Professor Emeritus
Director and Clinical Consultant, Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Laboratory, UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute

Areas of Interest
histocompatibility, deceased and living donor solid organ transplantation, related and unrelated bone marrow/HSC transplantation

Biography

Dr. Hauptfeld-Dolejsek joined UAB in 2005 as a co-director of the Comprehensive Transplant Institute’s Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Laboratory and an associate professor in the Department of Surgery. Dr. Hauptfeld-Dolejsek attended Charles University in Prague, where she obtained a master’s degree in experimental zoology, a Ph.D. in embryology, and a candidate for a science degree (C.Sc.) in molecular biology. She became board-certified for human histocompatibility and immunogenetics D(ABHI) in the U.S. by the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics.

For more than four decades, Dr. Hauptfeld-Dolejsek has been interested in defining the structure and function of histocompatibility gene products, which are fundamental in immunologic mechanisms. When she arrived in the U.S., she joined Professor Jan Klein in Michigan, where her research focused on the murine major histocompatibility system. In Klein’s laboratory, they discovered Ia antigens, later renamed as class II antigens.

She has authored more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals. After 30 years of defining the structure and function of the MHC gene products in mice, she transferred her interest to a human MHC because of its remarkable genetic and functional homology and the feasibility of applying that knowledge to humans.

As a director of the UAB Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Laboratory, she brought her knowledge to improve the laboratory’s support and services for solid organ and bone marrow transplant programs at UAB, the Veterans Affairs Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Alabama.

Dr. Hauptfeld-Dolejsek is a member of the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics and the American Board for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (Laboratory Directors). She was also elected to serve on the Accreditation Review Board of the ASHI as a regional commissioner for four different terms and as president of the ABHI.

Contact

Campus Address
WP P290

Phone
Academic Office: 205-934-4987

Email
vhauptfeld@uabmc.edu