MAbs therapy hybridoma technology

One of the earliest attempts to exploit hybridoma technology for cancer treatment was the work of Levy and co-workers, who produced mAbs reactive with the idiotype expressed on malignant B lymphocytes obtained from individual patients (157-158). Although the need to produce custom-made mAbs for each patient has severely limited the feasibility of this strategy, these pioneering studies did provide early and convincing evidence that mAb therapy could elicit durable antitumor responses. 

Hybridoma technology and advanced antibody engineering has led to the design of an increasing number of site-directed therapeutic agents for the treatment and prevention of transplant rejection, therapy in rheumatoid arthritis, treatment of non-Hodgkin s lymphoma, and other indications. These products (Table 6.9) are examples of murine, chimeric, and humanized MAbs, and they represent significant advances in pharmacotherapy. 

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