{"entity":{"id":"monoclonal","kind":"term","name":"Monoclonal","aka":["monoclonal antibody","monoclonal antibodies","mAb","mAbs","monoclonals"],"tldr":"Made from a single clone of cells, so every antibody molecule in the vial is identical and binds exactly the same spot. All therapeutic antibodies are monoclonal.","summary":"The immune system normally produces a mixture of antibodies against a target (polyclonal); the 1975 hybridoma technique of Köhler and Milstein made it possible to immortalise a single antibody-producing cell and harvest one uniform antibody from it. Early monoclonals were mouse proteins that the human body rejected; successive generations were chimeric (-ximab), humanised (-zumab) and fully human (-umab), and are now produced in cultured mammalian cells at ton scale. The word also describes tumours themselves: cancers are clonal, descending from a single cell, though they diversify into subclones over time.","asOf":"2026-09-09","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoclonal_antibody","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoclonal_antibody"}],"tags":[],"related":["antibody","antigen","b-cell","cell-line"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["monoclonal-antibody"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"category":"Biology basics"},"route":"/terms/monoclonal/","neighbours":{"term":[{"id":"antibody","kind":"term","name":"Antibody","route":"/terms/antibody/"},{"id":"antigen","kind":"term","name":"Antigen","route":"/terms/antigen/"},{"id":"b-cell","kind":"term","name":"B cell","route":"/terms/b-cell/"},{"id":"cell-line","kind":"term","name":"Cell line","route":"/terms/cell-line/"},{"id":"small-molecule","kind":"term","name":"Small molecule drug","route":"/terms/small-molecule/"}],"technology":[{"id":"monoclonal-antibody","kind":"technology","name":"Monoclonal antibodies","route":"/technologies/monoclonal-antibody/"}]}}