Georges J. F. Köhler

Georges J. F. Köhler (1946-1996), German immunologist and Nobel laureate, who helped to develop the technique for producing monoclonal antibodies (see Antibody), which are of great use in modern medicine and biological research. Köhler was born in Munich and obtained a doctorate in biology from the University of Freiburg in 1974. For two years he worked at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, along with the Argentinian-born immunologist César Milstein. There the two men developed monoclonal antibodies by fusing antibody-producing cells with tumor cells. Köhler then worked in Switzerland at the Basel Institute of Immunology under the Danish immunologist Niels K. Jerne, who had helped establish the theoretical foundation for antibody formation by the immune system. Köhler, Milstein, and Jerne were awarded the 1984 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. In 1984, Köhler became a codirector of the Max Planck Institute for Immunology in Freiburg. See also Genetic Engineering.