Between Fact and Technique: The Beginnings of Hybridoma Technology ALBERTO CAMBROSIO Department of Humanities and Social Studies in Medicine McGill University MontrOal, Quebec H3G 1 Y6 PETER KEATING Department of History Universitd du QuObec~ Montreal Montr8al, Quebec H3C 3P8 In 1984, Georges K6hler and C6sar Milstein were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the development of hybridoma technology, which results in the production of so-called mono- clonal antibodies. In his presentation speech, Hans Winzgell, of the Karolinska Institute, noted that hybridoma technology had "revolutionized the use of antibodies in health care and research." This was so, he added, because "rare antibodies with a tailor- made fit for a given structure" could now be made, and because "the hybridoma cells [could I be stored in tissue banks and the very same monoclonal antibody [could] be used all over the world with a guarantee for eternal supply." He could also have added, as noted in a biographical dictionary of Nobel Prize winners, that a substantial commercial trade based on the industrial exploitation of hybridoma technology had begun by the early 1980s, 1 thus turning monoclonal antibodies into one of the "success stories" not only of modern biomedical research, but also of commercial biotechnology. ~-As other commentators succinctly put it: "[K6hler and Milstein's] success, which has been widely reproduced, 1. ~'Georges K6hler," in Nobel Prize Winners: An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, ed. Tyler Wasson (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1987), pp. 566 568, from which the excerpts of Winzgell's speech are also taken. 2. D. Parkinson, Monoclonal Antibodies': Another Success for Biotechnol- ogy? (FAST Occasional Papers n° 44, September 1981); see also Michael Mackenzie, Alberto Cambrosio, and Peter Keating, "'The Commercial Applica- tion of a Scientific Discovery: The Case of the Hybridoma Technique," Res. Policy, 17(1988), 155--170. Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 25, no. 2 (,Summer 1992), pp. 175 230. © 1992 Kh~wer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.