In the living vertebrate, internalized foreign macromolecules act as antigens and induce in the adaptive immune system selective production of immunoglobulins that are suitable to bind the antigen. In immunoassays, antibodies are the basic recognition elements responsible for the capture of the desired analyte. For the immune defence of the functioning organism, white blood cells and supporting enzyme systems (e.g., the complement system) are as crucial as immunoglobulins (i.e., antibodies). The resulting effect is to neutralize the internalized entity and thus protect the organism. The immune system is a highly complex network of cells, enzymes, mediators, and immunoglobulins that become activated when foreign substances and microorganisms enter the body. 2 Advances in generating diagnostic antibodies 2.1 The immune system and antibodies As a consequence, an increasing number of novel and improved diagnostic tools are available in clinical laboratories and expand into many other health-related areas such as environmental pollution monitoring and residue analysis. This development has facilitated miniaturizing diagnostic tests, allowing parallel measurements of different biomarkers in a single run, and speeding up the diagnostic procedures, all of which in turn enabled high-throughput analysis at reduced cost. The progress of biosensor and biorecognition research in the past 10 years has been accompanied by the development of novel immunosensor techniques that use improved methods to attach antibody or antigen molecules to sensor surfaces of intelligent microfluidic systems with integrated detectors. On the other hand, there is just as strong effort to develop small devices that are easy to use at point-of-care. ![]() On the one hand, increasingly sophisticated high-throughput diagnostic instruments that must be handled by trained experts are being developed for clinico-chemical laboratories. Two other forces are driving instrumental innovation. More than 500 000 antibodies are presently available on the market, with information easily accessible through various online sources such as and The development of diagnostically useful antibodies is progressing rapidly, based on both the modification of existing methods and also entirely new approaches such as yeast display. ![]() ![]() Research in immunodiagnostics relies heavily upon analytical chemistry and nanotechnology. Today, immunochemical methods represent a core diagnostic technique that will be available for increasing numbers of applications. Shortly thereafter, modified techniques followed, such as the enzyme-linked immunoassay (EIA) and the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) ( cf, ), immuno-histochemical detection of molecules in tissues, and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), to name a few. They were performed with radiolabels in an aqueous medium and called radioimmunoassays (RIAs). The first immunoassays were described in the late 1950s.
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