César Milstein

César Milstein
Born (1927-10-08)8 October 1927
Bahía Blanca, Argentina
Died 24 March 2002(2002-03-24) (aged 74)
Cambridge, England
Nationality Argentinian, naturalised as British
Fields Biochemistry
Alma mater
Doctoral advisor Stoppani[1]
Known for Receiving Nobel Prize "for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies"
Notable awards
Spouse Celia Prilleltensky (m. 1953)[3]

César Milstein, CH, FRS[2] (8 October 1927 – 24 March 2002) was an Argentinian biochemist (naturalised British) - in the field of antibody research.[4][5][6][7][8] Milstein shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 with Niels Kaj Jerne and Georges J. F. Köhler.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

Biography

Milstein was born in Bahía Blanca, Argentina, to a Jewish family. His parents were Máxima (Vapniarsky) and Lázaro Milstein, a Jewish Ukrainian immigrant.[16] He graduated from the University of Buenos Aires and obtained a PhD under Professor Stoppani[17] (Professor of Biochemistry). In 1956 he received an award from the Sociedad Bioquímica Argentina for his work on kinetic studies with the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase. In 1958, funded by the British Council, he joined the Biochemistry Department at the University of Cambridge at Darwin College to work for a PhD under Malcolm Dixon on the mechanism of metal activation of the enzyme phosphoglucomutase. During this work he collaborated with Frederick Sanger whose group he joined with a short-term Medical Research Council appointment.

Career

Science will only fulfill its promises when the benefits are equally shared by the really poor of the world
— César Milstein, Un Fueguito

The major part of Milstein's research career was devoted to studying the structure of antibodies and the mechanism by which antibody diversity is generated. It was as part of this quest that in 1975 he, together with Georges Köhler (a postdoctoral fellow in his laboratory), developed the hybridoma technique for the production of monoclonal antibodies—a discovery recognised by the award of the 1984 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. This discovery led to an enormous expansion in the exploitation of antibodies in science and medicine.

Milstein himself made many major contributions to improvements and developments in monoclonal antibody technology—especially focusing on the use of monoclonal antibodies to provide markers that allow distinction between different cell types. In collaboration with Claudio Cuello, Milstein helped lay the foundation for the use of monoclonal antibodies as probes for the investigation of the pathological pathways in neurological disorders as well as many other diseases. Milstein and Cuello's work also enabled the use of monoclonal antibodies to enhance the power of immuno-based diagnostic tests.[18] In addition Milstein foresaw the potential wealth of ligand-binding reagents that could result from applying recombinant DNA technology to monoclonal antibodies and inspired the development of the field of antibody engineering which was to lead to safer and more powerful monoclonal antibodies for use as therapeutics.

Milstein's early work on antibodies focused on the nature of their diversity at the amino acid level as well as on the disulphide bonds by which they were held together. Part of this work was done in collaboration with his wife, Celia. The emphasis of his research then shifted towards the mRNA encoding antibodies where he was able to provide the first evidence for the existence of a precursor for these secreted polypeptides that contained a signal sequence. The development of the hybridoma technology coupled to advances in nucleic acid sequencing then allowed Milstein to chart the changes that occurred in antibodies following antigen encounter. He demonstrated the importance of somatic hypermutation of immunoglobulin V genes in antibody affinity maturation. In this process, localised mutation of the immunoglobulin genes allows the production of improved antibodies which make a major contribution to protective immunity and immunological memory. Much of his work in recent years was devoted to characterizing this mutational process with a view to understanding its mechanism and, indeed, he contributed a manuscript for publication on this topic less than a week before he died.

Quite apart from his own achievements, Milstein acted as a guide and inspiration to many in the antibody field as well as devoting himself to assisting science and scientists in less developed countries. It is also worth mentioning, that even though the Nobel Prize would have made him a wealthy man, Milstein did not patent his enormous discovery since he believed that it was mankind's intellectual property. According to his beliefs, his work did not have any economic interest, only scientific.

Awards and honours

Milstein was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1975,[2] was a fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge from 1980 to 2002, awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in 1980, won the Copley Medal in 1989, and became a Companion of Honour in 1995. In 1993 Konex Foundation from Argentina granted him the Diamond Konex Award, one of the most prestigious culture awards in Argentina, as the most important Scientist in the last decade in his country.

Personal Death

Milstein married Celia Prilleltensky in 1953.

Milstein died early on 24 March 2002 in Cambridge, England at age 74 as a result of a heart condition from which he had suffered for many years.

References

  1. ↑ "César Milstein Autobiography". The Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 Neuberger, M. S.; Askonas, B. A. (2005). "Cesar Milstein CH. 8 October 1927 - 24 March 2002: Elected F.R.S. 1974". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 51: 267–289. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2005.0017.
  3. ↑ http://www.biochemist.org/bio/02404/0048/024040048.pdf
  4. ↑ Horenstein, A. L.; Ferrero, E.; Funaro, A.; Crivellin, F.; Said, M. (2002). "César Milstein, scientist (1927-2002)". Journal of biological regulators and homeostatic agents 16 (1): 91–92. PMID 12425336.
  5. ↑ Springer, Timothy A (June 2002). "César Milstein, the father of modern immunology". Nature Immunology 3 (6): 501–3. doi:10.1038/ni0602-501. PMID 12032559.
  6. ↑ Springer, Timothy A (May 2002). "Immunology. Retrospective: César Milstein (1927-2002)". Science 296 (5571): 1253. doi:10.1126/science.1073325. PMID 12016298.
  7. ↑ Neuberger, Michael (April 2002). "César Milstein (1927-2002)". Current Biology 12 (9): R308–10. doi:10.1016/S0960-9822(02)00823-0. PMID 12007427.
  8. ↑ Rajewsky, Klaus (April 2002). "Obituary: César Milstein (1927-2002)". Nature 416 (6883): 806. doi:10.1038/416806a. PMID 11976669.
  9. ↑ Raju, T N (January 2000). "The Nobel chronicles. 1984: Niels Kai Jerne, (1911-94); César Milstein (b 1926); and Georges Jean Franz Köhler (1946-95)". The Lancet 355 (9197): 75. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)72025-0. PMID 10615922.
  10. ↑ Bolhuis, R L; Haaijman J J (December 1984). "[Nobel Prizes for immunology 1984 (Niels K. Jerne, Cesar Milstein, George Köhler)]". Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde 100 (52): 2433–5. PMID 6395024.
  11. ↑ Kaartinen, M. (1984). "The 1984 Nobel Prize in medicine (Cesar Milstein, George Köhler, Niels Jerne)". Duodecim; laaketieteellinen aikakauskirja 100 (23–24): 1573–1578. PMID 6394268.
  12. ↑ Onneby, M. (1984). "Immunology in theory and practice. Nils K Jerne shares the Nobel prize in medicine with Georges JF Köhler and Cesar Milstein". Nordisk medicin 99 (11): 300, 304. PMID 6393048.
  13. ↑ César Milstein biography at the Nobel Foundation
  14. ↑ The Story of César Milstein and Monoclonal Antibodies on WhatisBiotechnology.org
  15. ↑ César Milstein archive collection - Churchill Archives Centre finding aid
  16. ↑ http://www.ulp.edu.ar/comunicacion/libros_ulp/milstein/files/search/searchtext.xml
  17. ↑ Stoppani, A. O.; Milstein, C. (1957). "Essential role of thiol groups in aldehyde dehydrogenases". The Biochemical Journal 67 (3): 406–416. doi:10.1042/bj0670406. PMC 1200171. PMID 13479397.
  18. ↑ The Story of César Milstein and Monoclonal Antibodies.
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