The Production and Evaluation of Monoclonal Antibodies for Hormone Immunoassays

The work of Kohler and Milstein (1975) on the production of immortal cell lines secreting antibody in conjunction with that of Miles and Hales (1968) on the concept of the immunometric assay and later Woodhead at al (1974) with the two-site immunometric assay has caused a revolution in the exploitation of antibodies as diagnostic reagents. The properties of monoclonal antibodies are particularly suited to application in immunometric assays and overcome all the major problems associated with the use of conventional antisera. The work in this thesis is concerned with the production of monoclonal antibodies with suitable characteristics and their application to immunoassays for protein and peptide hormones