Milstein, César

Milstein, César, 1927–2002, Anglo-Argentine immunologist, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1960. He worked (1961–63) at the National Institute of Microbiology, Buenos Aires, but following a military coup he resigned and returned to Cambridge, where he joined the staff of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, serving as its deputy director from 1988 to 1995, when he retired. In 1975, with Georges Köhler, he developed the hybridoma technique for producing monoclonal antibodies, pure, mass-produced antibodies that recognize only one antigen (see immunity). Their method for monoclonal antibody production has since been adopted universally, and such antibodies are used in laboratory research, in medical diagnostics, and in medical treatments to neutralize bacterial toxins. In 1984, Milstein (with Köhler and Niels K. Jerne) shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

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