I am Dr. Sandra Rosen-Bronson, the Director of the MedStar Georgetown University Hospital Histocompatibility Laboratory in Washington, D.C. This laboratory supports both the solid organ and bone marrow transplant programs at Georgetown as well as molecular HLA typing services for multiple transplant programs in the Washington D.C. area. In addition, I was actively involved

in the leadership of the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics for more than five years and served as ASHI’s President in 2004. I attended Hamline University in St Paul, Minnesota and received a BS degree in Medical Technology. After working for three years as a Medical Technologist, I moved to Burlington, Vermont where I first became interested HLA and histocompatibility testing while completing a masters degree at the University of Vermont. After completing my degree in Vermont, I followed my future husband to Washington, D.C. where I worked as a research technologist at the NIH Clinical Center Blood Bank. Shortly after joining the NIH Blood Bank, I was given the opportunity to establish the first HLA typing laboratory at NIH. I received my PhD in 1985 from George Washington University. My PhD dissertation research dealt with the T-cell alloimmune response against HLA class II antigens and as a post-doctoral fellow at National Institutes of Health, in the Immunogenetics Division of the NIAID I continued my study of HLA genetics at the molecular level. In 1993, I established the Molecular Histocompatibility Laboratory at Georgetown Hospital and have served as the over all director of the Histocompatibility Laboratory since 1997. In 1998 when I recognized a growing need for affordable continuing education opportunities I founded Current Topics in Histocompatibility and Transplantation.