Opening address to the 6th international conference on HLA-G

摘要

Dear Friends,Since the first conference on HLA-G held in 1998, it is my pleasure to welcome you every three years in Paris. This sixth conference brings together 180 participants from 28 countries, 35 speakers in plenary sessions, and 63 presentations of research in symposia and poster sessions.Since this first HLA-G conference, it has been a long road: the sometimes stormy discussions we had in 1998 dealt with the issue of whether HLA-G is expressed only on trophoblasts, or on tissue grafts and tumor cells as well. Then, a second question arose: is HLA-G nothing else but a non-classical class I molecule, or is it something more: a feto-maternal bonafide tolerance molecule?