Raja Rajalingam

TL;DR: Analysis of highly polymorphic human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I, vital immune system components subject to strong balancing selection, shows how modern humans acquired the HLA-B*73 allele in west Asia through admixture with archaic humans called Denisovans, a likely sister group to the Neandertals.

TL;DR: The structure and class I specificity of chimpanzee KIR and CD94:NKG2 receptors were determined and compared to their human counterparts to demonstrate the rapid evolution of NK cell receptor systems and imply that "catching up with class I is not the only force driving this evolution.

TL;DR: This work assessed KIR3D gene diversity in unrelated individuals and families to determine whether differences are due to KIR polymorphism, and identified two distinct subpopulations of NK cells that bind DX9 at high and low levels, giving characteristic bimodal distributions in flow cytometry.

TL;DR: Genomic DNA from a panel of 41 healthy unrelated Japanese individuals was typed for the presence or absence of 16 KIR genes and pseudogenes Only eight different KIR genotypes were found Group A haplotypes outnumbered group B haplotypes in frequency by approximately 3:1, with individuals having two group A haplotype accounting for 56% of the panel as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: The National Marrow Donor Program and the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research, jointly with the NMDP Histocompatibility Advisory Group, provide evidence-based guidelines for optimal selection of unrelated donors and cord blood units.