César Milstein
Born	(1927-10-08)8 October 1927 Bahía Blanca, Argentina
Died	24 March 2002(2002-03-24) (aged 74) Cambridge, England
Nationality	Argentina, United Kingdom
Fields	Biochemistry
Alma mater	University of Buenos Aires, University of Cambridge
Doctoral advisor	Professor Stoppani[1]
Known for	Receiving Nobel Prize "for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies"
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1984 Wolf Prize in Medicine 1980 William Bate Hardy Prize 1981 Franklin Medal 1982

César Milstein FRS^[2] (8 October 1927 – 24 March 2002) was an Argentine biochemist in the field of antibody research.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Milstein shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 with Niels Kaj Jerne and Georges J. F. Köhler.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Biography[link]

Milstein was born in Bahía Blanca, Argentina, to a Jewish family. He graduated from the University of Buenos Aires and obtained a PhD under Professor Stoppani^[12] (Professor of 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 under Malcolm Dixon on the mechanism of metal activation of the enzyme phosphoglucomutase. During this work he collaborated with Frederick Sanger whose group he joined with a short-term Medical Research Council appointment.

Career[link]

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 himself made many major contributions to improvements and developments in monoclonal antibody technology—especially focusing on the use of monoclonal antibodies to provide markers that allow distinction between different cell types. He also foresaw the potential wealth of ligand-binding reagents that could result from applying recombinant DNA technology to monoclonal antibodies and inspired the development of the field of antibody engineering.

Milstein's early work on antibodies focused on the nature of their diversity at the amino acid level as well as on the disulphide bonds by which they were held together. Part of this work was done in collaboration with his wife, Celia. The emphasis of his research then shifted towards the mRNA encoding antibodies where he was able to provide the first evidence for the existence of a precursor for these secreted polypeptides that contained a signal sequence. The development of the hybridoma technology coupled to advances in nucleic acid sequencing then allowed Milstein to chart the changes that occurred in antibodies following antigen encounter. He demonstrated the importance of somatic hypermutation of immunoglobulin V genes in antibody affinity maturation. In this process, localised mutation of the immunoglobulin genes allows the production of improved antibodies which make a major contribution to protective immunity and immunological memory. Much of his work in recent years was devoted to characterising this mutational process with a view to understanding its mechanism and, indeed, he contributed a manuscript for publication on this topic less than a week before he died.

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 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1975, was a fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge from 1980 to 2002, awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in 1980, won the Copley Medal in 1989, and became a Companion of Honour in 1995.

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

See also[link]

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

References[link]

External links[link]

• César Milstein biography at the Nobel Foundation
• The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize

Carlos Saavedra Lamas
Born	(1878-11-01)November 1, 1878 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died	May 5, 1959(1959-05-05) (aged 80) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Occupation	Politician, diplomat

Carlos Saavedra Lamas (November 1, 1878 – May 5, 1959) was an Argentine academic and politician, and in 1936, the first Latin American Nobel Peace Prize recipient.^[1]

Biography[link]

Born in Buenos Aires, Carlos Saavedra Lamas (November 1, 1878-May 5, 1959) was a member of the aristocracy of Argentina. A descendant of an early Argentine patriot, he married the daughter of president Roque Sáenz Peña. Saavedra Lamas achieved renown not only as foreign minister of Argentina for his practical work in drafting international agreements and in conducting international mediation, but also as a professor for his scholarship in the fields of labor legislation and international law.

Saavedra Lamas was a distinguished student at Lacordaire College and at the University of Buenos Aires where he received the Doctor of Laws degree in 1903, summa cum laude. After study in Paris and travel abroad, he accepted a professorship in law and constitutional history at the University of La Plata, where he began the teaching career that was to span more than forty years. Later, he inaugurated a course in sociology at the University of Buenos Aires, taught political economy and constitutional law in the Law School of the university, and eventually served as the president of the university.

Saavedra Lamas was a leading Argentine academician in two areas. A pioneer in the field of labor legislation, he edited several treatises on labor legislation in Argentina and on the need for a universally recognized doctrine on the treatment of labor - among them, Centro de legislacíon social y del trabajo (1927) [Center of Social and Labor Legislation], Traités internationaux de type social (1924), Código nacional del trabajo (three volumes, 1933) [National Code of Labor Law]. In the arena of practical affairs, Saavedra Lamas drafted legislation affecting labor in Argentina, supported the founding of the International Labor Organization in 1919, and presided over the ILO Conference of 1928 in Geneva while serving simultaneously as leader of the Argentine delegation.

In international law, his other field of major scholarly interest, he published La Crise de la codification et de la doctrine Argentine de droit international (1931); and he spoke, wrote, or drafted legislation on many subjects with international ramifications - among them, asylum, colonization, immigration, arbitration, and international peace. His brief Vida internacional, which he wrote at the age of seventy, is an urbane by-product of all this study and experience.

Saavedra Lamas began his political career in 1906 as director of Public Credit and then became the secretary-general for the municipality of Buenos Aires in 1907. In 1908 he was elected to the first of two successive terms in Parliament. There he initiated legislation regarding coastal water rights, irrigation, sugar production, government finances, colonization, and immigration. His main interest, however, lay in foreign affairs. He provided leadership in saving Argentina's arbitration treaty with Italy, which almost foundered in 1907-1908, and eventually became the unofficial adviser to both the legislature and the foreign office on the analysis and implications of proposed foreign treaties.

Appointed minister of Justice and Education in 1915, he instituted educational reforms by integrating the different divisions of public education and by developing a curriculum at the intermediate level for the vocational and technical training of manpower needed in a developing industrial country.

When General Agustín P. Justo became president of Argentina in 1932, he appointed Saavedra Lamas as foreign minister. In this post for six years, Saavedra Lamas brought international prestige to Argentina. He played an important role in every South American diplomatic issue of the middle thirties, induced Argentina to rejoin the League of Nations after an absence of thirteen years, and represented Argentina at virtually every international meeting of consequence during this period.

His work in ending the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia (1932–1935) had not only local significance but generalized international importance as well. When he took over the foreign office, he immediately engaged in a series of moves to lay the diplomatic groundwork for a negotiated settlement of this dispute. In 1932 he initiated at Washington the Declaration of August 3 which put the American states on record as refusing to recognize any territorial change in the hemisphere brought about by force. Next, he drew up a Treaty of Nonaggression and Conciliation which was signed by six South American countries in October, 1933, and by all of the American countries at the Seventh Pan-American Conference at Montevideo two months later. In 1935 he organized mediation by six neutral American nations which resulted in the cessation of hostilities between Paraguay and Bolivia. Meanwhile, in 1934, Saavedra Lamas presented the South American Antiwar Pact to the League of Nations where it was well received and signed by eleven countries. Acclaimed for all of these efforts, he was elected president of the Assembly of the League of Nations in 1936.

After his retirement from the foreign ministry in 1938, Saavedra Lamas returned to academic life, became president of the University of Buenos Aires for two years (1941–1943), and rounded out his career as a professor for an additional three years (1943–1946).

Saavedra Lamas was known as a disciplinarian in his office, a logician at the conference table, a charming host in his home or his art gallery, a man of sartorial elegance who wore, it is said, the highest collars in Buenos Aires. In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor of France and analogous honors from ten other countries.

He died in 1959 at the age of eighty from the effects of a brain hemorrhage.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Nobel Committee information on Saavedra