38 Years of Hybridoma Technology as a Source of Analytical Tools for Immunodiagnostics of Infectious Diseases. Some Contributions Developed in Cuba to Improve the Original Procedures and Future Prospects

38 Years of Hybridoma Technology as a Source of Analytical Tools for Immunodiagnostics of Infectious Diseases. Some Contributions Developed in Cuba to Improve the Original Procedures and Future Prospects

In 1975 George Köhler and César Milstein, with a remarkable article on hybridoma technology published in Nature, opened a new era in biology with enormous implications for analysis in biomedicine and biotechnology. It remains unquestionably important nowadays and it is basically a multifaceted methodology including procedures for antigen preparation, immunization, somatic cell fusion and cloning, cryopreservation, immunochemical screening, functional and biochemical characterization and industrial scaling up. Over the years, some improvements in high efficiency monoclonal antibody generation and production have been achieved all over the world. In this review some contributions to this technology developed in Cuba from 1982 and 2000 are re-visited and updated.