Following his PhD, Winter completed
postdoctoral research at the
Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He continued to specialise in protein and nucleic acid sequencing and became a Group Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 1981. He became interested in the idea that all antibodies have the same basic structure, with only small changes making them specific for one target.
Georges J. F. Köhler and
César Milstein had won the 1984 Nobel Prize for their work at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in discovering a method to isolate and reproduce individual, or monoclonal, antibodies from among the multitude of different antibody proteins that the immune system makes to seek and destroy foreign invaders attacking the body. These monoclonal antibodies had limited application in human medicine, because mouse monoclonal antibodies are rapidly inactivated by the human immune response, which prevents them from providing long-term benefits. Winter pioneered a technique to "humanise" mouse monoclonal antibodies; a technique used in the development of
Campath-1H by the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and University of Cambridge scientists. This antibody eventually obtained regulatory approval for the treatment of multiple sclerosis and
chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Humanized monoclonal antibodies form the majority of antibody-based drugs on the market today and include several blockbuster antibodies, such as
Keytruda. Winter founded
Cambridge Antibody Technology in 1989, and Bicycle Therapeutics. He worked on the Scientific Advisory Board of
Covagen, (now part of
Cilag) and is also the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for Biosceptre International Limited. In 1989, Winter was a founder of
Cambridge Antibody Technology, one of the early commercial biotech companies involved in antibody engineering. One of the most successful antibody drugs developed was HUMIRA (
adalimumab), which was discovered by Cambridge Antibody Technology as D2E7, and developed and marketed by
Abbott Laboratories. HUMIRA, an antibody to
TNF alpha, was the world's first fully human antibody, which went on to become the world's top selling pharmaceutical with sales of over $18 billion in 2017. Cambridge Antibody Technology was acquired by
AstraZeneca in 2006 for £702m. In 2000, Winter founded Domantis to pioneer the use of domain antibodies, which use only the active portion of a full-sized antibody. Domantis was acquired by the pharmaceutical
GlaxoSmithKline in December 2006 for £230 million. Winter subsequently founded another company, Bicycle Therapeutics Limited as a start up company which is developing very small protein mimics based on a covalently bonded
hydrophobic core.
Awards and honours Winter was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1990 and awarded the
Royal Medal by the society in 2011 "for his pioneering work in protein engineering and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, and his contributions as an inventor and entrepreneur". He was given the
Scheele Award in 1994. In 1995, Winter won several international awards including the
King Faisal International Prize for Medicine (Molecular Immunology) and in 1999, the Cancer Research Institute
William B. Coley Award. Winter was formerly the Joint Head of the Division of Protein and
Nucleic acid Chemistry-Biotechnology, and was Deputy Director, at the
Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, an institution funded by the UK
Medical Research Council. He was also Deputy Director of the MRC's
Centre for Protein Engineering until its absorption into the Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the
Campaign for Science and Engineering. Winter was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1997 and
Knight Bachelor in 2004. He served as
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 2012 to 2019. In 2015 he received the
Wilhelm Exner Medal. Along with
George Smith, Winter was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on 3 October 2018 for his work on phage displays for antibodies (while
Frances Arnold received the other half of the prize that same year "for the
directed evolution of enzymes"). In 2024 he received the
Copley Medal of the Royal Society. In 2025, Winter received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement. ==References==