Data can be added to the database directly via the website. Drop down boxes have been generated to ask the following questions of the population data being submitted, “unknown” can be entered; Country, Ethnic Origin, Region, Latitude and Longitude, Sample size, Urban or Rural, Whether grandparents or parents lived in same location, Contributor, Sample Date, Method used for allele determination, Reference (publication is not necessary). Frequency data of the population can be submitted by an Excel file. Alleles tested for but not found will have a frequency of 0%. Those not tested will have a “blank” frequency. In order to have available data an investigator can submit data on the presence of a rare allele in a population without having frequency data on other alleles in that population.

Also included will be data from other polymorphic regions e.g. Cytokine, NK receptors, TAP, MICA etc. Direct links from IMGT/HLA database, EFI, ASHI and BSHI websites will be available. The former will enable the investigator to go directly to the page for a specific allele. New alleles, when released by IMGT/HLA database every three months, will be added to each of the existing studies as not tested. The success of this venture will depend on the whole HLA community submitting data. It is intended that summaries of new data added in the previous year would be published in a “HLA” journal.