Working in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge University, Winter became interested in the idea that all antibodies have the same basic structure, with only small changes making them specific for one target. In 1984 Georges J. F. Köhler and César Milstein had won the Nobel Prize for their work at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, 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 monoclonal antibodies are rapidly inactivated by the human immune response, which prevents them from providing long-term benefits. In 1986-1988 Winter pioneered a technique to "humanize" monoclonal antibodies,  elminating the reactions that many monoclonal antibodies caused in some patients. This achievement was the starting point of a pharmaceutical revolution for making monoclonal antibodies, using phage display of functional antibody fragments invented by George P. Smith for the selection of high affinity binders for a specific antigen. 

Prior to publication of this paper, in 1989 McCafferty, Griffiths and Winter founded Cambridge Antibody Technology Ltd to manufacture monoclonal antibodies. This was one of the early 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. HUMIRA became the world's top selling pharmaceutical with sales of over $18Bn in 2017.

In 2018 Gregory Winter shared half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with George P. Smith "for the phage display of peptides and antibodies."

Order of authorship of the original paper: McCafferty, Griffiths, Winter, Chiswell.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)