n addition to directing adaptive immune responses to pathogens and transplants, MHC molecules direct immune responses to cancerous cells and play a key role in mediating autoimmune responses. Dr. William Hildebrand's laboratory is well versed in MHC biology and is positioned to interact with immunologists, microbiologists, transplant physicians, cancer and cell biologists, vaccine architects, and scientists who study autoimmunity. His laboratory is ASHI/CLIA accredited so that he provides high resolution HLA (human MHC = human leukocyte antigen = HLA) typing for clinical transplantation. In addition, his laboratory is skilled in the analysis of HLA molecules for autoimmune studies, vaccine development studies, disease susceptibility and resistance studies, and studies of anthropology and evolution. Dr. Hildebrand is therefore positioned to support HLA in the clinic and research laboratory.

Dr. Hildebrand's laboratory pioneered precision DNA sequence-based MHC typing in the 1990s, and he now utilizes a two-tiered approach for provision of an HLA type. First, because DNA sequence-based typing (SBT) is recognized as the most precise means for determining an HLA type, all class I and class II typings in his laboratory are by DNA sequencing (alone or in tandem with complementary methods). Once he has determined an HLA type by DNA sequencing, he next provides collaborators/customers with informatics support indicative of typical and atypical allele frequencies, common and uncommon HLA haplotypes, and functional peptide binding data for allelic HLA types. In this way, Dr. Hildebrand provides his collaborators with the most precise HLA data available in a clinically accredited laboratory while sharing his extensive research awareness of HLA through informatics support.