Professor of Medicine  Phone: 205-934-4769 E-mail: hwsj@uab.edu

Dr. Schroeder earned his B.S. in chemistry from Texas A&M University and both his Ph.D. in cell biology and M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine.  After residency in internal medicine at the University of Kentucky, he completed a fellowship in medical genetics and a post-doctoral fellowship in immunology at the University of Washington and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (Seattle).  In 1988, he joined the UAB faculty as an Assistant Professor of Medicine, rising to Professor in 1998.  Dr. Schroeder has received an RJR Nabisco Research Scholar in Immunology in 1988 and was a Fogarty International Scholar (1995-1996) at the Institute for Genetics, University of Cologne, where he did his sabbatical.  He has been both member and chair of NIH Study Sections and has served as Associate and Section Editor for The Journal of Immunology.  He is the Director of the UAB Program in Immunology and the Immunology Training Grant.  He holds joint appointments in Microbiology and Genetics

Dr. Schroeder’s laboratory has a long-standing interest in the development of the human antibody repertoire.  Among his many scientific contributions are mapping the linkage of human VH, DH and JH region gene segments and characterization of the CDR-H3 repertoire in early B cell progenitors.  An important research focus also has been the role of immunoglobulin CDR-H3 in auto-immune diseases.  Recently, he began to investigate the binding and neutralization properties of immunoglobulin CDR-H3 for HIV-1.

Selected Publications

1. Schroeder, H.W. Jr., Hillson, J.L. and Perlmutter, R.M.  Early restriction of the human antibody repertoire. Science 238:791-793, 1987.
2. Schroeder, H.W. Jr., Walter M.A., Hofker M.H., Ebens A., Willems van Dijk K., Liao L., Cox D.W., Milner E.C.B. and Perlmutter R.M.  Physical linkage of a human immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region gene segment to diversity and joining region elements. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 85:8196-8200, 1988.
3. Schroeder H.W. Jr. and Wang J.-Y.  Preferential utilization of conserved immunoglobulin heavy chain variable gene segments during human fetal life. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 87:6146-6150, 1990.
4. Kirkham P.M., Mortari F., Newton J.A. and Schroeder H.W. Jr.  Immunoglobulin VH clan and family identity predicts variable domain structure and may influence antigen binding. EMBO J 11:603-609, 1992.
5. Lee, S.K., Bridges, S.L.Jr., Kirkham, P.M., Koopman, W.J. and Schroeder, H.W. Jr. Evidence of antigen receptor-influenced oligoclonal B lymphocyte expansion in the synovium of a patient with longstanding rheumatoid arthritis. J Clin Invest 93:361-370, 1994.
6. Link J., Hellinger M. and Schroeder H.W. Jr.  The Rhesus monkey immunoglobulin DH and JH germline repertoire.  Immunogenet 54(4) :240-250, 2002.
7. Schelonka R.L., Ivanov I.I., Jung D., Ippolito G.C., Nitschke L., Zhuang Y., Gartland G.L., Pelkonen J., Alt F., Rajewsky K. and Schroeder H.W. Jr.  A single DH gene segment is sufficient for B cell development and immune function. J Immunol 175:6624-6632, 2005.
8. Ippolito, G.C., Schelonka R.L., Zemlin M., Ivanov I., Zemlin C., Gartland L., Nitschke L., Pelkonnen J, Rajewsky K. and Schroeder H.W. Jr.  Forced use of an immunoglobulin DH encoding positively charged amino acids impairs B cell development and function. J Exp Med 203:1567-1578, 2006.
9. Schelonka R.L., Tanner J., Zhuang Y., Gartland G.L., Zemlin M. and Schroeder H.W. Jr.  Categorical selection of the antibody repertoire in splenic B cells. Eur J Immunol 37:1010-1021, 2007.
10. Nguyen H.H., Zemlin M., Vu H.L., Ivanov I.I., Andrasi J., Zemlin C., Schelonka R.L., Schroeder H.W. Jr. and Mestecky J.  Heterosubtypic immunity to influenza A virus infection requires a properly diversified antibody repertoire. J Virol 81:9331-9338, 2007.