Because of its key role in immunity, interleukin-2 (IL-2) has been studied extensively for the adoptive immunotherapy of cancer. Although systemic administration of IL-2 has been shown to stimulate antitumor responses in vivo, its efficacy in the clinic has been limited by the development of serious side effects, including the induction of vascular leak syndrome. Previously, we have identified a small peptide fragment of IL-2 that was found to contain the entire vasopermeability activity of the cytokine. The identification of the location of this potentially undesirable property of IL-2 enabled us to focus on the generation of mutant derivatives that might be lacking vasopermeability activity but that retain cytokine functionality. In addition to this discovery, our laboratory has constructed monoclonal antibody/IL-2 fusion proteins that can target this potent cytokine directly to tumor for the immunotherapy of both solid and lymphoid malignancies. Using this fusion protein technology, we have constructed a series of point mutations in the newly identified vasopermeability region of IL-2 for the purpose of deleting this activity.