Clinical neuroimmunology, particularly the detection of autoantibodies in neurological diseases, has come a long way since 1985. There are now many immunotherapy responsive peripheral and central neurological diseases that can be diagnosed by serological tests. Commercial assays are being developed to enable wider and faster diagnostic testing in the future

In 1976, Jon Lindstrom, who had already shown in 1973 that rabbits immunised against acetylcholine receptors (AChRs) developed an experimental form of myasthenia gravis (MG), published the first systematic study of AChR antibodies in MG.2 The antibody assay was based on immunoprecipitation by patients' IgG antibodies of detergent solubilised muscle AChRs (obtained mainly from amputated limb muscle) that had been labelled with radioactive bungarotoxin, a snake toxin that binds irreversibly to AChRs. It was a neat method and is still in use today. In 1976, I was working at University College London with Ricardo Miledi (now ‘retired’ but still experimenting at UCSD), mainly measuring AChR antibodies and muscle AChRs in animals that we had immunised against AChRs purified from …