From tool to therapy: a timeline of monoclonal antibody technology

Abstract: They started out as a useful tool for studying the immune system in the lab and now they’re a family of drugs treating millions of patients, with global revenues of nearly $75 billion in 2013. MRC funding and researchers have been entwined with the monoclonal antibodies story from the very beginning. Forty years ago this month, Nature published a paper by the LMB’s César Milstein and Georges Köhler which described how they’d made mouse monoclonal antibodies. Here we look at the landmarks on the 40-year journey. More…