Historical Background of Vaccination and Antibodies

Over 2000 years ago in China, antibodies elicited by early forms of vaccination likely played a major role in the protection of the population from infectious agents. Vaccination has been further developed in Europe and described by Edward Jenner in the late-eighteenth century, then successfully implemented worldwide.

The idea to use the active ingredient in the blood of vaccinated (or immunized) animals or humans for the treatment of diseases came a century later. It was made possible by a series of discoveries, such as the realization that the serum from animals immunized with toxins, for example, diphtheria toxin or viruses, is an effective therapeutic against the disease caused by the same agent in humans.

In the 1880s, von Behring developed an antitoxin (antibody) that did not kill the bacteria but neutralized the bacterial toxin. The first Nobel Prize in Medicine (1901) was given to him for the discovery of the serum therapy.

Development and Clinical Use of Monoclonal Antibodies

A century later, 22 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical use, and hundreds are in clinical trials for the treatment of various diseases including cancers, immune disorders, and infections.

The revenues from the top-five therapeutic antibodies reached $11.7 billion in 2006, and major pharmaceutical companies raced to acquire antibody biotech companies with a recent example of MedImmune, Inc., which was acquired for $15.6 billion by AstraZeneca in 2007.

This explosion of research and development in the field of therapeutic antibodies prompted the publication of the MiMB volume Therapeutic Antibodies: Methods and Protocols. The book’s major goal is to present a set of protocols useful for researchers discovering and developing therapeutic antibodies.

Current advances and future trends in antibody therapeutics are analyzed in the lead-in review article.