Karl Landsteiner

1. Karl Landsteiner Sebastian & Ashanty & Ealeman

2. Biography • Karl Landsteiner was born in Vienna on June 14, 1868. • Landsteiner’s father Leopold (1818–1875), a renowned Viennese journalist, died at age 56, when Karl was 6.  •  Karl was brought up by his mother, Fanny Hess. • Karl and his mother converted to Catholicism when he was twenty one. • He kept her death mask all his life in his bedroom. • After leaving school, Landsteiner studied medicine at the University of Vienna, graduating in 1891. • Returning to Vienna, Landsteiner resumed his medical studies at the Vienna General Hospital.

3. What he did???? • Landsteiner made numerous contributions to both pathological anatomy, histology and immunology, all of which showed, not only his meticulous care in observation and description, but also his biological understanding. • But his greatest discovery was in 1900 when he found out that the blood of two people under contact agglutinates, and in 1901, he found that this effect was due to contact of blood with blood serum. •  As a result he succeeded in identifying the three blood groups A, B and O, which he labeled C, of human blood. •  Landsteiner also found out that blood transfusion between persons with the same blood group did not lead to the destruction of blood cell. • Based on his findings, in 1907 the first successful blood transfusion was performed by Reuben Ottenberg at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.  • To the end of his life, Landsteiner continued to investigate blood groups and the chemistry of antigens, antibodies and other immunological factors that occur in the blood. 

4. Bibliography • http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1930/landsteiner-bio.html • http://www.scienceheroes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=128&Itemid=137