Areas of Expertise:
Functional-structural aspects of histocompatibility molecules
Locations:
Main Campus
Dr. Monos is an internationally recognized expert on histocompatibility (HLA) molecules. His work covers a wide spectrum of HLA-related issues that pertain to both the molecular (structure/function) aspects of HLAs, as well as the genetics of the major histocompatibility complex, that includes the genes encoding the HLA molecules.
Dr. Monos has established, and is the Director, of the Immunogenetics Laboratory in the Department of Pathology and Lab Medicine of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The lab interacts with the clinical Divisions of Bone Marrow Transplantation, Oncology, Hematology, Nephrology, Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Rheumatology, Neurology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases. The Immunogenetics laboratory supports all the transplantation programs at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and any clinical programs that need HLA typing for their patients.
BS, Biology, University of Patras, Greece
PhD, Biochemistry/Immunology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Director, Immunogenetics Laboratory
Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Monos’s research interests cover a wide spectrum of HLA-related topics. His lab, in conjunction with other laboratories, has pioneered the DNA-based methodologies for HLA typing. He has worked on a number of structure/function relationships of HLAs, which are very important for the immune response and he has identified associations of HLAs with several diseases, including Type 1 Diabetes, Pemphigus Vulgaris, Tuberculoid Leprosy, Berylliosis, Sarcoidosis, Guillain Barre Syndrome, Ovarian Carcinoma and Crohn’s Disease.
His work has also contributed on the development of the very key concept that the strong linkage disequilibrium observed within the MHC does not simply reflect the significance of several genes within this genomic region for the physiological functioning of the immune system but also for the observed disease associations with the HLAs. Genes within the MHC in coordination or independently of particular HLA alleles generate the disease phenotype. The realization that there are additional genes, besides HLAs within the MHC for predisposing to disease susceptibility has been the guiding principle for the recent intense efforts to fully characterize this genomic region and investigate disease associations with a dense set of SNPs.
He also collaborates with the Stem Cell Transplant team, the Nephrology, Cardiology and Gastroenterology Divisions at CHOP and perform research on a number of clinically related projects, where support from the Immunogenetics lab is necessary. His work has been funded by NIH, ADA, JDRF, NMDP and other external sources.
2010
O'Connor MJ, Menteer J, Chrisant MR, Monos D, Lind C, Levine S, Gaynor JW, Hanna BD, Paridon SM, Ravishankar C, Kaufman BD. Ventricular assist device-associated anti-human leukocyte antigen antibody sensitization in pediatric patients bridged to heart transplantation. J Heart Lung Transplant. 2010 Jan;29(1):109-16. Read abstract
Lind C, Ferriola D, Mackiewicz K, Heron S, Rogers M, Slavich L, Walker R, Hsiao T, McLaughlin L, D'Arcy M, Gai X, Goodridge D, Sayer D, Monos D. Next-Generation Sequencing: The Solution for High-Resolution, Unambiguous HLA Typing. Hum Immunol. 2010 Jul 2. Read abstract