Rodney Porter was a biochemist who spent most of his professional life investigating the chemical structure and functioning of antibodies, a class of proteins which are also called immunoglobulins. Since 1890, scientists had known that antibodies are found in the blood serum and provide immunity to certain illnesses. However, when Porter began his research in the 1940s, little was known about their chemical structure, or how antigens (substances that cause the body to produce antibodies) interacted with them. Using the results of his own research as well as that of Gerald M. Edelman, Porter proposed the first satisfactory model of the immunoglobulin molecule in 1962. The model allowed the development of more detailed biochemical studies by Porter and others that led to a better understanding of the way in which antibodies worked chemically. Such understanding was key to research on the prevention and cure of a number of diseases and...