hybridoma

1 9.9

A cell made by joining a white blood cell and a cancer cell to make specific antibodies in the lab

noun
/ˌhaɪbrɪˈdoʊmə/

Specialized

: hibridoma

To investigate immune responses, they isolated hybridomas from the lymphocytes of vaccinated mice.
hybridoma cells
producing hybridoma

Examples

The scientists created new hybridomas to develop targeted therapies for cancer.
I've been grafting high immunity guinea pig cells to human myeloma cells, but the fusion hybridoma immortalizes only a few B cells.

Fiction book (1993)
IL-17 (or IL-17A) was first cloned in 1993 from an activated mouse T-cell hybridoma by subtractive hybridization and initially termed CTLA8.

Blog text (17)
Researchers used hybridomas to produce specific monoclonal antibodies for their experiments.

Surface Forms

hybridoma singular

hybridomas plural

Morphology

hybridoma = hybrid (semi-transparent) = hybrid + oma

The element 'hybrid' is transparent, while '-oma' is a specialized medical combining form meaning 'tumor' or 'mass' that may be unfamiliar to general learners; understanding that it refers to a fused cell used in laboratories requires domain knowledge.

Etymology

The word hybridoma comes from hybrid ('a mix') and -oma ('tumor'). It names a mixed cell made by joining an immune cell with a tumor cell so it can keep growing in the lab and make the same antibody again and again.