Monoclonal antibodies

The development of hybridoma monoclonal antibody (MAb) technology has had a major impact on clinical and laboratory medicine. It has allowed the production of essentially unlimited quantities of pure, homogeneous antibodies against a large variety of antigens. Despite the many advantages of MAbs, the effort and expense required for their production is not always justified. Less expensive and more easily obtained conventional anti-serum is still perfectly adequate in some instances. Nevertheless, murine MAbs have found widespread use in clinical and research laboratories, particularly in the field of oncology. Considerable effort has been devoted to the development of human MAbs, since antibodies of human origin are expected to be superior in therapeutic and in vivo diagnostic settings. However, technical difficulties currently prevent their widespread use. Finally, novel approaches using genetic engineering techniques are described, which portend exciting new developments in the near future.