Biotechnology Industry Organization, 1989. Substances foreign to the body, such as disease-causing bacteria and viruses and other infectious agents, known as antigens, are recognized by the body's immune system as invaders. Our natural defenses against these infectious agents are antibodies, proteins that seek out the antigens and help destroy them.
Antibodies have two very useful characteristics.
The second characteristic of antibodies makes it possible to develop vaccines. A vaccine is a preparation of killed or weakened bacteria or viruses that, when introduced into the body, stimulates the production of antibodies against the antigens it contains. It is the first trait of antibodies, their specificity, that makes monoclonal antibody technology so valuable. Given such a diversity of uses for these disease-fighting substances, their production in pure quantities has long been the focus of scientific investigation. It yields antiserum that contains undesired substances, and it provides a very small amount of usable antibody.