Milstein, Cesar (1927-2002), was an Argentine and British scientist who helped produce the first monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory versions of the antibodies produced naturally by the immune system when foreign substances, such as bacteria and viruses, invade the body.
Milstein and German biochemist Georges J. F. Kohler developed a laboratory technique to produce monoclonal antibodies in 1975. Their technique enabled scientists to custom design antibodies to attack specific infectious agents and to produce identical copies of those antibodies in large quantities. Monoclonal antibodies can be used to study immunity or to diagnose and treat disease. For their achievement, the two scientists shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with the British-born Danish immunology researcher Niels K. Jerne.
Milstein was born on Oct. 8, 1927, in Bahia Blanca, Argentina. He graduated from the University of Buenos Aires and received a Ph.D. degree in 1960 from Cambridge University in England. He served from 1961 to 1963 as head of the molecular biology division at Argentina’s National Institute of Microbiology in Buenos Aires. In 1963, he returned to Cambridge and spent the rest of his scientific career there, doing research at the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He headed the laboratory’s Division of Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry from 1983 to 1994. Milstein held both British and Argentine citizenship. He died on March 24, 2002.
