Karl Landsteiner ForMemRS (German: [kaʁl ˈlantˌʃtaɪnɐ]; 14 June 1868 – 26 June 1943) was an Austrian-American biologist, physician, and immunologist. He moved with his family to New York in 1923 when he was 55 years old to find better job opportunities, and he worked at the Rockefeller Institute.
In 1901, he discovered the main blood groups by identifying the presence of agglutinins in blood, which led to the modern system for classifying blood types. In 1937, he and Alexander S. Wiener identified the Rhesus factor, which allowed doctors to safely transfuse blood without harming patients. In 1909, he and scientists Constantin Levaditi and Erwin Popper discovered the polio virus. He received the Aronson Prize in 1926 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1930. After his death, he was awarded the Lasker Award in 1946. He is known as the father of transfusion medicine.
Early life and education
He was born into a Jewish family. His father, Leopold Landsteiner (1818–1875), was a well-known journalist and main editor of Die Presse. He died when Karl was 6 years old. Karl became very close to his mother, Fanny (née Hess; 1837–1908). After passing a graduation exam from a secondary school in Vienna, he began studying medicine at the University of Vienna. Landsteiner completed his doctoral thesis in 1891. While still a student, he published an essay about how diets affect the composition of blood.
From 1891 to 1893, Landsteiner studied chemistry in Würzburg with Hermann Emil Fischer, in Munich with Eugen Bamberger, and in Zurich with Arthur Rudolf Hantzsch. He published several scientific papers during this time, some of which were written with his professors.
Research work in Vienna; discovery of the polio virus
After returning to Vienna, he worked as an assistant to Max von Gruber at the Hygienic Institute. His research focused on how the body fights disease and the role of antibodies. From November 1897 to 1908, Landsteiner was an assistant at the University of Vienna’s pathological-anatomical institute under Anton Weichselbaum. During this time, he wrote 75 scientific papers about topics such as serology, bacteriology, virology, and pathological anatomy. He also performed about 3,600 autopsies during those ten years. Weichselbaum helped Landsteiner earn a qualification to teach in 1903. From 1908 to 1920, Landsteiner worked as a prosector at the Wilhelminenspital in Vienna. In 1911, he was appointed as an associate professor of pathological anatomy. During this time, he worked with Erwin Popper to show that polio is caused by a virus and identified the polio virus. Because of this important discovery, which helped fight polio, he was honored posthumously in the Polio Hall of Fame at Warm Springs, Georgia, which opened in January 1958.
Research of the blood groups
In 1900, Landsteiner discovered that when blood from two people comes into contact, it sometimes clumps together. In 1901, he found that this clumping happened because of contact between blood and blood serum. Using this knowledge, he identified three blood groups: A, B, and O (which he originally called C). Landsteiner also found that blood transfusions between people with the same blood group do not cause blood cells to break apart, but this happens when people have different blood groups. Using his discoveries, Reuben Ottenberg performed the first successful blood transfusion at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York in 1907.
Today, whole blood transfusions are rare. It is now known that people with AB blood can receive red blood cells from all other blood groups. People with O-negative blood can donate red blood cells to all other blood groups. Those with AB blood are called universal recipients, and those with O-negative blood are called universal donors. These relationships occur because O-negative blood does not have antigens from A or B blood groups. This means the immune systems of people with A, B, or AB blood do not attack the donated blood. Also, since people with AB blood do not make antibodies against A or B antigens, they can receive red blood cells from people with A, B, or O-negative blood.
In 1930, Landsteiner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for these discoveries. Because of his work, he is known as the father of transfusion medicine.
Research work in the Netherlands and the United States
After World War I, Vienna and the new republic of Austria faced serious economic challenges. Karl Landsteiner saw no opportunity to continue his research in this difficult situation. He moved to the Netherlands and took a job as an assistant in the pathology department at the small Catholic St. Joannes de Deo hospital (now HMC Westeinde) in The Hague. To improve his financial situation, he also worked at a small factory that produced old tuberculin (tuberculinum pristinum). During this time, he published several scientific papers, five of which were published in Dutch by the Royal Academy of Sciences. However, the working conditions in the Netherlands were not much better than those in post-war Vienna.
Landsteiner received an invitation from New York, where Simon Flexner, who was familiar with his research, asked him to join the Rockefeller Institute. He moved there with his family in the spring of 1923. During the 1920s, Landsteiner studied problems related to immunity and allergy. In 1927, he discovered new blood groups: M, N, and P, improving upon his earlier work from 20 years before. Soon after, Landsteiner and his collaborator, Philip Levine, published their findings. Later that same year, these blood types began to be used in legal cases involving parentage.
Awards and honours
In addition to receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Landsteiner was chosen to join the National Academy of Sciences in 1932. He was also selected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1935 and received the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics from the University of Edinburgh in 1937. In 1941, he became a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS). In 1946, he was awarded the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award after his death. Since 2005, World Blood Donor Day has been celebrated on the anniversary of Landsteiner's birthday.
Personal life
In 1890, Landsteiner changed his religious beliefs from Judaism to Christianity and was baptized into the Catholic Church. In 1916, he married Leopoldine Helene Wlasto, a Greek Orthodox woman who chose to follow her husband's Catholic faith.
In 1937, Landsteiner tried to take legal action against an American publisher for including him in the book Who's Who in American Jewry. He stated, "it will be detrimental to me to emphasize publicly the religion of my ancestors."