Cesar Milstein

César Milstein (Bahía Blanca, October 8, 1927-Cambridge, March 24, 2002) was an Argentine chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1984 for his research on monoclonal antibodies.

Biography

César Milstein was born in Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires province, on October 8, 1927 into a Jewish family. He was the son of Lázaro Milstein, a Russian immigrant who had arrived in Argentina in 1913. Lázaro married Máxima Vapñarsky, a teacher, and they settled in the province of Buenos Aires where their three children would later be born. César was the second of three brothers: Oscar was the eldest and Ernesto the youngest. César was always a mischievous boy, a little rebellious and very intelligent. He was not too studious, but he did well at school," said Lázaro of his second son. At the age of 13, he felt greatly influenced by reading the book Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif, which contained biographies of biologists such as Louis Pasteur or Robert Koch.

He attended elementary school at Bahía Blanca School No. 3 and secondary school at the National College currently known as E. E. S. No. 13 of Bahía Blanca and then moved to the Federal Capital to study at the University of Buenos Aires. He graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, at the age of 25, and four years later, in 1956, he received his PhD in Chemistry and a special award from the Argentine Biochemical Society. his first doctorate as a chemist for his thesis on enzymes. In his youth he was active in the anarchist movement.

He received a fellowship from the University of Cambridge where he did his postdoctoral research in 1960, working under the direction of molecular biochemist Frederick Sanger.

Milstein returned to Argentina in 1961 to take charge of the Molecular Biology Division of the National Institute of Microbiology, however he only spent a year in office before returning to England after the 1962 military coup.

At the University of Cambridge he was part of the Molecular Biology Laboratory and worked on the study of immunoglobulins, advancing the understanding about the process by which the blood produces antibodies (the proteins in charge of fighting the presence of foreign bodies or antigens). Together with Georges Köhler he developed a technique to create antibodies with identical chemical structure, which he called monoclonal antibodies.

In 1983, he was appointed head and director of the Division of Chemistry, Proteins and Nucleic Acids at the University of Cambridge. For his work in the development of monoclonal antibodies, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984.

Although it would have made him enormously wealthy, Milstein did not file a patent for his laureate discovery, believing it to be the intellectual property of humanity and as such he bequeathed it. According to his convictions, his work lacked economic interest and only had scientific interest.

The National University of the South of Bahía Blanca, Milstein's hometown, decided to grant him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa in 1987 as recognition for his academic achievements. This was delivered to him in December of that year, taking advantage of Milstein's visit to the city in the framework of an International Congress on Monoclonal Antibodies in Oncology.

In 1993, he received the Konex Brilliant Award together with Dr. René Favaloro for his legacy to Science and Technology in Argentina, awarded by the Konex Foundation.

On December 15, 1999, Milstein gave one of his last talks at the University of Buenos Aires, at the Faculty of Exact Sciences, which he called "Curiosity as a source of wealth& #34;.

He died on March 24, 2002 in Cambridge, England, of a heart condition, at the age of 74. For his funeral, family members were asked to send a few words for the ceremony. Her great-niece, Ana Fraile, who would later direct the film about her life, chose Eduardo Galeano's short story A sea of fires, which would also inspire the film's name.

In January 2021, the Argentine government declared the year 2021 a tribute to Milstein in recognition of his "profound commitment to science."

Documentary

In March 2010, the documentary Un fueguito was released. It includes testimonies from his wife Celia and his collaborators and colleagues in Cambridge. The film was declared of National Interest by the Ministry of Education of Argentina and had financial support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Nation, the Leloir Institute Foundation and his wife, Celia Prilletensky.