Nature PastCast, August 1975: Antibodies’ ascendency to blockbuster drug status

This year, Nature celebrates its 150th birthday. To mark this anniversary we’re rebroadcasting episodes from our PastCast series, highlighting key moments in the history of science.

They’re found in home-testing kits for pregnancy, hospital tests for MRSA, and in six out of ten of the best-selling drugs today. But monoclonal antibodies have kept a surprisingly low profile since their debut in a Nature paper in 1975. This podcast follows them from that time through patent wars, promising drug trials and finally to blockbuster status today.

This episode was first broadcast in August 2013.

From the archive:

Continuous cultures of fused cells secreting antibody of predefined specificity, by Köhler & Milstein

Margaret Thatcher speech clips courtesy of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

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