biography
pronunciation:
[landstiyner]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1868–1943)
|
| biography:
| Immunologist, born in Vienna, Austria. Working as a microbiologist and immunologist in Europe (1891–1922), he discovered the four basic human blood groups of A, B, O, and AB (1900). He also designed (with Julius Donath) the Donath–Landsteiner test for the red cell disease paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria (1904), developed darkfield microscopy for the diagnosis of syphilis (1905–6), proposed a viral origin for poliomyelitis (1909–12), and demonstrated the existence of haptens, small-molecular-weight antigens conjugated to a larger protein carrier (1918–20). In 1922 he went to the USA to the Rockefeller Institute (now Rockefeller University) (1922–39), where he and Philip Levine discovered the blood factors M, N, and P. For his blood-group research, Landsteiner won the 1930 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. In 1940, he and Alexander Wiener discovered the rhesus (Rh) factor in human blood and developed serological tests necessary to avoid Rh-mediated transfusion reactions or neonatal illness. During 1930–2 Landsteiner propagated the typhus organism in living cultures and, remaining active after retirement, demonstrated that drug allergy is an immunological process (1935–41). |
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