Molecular Biotechnology: From DNA Sequence to Therapeutic Protein

Abstract

Proteins are already used for more than 100 years to treat or prevent diseases in humans. It started in the early 1890s with “serum therapy” for the treatment of diphtheria and tetanus by Emile von Behring and others. The antiserum was obtained from immunized rabbits and horses. Behring received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1901 for this pioneering work on passive immunization. A next big step in the development of therapeutic proteins was the use of purified insulin isolated from pig or cow pancreas for the treatment of diabetes type I in the early 1920s by Banting and Best (in 1923 Banting received the Nobel Prize for this work). Soon after the discovery of insulin, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly started large-scale production of the pancreatic extracts for the treatment of diabetes. Within 3 years after the start of the experiments by Banting, already enough animal-derived insulin was produced to supply the entire North American continent. Compare this to the present average time-to-market of a new drug (from discovery to approval) of 13.5 years (Paul et al. 2010).