A brief history of interferon's trajectory to clinical application, and personal reminiscences of a large-scale human interferon production initiative.

In a first part of this historical article, the author overviews how, over the half century since the first in vitro demonstration of interferon, systems for large-scale production of human interferon have been elaborated and how these efforts have allowed for evaluation of the clinical potential of the different molecular types of interferon. In a second part the author reflects in more detail on research activities in Belgium aimed at production of human interferon.