The Combinatorial Approach to Human Antibodies

The development of hybridoma technology 18 years ago appeared to promise antibodies for every application. Unfortunately, extension of the technique used for the production of mouse monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to the production of human mAbs has proven to be difficult. Indeed, it is only within the past few years that advances in the field of molecular biology, coupled with the “combinatorial approach,” have allowed for the routine production of human mAbs. This chapter is meant to serve as an introduction to this new methodology, to review its success and to highlight future directions for the production of antibodies.