Karl Landsteiner

Karl Landsteiner (Vienna, June 14, 1868 - New York, June 26, 1943) was an Austrian pathologist and biologist, known for having discovered and typified blood groups. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1930. Landsteiner, of Jewish origin, converted to Catholicism in 1890, in 1916 he married Leopoldine Helene Wlasto, of Greek origin and Orthodox faith, who also converted., to the faith of her husband. In 1917 his son Ernst Karl was born.

Academic career

He completed his medical degree and doctorate in his hometown. After finishing his studies, he worked at the Zurich Medicinal Chemistry Laboratories. At the University of Vienna he held the chair of pathological anatomy. From 1908 to 1920, he was in charge of the preparation of dissectations at the Wilhelminenspital in Vienna, and in 1911 he was sworn in as Associate Professor of Pathological Anatomy.
During this period, he discovered – in cooperation with Erwin Popper – the infectious nature of poliomyelitis, isolating the poliovirus in 1908. In recognition of this revolutionary discovery, which formed the basis for the fight against polio, he was posthumously admitted to the Polio Hall of Fame in Warm Springs, Georgia, in January 1957.

Karl was then teaching pathology at the University of Vienna. One of his fields of research was the genetics of human blood, which he compared to that of apes.He observed that, when mixing the blood of two people, the red blood cells sometimes clump together, forming visible clumps. He analyzed the blood of a total of 22 people, including his own and that of five of his lab collaborators. To do this, he first separated the serum from the whole blood, then washed the red blood cells and immersed them in a physiological saline solution. Finally, he tested each serum with the different red blood cells obtained and tabulated the results. He thus came to discover three different types of red blood cells, called A, B and O, which generated agglutination reactions. These findings were made in Vienna around 1901.

Two years later, two of his disciples, Alfredo de Castello and Adriano Sturli, analyzed 155 samples (of 121 patients and 34 healthy controls) and discovered a fourth group, to which they called AB.

Human blood naturally possesses molecules known as antibodies, capable of reacting with other molecules in red blood cells called antigens or agglutinogens, producing agglutination as a result of the antigen-antibody interaction. These antibodies or isoagglutinins (which do not exist in type AB) are responsible for the incompatibility of blood transfusions if the donor blood to be transfused is not selected or typed (as it is technically called in laboratory jargon).

In 1911, Ottenberg coined the term “universal donor” for group O, for lacking antigens in the erythrocytes. In 1908, Epstein and Ottenberg suggest that blood groups are hereditary. In 1910, E. von Dungern and L. Hirszfeld discovered that the inheritance of these blood groups follows the laws of Mendel, with a dominant pattern for types A and B.

After staying in The Hague for three years, in 1922 he moved to New York to work at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, as a research physician.
In 1927, immunizing rabbits together with Philip Levine, Landsteiner discovered three more antigens (M, N and P) similar to those of groups A and B. But, unlike these, their presence in red blood cells does not imply their existence in the blood. normal human blood of natural agglutinins.

In 1940, together with Alexander Salomon Wiener, he discovered another antigen in red blood cells which he named the Rh factor, for having been found in the serum of rabbits immunized with blood from an Indian monkey, the Rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta).

He discovered the blood group #Herence of the Rh factor. A child who has the Rh factor, that is, Rh+, can immunize his mother Rh- during pregnancy. This develops specific anti-Rh antibodies that can, in their second pregnancy, go through the placenta and produce abortion or a hemolytic disease in the newborn who has jaundice, the fearsome fetal erythroblastosis. Later, Ronald A. Fisher described other erythrocyte antigen systems and today a total of up to 42 different antigens are known in human red blood cells.

Thanks to his pioneering work in immunohematology, the blood compatibility between the different bloods of human beings was established.

The discovery of blood groups by Karl Landsteiner, of which the first centenary was fulfilled in 2016, facilitated the work of justice by allowing expert analysis in cases of paternity litigation and, more importantly, made possible safe blood transfusions based on scientific criteria, avoiding the fearsome posttransfusions (hemolysis or destruction of red blood cells and kidney lesions).

The Czech Jan Janský simultaneously discovered human blood groups in 1907. At the time, the discovery went almost unnoticed, but in 1921 a medical commission recognized its importance. His classification used Roman numerals, namely: groups I, II, III and IV.This nomenclature was used in Eastern European countries and in the former Soviet Union.

Legacy

Karl Landsteiner's bronze bust, in the so-called Polio Fame Hall, at the Roosevelt Rehabilitation Institute, Warm Springs, Georgia.

• The first transfusions with Landsteiner's compatibility criteria were performed at the Monte Sinai Hospital in New York in 1907, performed by the surgeon Reuben Ottenberg.

• In Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 9 November 1914, E. Merlo, at the time academic administrator of the Medical Clinic of the University of Buenos Aires, successfully carried out the first indirect transfusion in a human being using the Dr. Luis Agote. The donor was R. Mosquera, a doorman of the establishment.

• In 1916, at the Monte Sinaí hospital, surgeon Richard Lewisohn successfully used the sodium citrate anticoagulant to keep the samples cooled for two or three weeks, which opened the possibility of storing the blood in banks. Transfusions with this method would save thousands of lives during World War I.

• Since then, many researchers such as Alexis Carrel, George Washington Crile, and Lester J. Unger have developed new techniques to optimize blood transfusion.

• In 1930, Landsteiner's contributions obtained international recognition from the scientific community, when he was awarded the Swedish Academy with the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology.
• The World Blood Donor Day date is commemorating the birth of Karl Landsteiner.

Eponymy

• The lunar crater Landsteiner bears this name in his memory.