Histocompatibility

Contact Information:

Director: Matthew F. Cusick, PhD
Associate Director: Kristina Davis, MD

Location
2800 Plymouth Road, Building 35, Rm 1230
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2800

Phone: 734-647-2774

Hours of Service: 8:00 am - 4:30 pm, Monday-Friday

Administrative Manager:
Emily Schwedler, CLS (ASCP)CM
schwedem@med.umich.edu
 

Services:

The Histocompatibility Laboratory(HLA) offers a full range of tissue typing or histocompatibility procedures to support the needs of our University of Michigan patients as well as our clients across the country.

Using the most current technology and assays, our mission is to provide a quality service to the University of Michigan Health System’s Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Program and the Solid Organ Transplant Center, one of the largest in the nation.

For the Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Program, we reach a high-resolution HLA typing for donor and recipient utilizing multiple techniques including next generation sequencing. For those recipients with less than ideal donors, the laboratory tests for anti-HLA antibodies directed against the mismatched antigens to help the transplant team in the risk assessment of engraftment delay or graft rejection.

The Histocompatibility Laboratory collaborates with the Solid Organ Transplant Team in the pre and post-transplant immunological risk assessment to avoid graft rejection and to monitor treatment. Patients and candidate donors are typed for HLA molecules by DNA methods. In addition, the presence or absence of anti-HLA antibodies (PRA%) is monitored by high sensitivity and specificity solid phase assays (Luminex). The final donor selection is supported by the Flow Cytometric Crossmatch assay. 

The Histocompatibility Laboratory performs HLA typing for disease association studies such as Narcolepsy (HLA-DQB1*0602), Uveitis (HLA-B27), Ankylosing Spondylitis (HLA-B27), and Bird Shot Retinopathy (HLA-A29) as well as others. In addition, HLA typing and anti-HLA antibody screening is performed for transfusion support services.

The Histocompatibility Laboratory is certified by the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ASHI) and the College of American Pathologists (CAP).

Please refer to the Pathology Lab Handbook for available assays and specimen collection requirements.