The last two years have seen a renaissance of monoclonal antibodies for the
treatment of disease. Of the eight antibodies currently approved for human
therapy, two are for the treatment of cancer. In large part, the revival o
f antibodies has been driven by technology developments geared toward makin
g antibodies less likely to elicit an anti-antibody response in humans. The
development of transgenic mice, XenoMouse(TM) animals, capable of making f
ully human antibodies offers new opportunities for generating antibodies of
therapeutic quality. Recently, this technology has been applied to the gen
eration of a fully human antibody to the epidermal growth factor receptor.
A description of the development of this antibody serves to illustrate the
power and ease of use of XenoMouse technology.