fA. Fouwen NIAID
Raley

THE LINDSLEY F KIMBALL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
of The New York Blood Center

Fred H. Allen Laboratory of Immunogenetics

 

310 East 67 Street, New York, N.Y. 10021 (212) 570-3230

April 4, 1991

Joshua Lederberg
University Professor

The Rockefeller University
1230 York Avenue

New York, NY 10021-6399

 

Dear Josh:

Thank you ever so much for your note of March gth concerning MHC
compatibility and HIV transmission.: I am very much interested!

Cladd Stevens and I are currently following a cohort of homosexual
men in a Prospective Aids Study (PAS). A few years ago, we. looked at
sexual partners of the participants and could find no special
association between HLA compatibility and risk of infection. Essentially
all the risk was given by the epidemiological exposure, i.e., by risk
behavior.

However, this population is not appropriate to test for the
effects of viruses on the maintenance of MHC polymorphism in the
population or its converse, the contribution of the MHC to risk of
infection. I should be most interested in a study of transplacental

A transmission which is said to occur in less than 1/3 of children from
HIV+ mothers.

It would be very interesting to discuss a possible collaboration
in these studies, within or in addition to PAS.

With best regards.

MS;

mig Pablo Rubinste M.D. ch
a Receso fo Director, ‘The Fred H. Allen .

Laboratory of Immunogenetics
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