The Fourth Histocompatibility Workshop

The Fourth Histocompatibility Workshop, organized by Paul Terasaki, was held in Los Angeles in January of 1970 and brought together fifteen different laboratories testing 116 highly selected antisera. This was the first workshop in which antisera were exchanged by mail and in which each participating laboratory used a standard microlymphocytotoxicity assay. The results of the workshop established the existence of 11 official HL-A specificities (HL-A1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13), and at least eight other specificities that were given given provisional designations (e.g., W27). Thorsby, Sandberg and Kissmeyer-Nielsen provided evidence of a third (HLA-C) locus, and Boyum’s method using ficoll hypaque for mononuclear cell separation was first used in a workshop format.

Reference: Terasaki PI, ed. Histocompatibility Testing 1970. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1970.