Women, pregnancy and serendipity: a personal story about the discovery of HLA
Van Rood, J.J.
Journal of Nephrology 17(3): 467-474
2004
ISSN/ISBN: 1121-8428 PMID: 15365974 Document Number: 566726
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.