born Oct. 8, 1927, Bahía Blanca, Arg.
died March 24, 2002, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.
Argentinian-born British immunologist.
In 1975 Milstein and Georges Köhler (194695) fused short-lived, highly specific lymphocytes with the cells of a myeloma, a type of tumour that can reproduce indefinitely. The hybrid cells, like lymphocytes, secreted antibody to a single antigen and, like myeloma cells, perpetuated themselves. This enabled production of large quantities of pure antibodies against single antigenic characteristics (monoclonal antibodies). Milstein, Köhler, and Niels K. Jerne (191194) shared the Nobel Prize in 1984.