Growth and Growth Factors

This collection of articles aims to provide a wide spectrum of studies on the subject of growth and growth factors, particularly focusing on those with direct or potential clinical implications. Of course, given the limited number of papers to be selected, the choice of articles has been fully arbitrary and, inevitably, other equally valuable studies have been neglected. Among experimental studies, I favored those with major clinical implications. In the last 12 months, the research in the field of growth factors has provided important achievements. Molecular biology, applied to single clinical cases or large cohorts of patients, has elucidated the mechanisms underlying some conditions characterized by severe short stature. New therapeutic tools for treating growth impairment have been tested in phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. New relationships between the IGF system and predisposition to cardiovascular disease have been described. Finally, pharmacological modulation of IGF system has been attempted to inhibit cancer growth. Although most of these papers have not yet yielded conclusive results, they nonetheless provide the basis for further clinical and experimental research. Wishing you a good reading, I would like to wrap up this short introduction quoting a sentence written on the office door of James Muorilyan Tanner, the founder of modern auxology: ‘the appetite comes reading’.