Landsteiner, Karl pronounced LAND sty nuhr or LAHNT shty nuhr, (1868-1943), won the 1930 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for his discovery of the main types of human blood--A, B, AB, and O. This discovery made safe blood transfusions possible for the first time. In 1940, Landsteiner and his co-workers, Philip Levine and Alexander Wiener, discovered the Rh blood factor, an important cause of stillbirths. Landsteiner also contributed information on how the body becomes immune to certain disease bacteria. In addition, his research helped lead to the discovery that a virus causes polio.
Landsteiner was born in Vienna, Austria. He moved to the United States in 1922 and was a member of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University) from 1922 to 1939.
Contributor: Daniel J. Kevles, Ph.D., Professor of Humanities, California Institute of Technology.
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