Reflections on Monoclonal Antibodies in Immunodiagnosis and Immunotherapy

It is close to 40 years since the first issue of HYBRIDOMA was published with MaryAnn Liebert, Inc., publishers. My tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Monoclonal Antibodies in Immunodiagnosis and Immunotherapy (formerly HYBRIDOMA) spans from our first issue on January 1, 1981, until August 1, 2020, and is tied to my own career in science and the development of monoclonal antibodies. During this tenure, I was involved in defining monoclonal antibodies for identifying cancer-associated antigens, with subsequent use in the first clinical trials with Henry Sears and Hilary Koprowski. We defined the cell-surface glycoprotein EpCAM (CO17-1A), expressed on epithelial tissues and on various carcinomas as the target for our development of Panorex (edrecolomab) that was initially approved in Germany and facilitated development of the CA19-9 antibody, which is still in use today.

The journal started with the name Hybridoma, a term coined by Leonard Herzenberg during his sabbatical in César Milstein's laboratory in 1976–1977.⁽¹⁾ Our lead article was by George Köhler on “Why Hybridomas.”⁽²⁾ From 1981 through the present, the journal has documented the progress of hybridomas (also known as monoclonal antibodies) for our readers.

Over the years, we saw the promise of monoclonal antibodies come to fruition and the journal published articles associated with that progress, starting with the first licensed monoclonal antibody, Orthoclone OKT3 (muromonab-CD3), approved in 1986 for use in preventing kidney transplant rejection.^(3–6) Rituxan was the first monoclonal antibody approved for cancer and related blood cancers.⁽⁷⁾ CTLA-4 was approved as a target with the approval of ipilimumab^(5,8) in 2011 and nivolumab in 2015 targeting the PD-1/PDL-1 axis.^(9–11) We followed advances in technology such as the advent of phage display,^(12–17) the enhancement of antibody efficacy,^(18–24) and antibody production.^(25–29) All were of interest to our readership.

I am now handing the editorship of the journal to Dr. Thomas Kieber-Emmons. Dr. Kieber-Emmons is internationally known for developing mimotopes using monoclonal antibodies, elucidating the biology of anti-idiotypes and showing their utility as immunotherapeutics, engineering, and structure analyses of antibodies and peptides derived from antibodies, and has pioneered and brought the first pharmacophore rationally designed vaccine for cancer to the clinic: using antibodies as templates in the design of mimetics of tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens. I am personally delighted that Tom is taking over because he knows the history of the journal, the field, and the early people who made hybridoma technology what it is today.