ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION That antibodies have the specificity to deliver targeted therapy for human disease was realized soon after their description in the 1890s (1). The first therapeutic attempts in malignancy were reported in France by Hericourt and Richet as early as 1895 (2). Their conclusion, based on observations made on the effects of crude antisera raised in donkeys and other animals and in patients with advanced disease, was that antibody therapy should be combined with radical surgery, which sounds remarkably modem. Since then, however, therapeutic antibodies have had a long and largely undistinguished history in oncology (3).
