The technology of producing hybridomas--which secrete monoclonal antibodies (MoAbs), is now commanding attention in all fields of biology. A particularly important application for MoAbs is the diagnosis and treatment of human tumors. This necessitates a central information repository to track the results of clinical trials of these immunoreagents. An automated tracking system is mandatory to avoid duplication of effort and to facilitate identification of reagents demonstrating positive results in clinical trials. Optimal conditions for successful therapeutic regimens can be more easily identified through comparison of methods and results on a large scale made possible by a computerized storage and retrieval system. The proposed project is to create a data bank containing information on MoAbs used in diagnostic and therapeutic clinical trials. A three-tiered system is proposed: a bibliographic reference file of literature citations and abstracts for MoAbs with clinical applications; a background file on developers, distributors, availability, and characteristics of the hybridomas and other cloned cell lines producing immunoreagents of clinical significance; and a relational file of data on materials, methods and results of clinical trials with MoAbs. The data bank will be designed for easy use on microcomputers and commercially available software by noncomputer professionals and it will be widely disseminated to the biomedical community.
