SSOP Committee Meeting Orlando, Florida - USA October 10, 2000 Present: Marcelo Fernandez-Vina, X. Gao, Wolfgang Helmberg, Carolyn Hurley, Derek Middleton, Jennifer Ng, Harriet Noreen, EC Ren, Anajane Smith; John Hansen, Eric Mickelson, Gary Schoch; Absent: Henry Erlich, Marcel Tilanus, Mike Bunce, Barbara Schmeckpeper, Ting Tang, Katsushi Tokunaga Wolfgang Helmberg will provide his software program to requesting laboratories to allow labs to interpret typing assignments and to transmit data to the IHWG. Once a few modifications have been made, the program will be advertised on the IHWG web site and distributed free with only a shipping charge. The program will likely be available by early spring. Wolfgang will answer questions via email or FAQ on the web. Laboratories may also use their local software for interpretation but are requested to provide their data in a specific output format. Gary Schoch should be contacted regarding the format. Quality control cells (panel of 77 cells) have been expanded and have been shipped to approximately 33 laboratories to date. The group discussed the size of the pellet as related to the number of loci being tested, the potential for degradation of the sample, and the difficulties in shipping to some areas of the world. The possibility of preparing DNA was discussed but the QC laboratory decided to continue with the cell pellets. The group discussed the request by some laboratories to use quality control testing through other mechanisms like the UCLA cell exchange instead of the testing of IHWG QC cells. It was decided that all laboratories submitting primary data to the workshop must test the QC cells. A request was made to clarify the instructions for testing the QC samples. A set of HLA-A and -B probes for registry typing was proposed. The SSOP group will review this set and finalize it this fall. The same set will be recommended for laboratories just beginning class I DNA typing. The level of resolution, based on the current allele set, is serologic split resolution. It was decided to maintain the current list of reagents for all loci but to upgrade the interpretation to include the current alleles . The group discussed further testing of the reagent sets using the reagents synthesized by Lifecodes and the reference cell set designed to monitor reagent specificity. Probes which behave poorly in two or more labs will be redesigned by the locus group or a note added into the protocol to warn the users to use caution. The use of an antisense reagent to monitor probe specificity was approved.