The Third Histocompatibility Workshop

The Third Histocompatibility Testing Workshop was organized by R. Ceppellini and was held in Torino, Italy in June of 1967 and included 110 participants. A workshop cell panel derived from eleven families and 21 unrelated donors was studied by 16 teams using 476 antisera. Thirteen different specificities were identified in independent fashion by the teams. The results of this combined effort, clearly and elegantly summarized by Ceppellini in a landmark chapter published in the Workshop Proceedings, demonstrated unequivocally that the antigens under study belonged to a single genetic system, with two subloci. Following the workshop (September, 1967), it was decided to name this system HL-A to designate it as the major system of leukocyte antigens in man.

Reference: Curtoni ES, Mattiuz PL, Tosi RM, eds. Histocompatibility Testing 1967. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1967.