In October 1972, Gerald Maurice Edelman (M.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1954) was was awarded the 1972 Nobel Prize for Medicine with Rodney R. Porter (U.K.) ‘for their discoveries concerning the chemical structure of antibodies.’

Antibodies is the collective name of a group of blood proteins that play an important part in the defense against infections and in the development of several different diseases. Up to the year 1959 our knowledge of their nature and mode of function was very vague and incomplete, in spite of a century of research. In 1972, however, Edelman and Porter independently presented the first results of investigations that within a few years were to lead to a practically complete clarification of the most essential questions concerning the nature of these substances.

Antibodies form giant molecules and for this reason a study of them is difficult. In order as far as possible to facilitate their task both scientists looked for methods to split the large molecules into well defined fragments that, it was hoped, would prove to be more easily handled.