Nomination Form Deadline for 2024 Award is March 4th

2023 ICIS-Pfizer Award for Excellence in Cytokine & Interferon Research Winner

The ICIS-Pfizer Award for Excellence in Interferon and Cytokine Research (formerly the Seymour & Vivian Milstein Award from 1988 – 2020), represents the pinnacle of scientific achievement in interferon and cytokine research since 1988, two years after interferon was first approved for the treatment of hairy cell leukemia. Since that time, it has been widely recognized that interferons and the larger class of cytokines play critical roles in the development and progression of many major diseases including cancer, viral diseases such as hepatitis and influenza, and autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis and lupus.

This Award is bestowed upon a leading biomedical research scientist, who may not be an ICIS member, who has made outstanding contributions to cytokine & interferon research, either in a basic or applied field. Many laureates have made seminal advancements that have enabled the successful treatment of disease or have the potential to lead to significant health benefits. The award consists of $10,000 (may be split if there is more than one award winner) and an invitation to make an oral presentation during the Opening Ceremony at Cytokines 2023 in Athens, immediately following presentation of the Awards (including the usual invited speaker travel reimbursements and complimentary registration) and a crystal block.

Past Winners:

2022 ICIS-Pfizer Award for Excellence in Cytokine & Interferon Research Winner (formerly the Seymour & Vivian Milstein Award from 1988 – 2020)

Professor Yoshimura has been chosen as the 2022 ICIS-Pfizer Award for Excellence in Cytokine & Interferon Research, the society’s most prestigious award, in recognition of his outstanding discoveries in the field of cytokine biology that have transformed human medicine. Professor Yoshimura’s ground breaking discoveries have played an important role in inflammation, allergy, autoimmune diseases, and tumor immunity, improving our understanding of the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases.

In Dr. Yoshimura early investigations into the molecular and cellular mechanisms of immune regulation, he first described pp130 tyrosine phosphorylated protein associated with the erythropoietin receptor in 1992, which was subsequently identified as JAK2. This discovery was one of the foundations for the eventual development of the JAK inhibitors that have transformed human medicine. MORE DETAILS

2021 ICIS-Pfizer Award for Excellence in Cytokine & Interferon Research Winner

Professor Ting has been chosen as the 2021 ICIS-Pfizer Award winner in recognition of her outstanding discoveries in the fields of immunology, molecular biology, genomics, and microbiology, and especially for her observations regarding the control of immunity which impact a wide variety of diseases. Dr. Ting, combining her knowledge of cytokine regulation and function with state-of-the-art approaches to unravel the immunologic basis for inflammation in infection,inflammatory diseases and cancer, has elevated world-wide research on interferons and cytokines, most notably through her seminal work in NLRs that in many ways started the field of NOD-like receptor proteins.

As an active member of the cytokine community working on various aspects of cytokine biology since 1984, Dr. Ting’s focus for the last 25 years has been on understanding how cytokines such as interleukin-1 and type I Interferons are regulated during immune activation and how these cytokines in turn regulate the immune response to a plethora of diseases including inflammatory diseases, autoimmunity, metabolic diseases, neuroinflammation, cancer and infection bybacterial and viral pathogens.  MORE DETAILS

Milstein Awards Laureates from 1988 – 2020 pictured below. For more information about each of the past Milstein Award winners, please click here.