MAbs Turn 30

hler, two researchers at the Medical Research Council's (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, were investigating the mechanisms underlying the remarkable diversity of antibodies.

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Thirty years ago, César Milstein and Georges Köhler, two researchers at the Medical Research Council's (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, were investigating the mechanisms underlying the remarkable diversity of antibodies. As part of their research they constructed a continuously growing cell line expressing a specific, predefined antibody.1

Over the next three decades, their discovery led to invaluable medicines, insightful diagnostics, and inspirational research. Since 1975, researchers have made numerous variations on Köhler and Milstein's seminal discovery. But antibody-producing hybridomas, for which Köhler and Milstein shared the Nobel prize in 1984, remain the sine qua non for generating monoclonal antibodies.

MAbs are exquisitely sensitive, able to pick the proverbial molecular needle from the surrounding cellular haystack. Thousands of bioscience researchers worldwide rely on MAbs to understand the structures, functions, and interactions of complex biomolecules. Like biochemical flashlights, MAbs transformed biology from a process of groping ...

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