César Milstein, CH, FRS (October 8, 1927 – March 24, 2002) was an Argentinian biochemist in the field of antibody research. Milstein shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 with Niels Kaj Jerne and Georges J. F. Köhler.
The immune system includes cells, lymphocytes and antibodies that neutralize substances foreign to the body, or antigens. We have millions of different antibodies, but each cell can produce only one kind of antibody. Sometimes a cell that forms a certain kind of antibody grows abnormally and a tumor is formed.
In 1975 Cesar Milstein and George Köhler developed a method for combining such tumor cells with cells that are immune to a certain antigen so that antibodies of the same type – monoclonal antibodies – can be produced
