title: Women, pregnancy and serendipity: a personal story about the discovery of HLA.
abstract: The discovery of HLA was an adventure in many ways very much like the discovery of a new continent with many people entering it from different angles. This has been a truly global effort with laboratories from all over the world voluntarily collaborating. The picture that finally emerged of a highly complex genetic system and its role in biology and medicine was and is fascinating. I have been involved from almost the beginning in the HLA story and have watched--often from nearby--the breakthroughs insights that opened new aspects of HLA. A discovery is not a gradual process, but one, which goes with jumps and laps. I will therefore not give a chronological summing up what happened, but limit myself to turning points, the sudden flashes of insight, which made working in HLA so exciting and rewarding.
authors.affiliation: Europdonor Foundation, Leiden, The Netherlands. VanRood@Europdonor.nl
authors.forename: Jon J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Van Rood
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006680:HLA Antigens / Q000266:history*; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D009426:Netherlands; D011247:Pregnancy; D065227:Transfusion Reaction
chemical_list: D006680:HLA Antigens