Introduction: Antibody-Mediated Therapy Special Issue

In 1896, The Lancet hailed the application of serum antitoxins (antibodies) that neutralize diphtheria or its toxins as 'the most important advance of the century in the medical treatment of infective disease' (1). In 2013, the use of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for cancer immunotherapy was hailed as the 'breakthrough of the year' (2). The ready availability of serum and the relatively high concentrations of antibodies there have meant that, as new technologies have emerged over the intervening decades, novel and refined antibody-based therapies have paralleled breakthroughs in basic research investigating the structure of antibodies, the genetic and molecular mechanisms involved in their production and their many effector functions. As our knowledge of the complexity of the immune system and its role in health and disease has grown, the central role of antibodies has remained unchallenged; and the extraordinary properties resulting from the combination of constant and variable features, allowing both predictability and manipulation, have allowed us to exploit antibody molecules to serve as reagents and as drugs.

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