferon, class or

species within a class the investigators should write to the ISIR secretariat.The secretary will forward the application to the chairman of the nomenclaturecommittee.

It was recommended that IL-6 not be called ß2, since it is inappropriateto use the old nomenclature that was based on an error. Consequently, Hu-IFN-ß should not be marked ßit since it is a single £-interferon gene.

The nomenclature for the q-II class is difficult to follow, especiallyfor people outside the field. It was recommended that u-interferon be usedfor this class of interferon, and the individual interferons can be numbered.

For the existing a-interferons, it was suggested that the existing a-

interferons will be numbered (rather than use letter nomenclature). Thecommittee will try to bring some logic into the present nomenclature and as

the first step will try to compare all the existing a sequences. Since it isnot a small task, it was suggested that we may need to hire a person to do so.

Respectfully submitted

Paula M. Pitha-Rowe

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Minutes of the Meetings Committee

The meeting was called to order on Sunday October 22, 1989 at 1.00 PM.Present were Kathryn C. Zoon, Chairperson Meetings Committee, Ernie Borden,President, ISIR, C. Budd Colby, Michel Aguet, Sigeyasu Kobayashi, YoshimiKawade, Bernard Lebleu, Loretta Itri, Giovanni Rossi, Ferdinando Dianzani andAra Hovanessian.

Dr. Zoon opened the meeting. Dr. Kobayashi presented a summary of the1988 ISIR meeting in Kyoto, Japan. The profit provided to the ISIR from thismeeting was $20,979. The registrants consisted of 317 from academia/government, 173 industry and 26 students.

Drs. Dianzani and Rossi presented an overview of the state of the ISIRmeeting in Florence, October 22-27, 1989. The expenditures and income weresummarized. It was anticipated that the meeting would provide the Societywith approximately $25,000 for next year's budget. Four hundred and fortyabstracts were submitted of which 320 were presented as posters. The expectedattendance was approximately 550 persons. The program for the meeting was

briefly outlined.

Dr. Colby reviewed the plans for the 1990 ISIR Meeting in San Francisco,California, November 14-18 at the St. Francis Hotel. The American Society forMicrobiology was organizing the hotel, mailings and financial account for theco-chairmen, C.B. Colby and C.E. Samuel. The hotel rate is fixed at $85/day.Registration fee will be based on Board of Director's decision to make newfees for members and non-members. Abstracts will be due June 1, 1990.

Dr. Lebleu recommended and the members of the committee concurred thatthe 1991 ISIR Meeting will be held November 3-8, 1991 at the Acropolis inNice, France. Already two major sponsors have been acquired. They haveplanned a five-day program with one-half day free.

Dr. Zoon reviewed the proposal of Dr. Bryan Williams to have the 1992ISIR Meeting in Toronto, Canada. It was accepted by the Committee. Proposalsfor the 1993 ISIR Meeting included: Tokyo, Japan (Dr. Kobayashi);England/Greece (Dr. Taylor); Hungary (Dr. Beladi). These individuals were

requested to submit proposals before the next ISIR Meeting in San Francisco,1990, for review. The decision on the site of the 1993 ISIR Meeting would bemade at the Meetings Committee meeting in San Francisco next year.

Satellite meetings in conjunction with the annual ISIR meeting or ISIRsponsored meetings must be reviewed and approved by the Meetings Committee andthe Officers of the ISIR. A written approval will be issued by the MeetingCommittee Chairperson.

Respectfully submitted,

Kathryn C. Zoon

Minutes of the Committee on Standards forInterferon and Interferon Antibodies

The committee met on 22 October 1989. Members present were KariCantell, Ernest Borden, Peter von Wussow, Kathryn Zoon, and Sidney Grossberg(who chaired the meeting). Also attending were Loretta Itri, Otto Prummer,

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Norman Finter, and Judith Prestiflippo. Three items of business werediscussed.

The first item was a status report on the preparation of the humanantiserum containing neutralizing antibodies to Hu-IFN-q, received at theMedical College of Wisconsin from Peter von Wussow, Hannover, Germany. Thepotency is relatively high (about 1:30,000) such that it should be possible todilute it somewhat so that many ampoules can be prepared for use as a standardreference reagent in accord with published recommendations (J. Interferon Res.8:v-vii, Dec. 1988). After freeze-drying and stability testing this materialwill be provided to the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, and aninternational collaborative study organized to establish Its neutralizingpotency in a manner acceptable to the World Health Organization. The anti-Hu-IFN-/3 human antiserum that has been received at the Medical College ofWisconsin has been provided by Dr. Wieland W. Wolf, Laupheim, West Germany.Its neutralizing potency appears to be somewhat less, about 1:9000. The fundsfrom the NIH that have been pledged as well as those received from a fewpharmaceutical firms will now permit the preparation of both antisera as

standard reference reagents. Because of the limited amount of these valuableantisera available, the committee recommended that these reagents be used tostandardize the neutralization bioassay in each laboratory after which aninternal laboratory standard antibody preparation could be utilized in allsubsequent bioassays, an approach currently recommended with internationalinterferon standards. Accordingly, the committee felt that the numbers ofampoules of antiserum distributed to each laboratory should be limited as withcurrent international standards.

Secondly, the question was posed as to whether it would be useful tohave a preparation of human anti-Hu-IFN-7 antibodies. About two liters ofplasma would be necessary from a single patient obtained, for example, byplasmapheresis as was done for the anti-IFN-a and -ß sera. It was recommendedthat such an antiserum would be useful, but donors other than AIDS patientsshould be sought.

The third item was to discuss the future function and nature of this adhoc committee. It was thought worthwhile to enlarge the committee, reconsiderits name, and expand its charge to deal with all matters of standardization ofinterferons and the antibodies to them. The committee could be the liaisonbetween the scientific community that ISIR represents and the World HealthOrganization as well as the major national agencies dealing with standards andcontrol. It was suggested that this activity would strengthen the position ofthe ISIR as the body through which requests for new standards might be made.The Committee could also evaluate the need for new standards, be theyinterferons or antibodies, and consider methodology. The ISIR would then bein a position to recommend to WHO or national agencies establishing specificstandard reference reagents for the use of scientific laboratories worldwide.The chair requested suggestions for the names of ISIR members who should besuggested for membership on what might be named a Committee on Standards;suggestions should be sent to Sidney Grossberg who will assemble the list ofnominees for appointment by the ISIR president.

Submitted by,

Sidney E. Grossberg

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