Research Day 2019

Prof. Claas of Leiden University Medical Centre will be the keynote speaker at its Third Annual Research Day, to be held on June 10th, 2019. Internationally recognized as a true pioneer in transplant immunology, the work of Prof. Claas has had profound impact on kidney and other organ transplants worldwide. He was the initiator of a special program within Eurotransplant to enhance transplantation of highly sensitized kidney transplant patients on the basis of acceptable HLA mismatches. This program was innovative in focusing on what were acceptable mismatches based upon detailed testing using single HLA allele cell lines. This highly successful program was a model for developing the highly sensitized kidney program in Canada.

Prof. Claas was director of the Eurotransplant Reference Laboratory and Professor of Immunogenetics of Transplantation at the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, the Netherlands. The main topics of his current research are the differential immunogenicity of HLA mismatches in clinical transplantation and the immunology of pregnancy as a model for transplantation tolerance. The studies of his research group have generated more than 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and continue to be cited as seminal works.