The most outstanding breakthrough in antibody research has been the treatments of cancer with monoclonal antibodies. They discovered that introduction of weakened forms of small pox into the body would prevent later infection by smallpox. In 1890, a German scientist Emil Adolf von Behring discovered antibodies. An antibody , is a chemical compound produced by the body to combine with and neutralize a particular foreign substance called an antigen . An antibody is a Y shaped molecule with a structure specifically matched for a particular antigen.
Antibodies have two very useful characteristics.
IgM is the first antibody made by newborns and the first made during an infection. IgE is associated with allergies. IgA is found in saliva and mother s milk. Since antibodies develop in the midst of dead or weakened bacteria, it is possible to develop vaccines. In the late 1940 s, Rodney Robert Porter researched the structure and function of antibodies.