John A. Hansen, Chair
Welcome! This newsletter represents the first general communication issued on behalf of the 13th International Histocompatibility Workshop and Conference (IHWC). A tentative date for the 13th IHWC has been set for early in the new millennium in the spring of 2001. Preliminary efforts are now underway to address major planning issues during 1997.
The tradition of the International HLA Workshops is strong and compelling. Twelve preceding Workshops have provided powerful opportunity and impetus for major technological and scientific progress. In the interval since the First Workshop hosted by Bernard Amos in 1964, the scope of the Workshop and the number of participating laboratories and individuals worldwide has grown enormously, and the field has witnessed remarkable advances in both fundamental technologies and discoveries. The early accomplishments in the new field of HLA were possible because of the insight of a few pioneering investigators who mastered serology, enabling the identification of novel antigens responsible for inducing leukoagglutinating antibodies in the serum of transfused patients and multiparous women, some of which were capable of causing febrile transfusion reactions. The development of the microcytotoxicity assay, the introduction of computers, the discovery of the mixed lymphocyte culture reaction (MLC) and tissue restricted class II antibodies, and most recently the emergence of molecular methods for defining polymorphism at the genetic level have in their time brought enormous change and progress to the field. From the beginning, biological questions and clinical problems have been the essential motivating factors that continue through the 1990s to inspire our interest in HLA and justify the enormous commitment and effort that underlie HLA workshops. Now as before the value of the Workshop depends on the merit of the scientific questions, the quality of the work, the significance of the findings to our understanding of biology, and their relevance to clinical medicine and public health.
Each Workshop has had a central theme and set of goals. To assure that the 13th IHWC succeeds as others before in serving the needs of both established investigators and new laboratories around the world, the emphasis will be on the development of DNA-based typing for HLA class I genes, the dissemination of a standard set of reagents, and the application of this technology to the accurate typing of volunteer hematopoietic stem cell (marrow, cord blood, etc.) donors for the emerging international donor network. Reagents for high resolution typing will also be developed to extend human diversity and disease-association studies initiated in prior Workshops. These efforts to analyze multiple polymorphic genes are important in order to broaden our understanding of the immunobiology of HLA, but also to develop model systems that will be useful in future population-based epidemiology studies aimed at understanding polygenic diseases such as cancer. Recent advances in communications technology, especially the Internet, provide us the opportunity to undertake a highly interactive workshop with real time data submission to the central database and the reporting back to investigators of preliminary results, allele assignments and the identification of potential new variants. Ultimately, the success of our workshop will depend on the close collaboration of many laboratories worldwide willing to donate their time and effort to achieve goals that are of real and practical value to all. We therefore welcome you to the 13th IHWC as we embark on an exciting and challenging project that will carry us forward into the 21st century.
