Milstein and Kohler: Monoclonal Antibodies

César Milstein (1927-2002) was born in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. He was a chemistry student educated at the University of Buenos Aires, obtaining his degree in biochemistry in 1952. He completed his PhD in 1957 at the same University and also received the British Council research scholarship to the biochemistry department at the University of Cambridge. Under the direction of the distinguished biochemist Frederick Sanger, Milstein completed a second dissertation, a study of the enzyme, earning his PhD in 1960 and joining the scientific staff of the Medical Research Council (MRC). He then worked at the National Institute of Microbiology in Buenos Aires from 1961 to 1963 until political turmoil led him to resign and return to Cambridge to work with Sanger at the newly formed MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Now, he shifted his focus from enzymes to antibodies. By the early 1970s, he was an internationally recognized leader in the field and was able to attract talented, young researchers, including Georges Köhler, to the MRC. In 1983, Milstein was named head of the Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry Division of the MRC, a position he held until his retirement in 1995. He died in Cambridge, England, in 2002 at the age of 74.