The FASEB Journal • Review Resolution of inflammation: state of the art, definitions and terms

British Pharmacology Society. We concluded at the meeting that a consensus report was needed that ad-dresses the rapid progress in this emerging field and details how the specific study of resolution of acute inflammation provides leads for novel anti-inflamma-tory therapeutics, as well as defines the terms and key components of interest in the resolution process within tissues as appreciated today. The inflammatory re-sponse protects the body against infection and injury but can itself become dysregulated with deleterious consequences to the host. It is now evident that endog-enous biochemical pathways activated during defense reactions can counter-regulate inflammation and pro-mote resolution. Hence, resolution is an active rather than a passive process, as once believed, which no