In the blood: the structure of immunoglobulin

There can be little doubt that the 1959 Biochemical Journal paper by Rodney Porter1 warrants the description of ‘landmark’. It is one of a series of papers, published mostly in the Biochemical Journal, which predicts the structure of the molecule that we now know as IgG and therefore represents the beginning of the definition of the structure of all other classes of immunoglobulin. The papers were fundamental to the development of the new discipline of molecular immunology and, it could be argued, were responsible for bringing immunology into the mainstream of biochemical science. The work was recognized by the awarding of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Rodney Porter and to Gerald Edelman, who was carrying out similar studies independently at the Rockefeller Institute in New York.