Milstein, Cesar

Monoclonal antibodies can be produced not only in a cell culture but also in live animals. When injected into mice (in the peritoneal cavity, the gut), the hybridoma cells produce tumors containing an antibody-rich fluid called ascites fluid. Production in cell culture is usually preferred, as the ascites technique may be very painful to the animal and if replacement techniques exist, may be considered unethical. The process of producing monoclonal antibodies described above was invented by Georges Kohler. Cesar Milstein, and Niels Kaj Jeme in 1975 they shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 for the discovery (http //en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Antibody). 

Niels K. Jerne, Georges J. F. Kohler, and Cesar Milstein Physiology/Medicine Cellular basis of immunology... 

During the mid-1970s, this process of antibody generation was not understood, and the laboratory of Cesar Milstein was one of those trying to decipher the mechanisms involved. The experimental approach adopted... 

However, together with Niels K. Jerne, George D. Kohler and Cesar Milstein were later awarded the 1984 Nobel Prize in Medicine ...for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies . 

Fig. 1.3 Making monoclonal antibodies. An original drawing from the Nobel Prize lecture of Cesar Milstein The Nobel Foundation).

At the same time, Georges J. F. Kohler and Cesar Milstein were working together at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, where in 1975 they discovered a technique to produce monoclonal antibodies. Previously, to prepare substantial quantities of antibodies, scientists had to inject an antigen into an animal, wait for antibodies to form, draw blood from the animal and isolate (a mixture of different types of) antibodies. The only way to obtain monoclonal antibodies was to clone lymphocytes, secreting one form of antibody molecules. 

British scientists Georges J. F. Kohler and Cesar Milstein found that because myeloma cells, like those of most cancers, are immortalized, they could artificially fuse myeloma cells with immune cells of known specificity to produce a clone of immortal cells producing identical antibodies because these cells represented a clone, the product became known as monoclonal antibodies. 

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