César Milstein

César Milstein was an Argentine biochemist winner of a Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1984, in  the field of antibody research, and a great human example.

Quite apart from his own achievements, Milstein acted as a guide and inspiration to many in the antibody field as well as devoting himself to assisting science and scientists in less developed countries. It is also worth mentioning, that even though the Nobel Prize would have made him a wealthy man, Milstein did not patent his enormous discovery since he believed that it was mankind's intellectual property. According to his beliefs, his work did not have any economic interest, only scientific.

He was forced into exile by the militars by then in power, (as he explains with pain in the video at the bottom) and he claimed he'd return to Argentina the day this country proved stability. He could never return.

Milstein was born in Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires, in  a Jewish family. He graduated from the University of Buenos Aires and obtained a PhD in Biochemistry in the Medical School on kinetic studies with the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase.
In 1958, funded by the British Council, he joined the Biochemistry Department at the University of Cambridge to work for a PhD on the mechanism of metal activation of a specific enzyme.

The major part of Milstein's research career was devoted to studying the structure of antibodies and the mechanism by which antibody diversity is generated. It was as part of this quest that in 1975 he, together with Georges Köhler (a postdoctoral fellow in his laboratory), developed the hybridoma technique for the production of monoclonal antibodies—a discovery recognised by the award of the 1984 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. This discovery led to an enormous expansion in the exploitation of antibodies in science and medicine.

Milstein died on 24 March 2002 in Cambridge, England at the age of 74 as a result of a heart condition from which he had suffered for many years.

In 2010, his own niece made  a film about her heroic uncle's life and named it after a quote by the Uruguyan writer Eduerdo Galeano who once said that we all have a little fire inside of us, and that if we want to, we can make that little fire burn inside more people. The film is then called "Un fueguito" (A little fire) in memory of Milstein's ideal of inspiring others to learn and passing his own reaserch to others in order to keep that little fire of scientific knowledge in others.



Here's the trailer of  "Un Fueguito":