René Josephus Maria Stet pursued a 35-year-long scientific career contributing to human immunology, shrimp immunity and teleost immunity. His most significant contributions, however, were to the field of teleost major histocompatibility (MH) gene research from 1988 to 2007, a field in which he was a leader and an innovator. This review will discuss his work on these genes, highlighting the impact he had in three temporally overlapping phases of his career that can be characterized as MH gene discovery, MH gene function and evolution and population dynamics of teleost MH genes.