Antibody production by a hybridoma cell

Scanning electron micrograph of a hybridoma cell, 10microns in diameter. Hybridoma cells are laboratory made, by combining two different cell types; B cells of the immune system of a mouse that are producing an antibody, and cells from an immortal cell line called a myeloma. The cells are fused together using electric fields or polyethylene glycol. The resulting immortal "hybridoma" cell produces the antibody in amounts that can be harvested. The nature of the antibody depends on the antigen to which the mouse was exposed. Such "monoclonal antibodies" can therefore be designed to be tools to detect molecules of specific interest, even when those molecules are present in minute amounts. MABs are now used in the early diagnosis of cancers, and in targeted treatments of cancer and virus disease (Covid). Their development in 1975 led to a Nobel prize for Cesar Milstein and George Kohler., Photo by DR JEREMY BURGESS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY