Landsteiner, born in Vienna in 1868 of Jewish origin, completed his bachelor's and doctorate in medicine 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 dissections at the Wilhelminenspital in Vienna, and in 1911 he was sworn in as associate professor of pathological anatomy.
During that 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 inducted into the Polio Hall of Fame from Warm Springs (Georgia), in January 1957.
Karl was then teaching pathological anatomy 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, red blood cells sometimes agglutinated, forming visible clumps. He analyzed the blood of a total of 22 people, including his own and that of five collaborators in his laboratory. 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 discovered three different types of red blood cells, called A, B and O, which generated agglutination reactions. These discoveries were made in Vienna around 1901.
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Two years later, two of his disciples, Alfredo de Castello and Adriano Sturli, analyzed 155 samples (from 121 patients and 34 healthy controls) and discovered a fourth group, which they called AB.
Human blood naturally has molecules known as antibodies, capable of reacting with other molecules of 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 blood to be transfused from the donor is not selected or typed (as it is technically said in laboratory jargon).
In 1911, Ottenberg coined the term “universal donor” for group O, due to the lack of antigens in erythrocytes (round or oval-shaped red blood cells that contain hemoglobin and are responsible for transporting oxygen to all cells). body parts). In 1908, Epstein and Ottenberg suggested that blood groups are hereditary. In 1910, E. von Dungern and L. Hirszfeld discovered that the inheritance of these blood groups follows Mendel's laws, 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 doctor.
In 1927, immunizing rabbits 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 (anucleated blood cell which has hemoglobin responsible for carrying oxygen to the tissues of higher animals or vertebrates) does not imply the existence of natural agglutinins in normal human blood.
In 1940, together with Alexander Salomon Wiener, he discovered another antigen in red blood cells, which he named the Rh factor, because it was found in the serum of rabbits immunized with blood from an Indian monkey, the Rhesus macaque (macaca mulatta).
He discovered the blood group#Inheritance of the Rh factor. A child who has the Rh factor, that is, is Rh+, can immunize his mother with Rh- during pregnancy. She develops specific anti-Rh antibodies that can, in her second pregnancy, cross the placenta and cause abortion or a hemolytic disease in the newborn that presents with jaundice, the dreaded erythroblastosis fetalis. Later, Ronald A. Fisher described other erythrocyte antigen systems and today a total of up to 42 different antigens are known on human red blood cells.
Thanks to his pioneering work in immunohematology, blood compatibility was established between the different bloods of human beings.
The discovery of blood groups by Karl Landsteiner, whose first centenary was celebrated in 2016, facilitated the work of justice by allowing expert analyzes in cases of paternity disputes and, more importantly, made blood transfusions possible. safe based on scientific criteria, avoiding the feared post-transfusion accidents (hemolysis or destruction of red blood cells and kidney injuries) due to lack of blood compatibility.
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 the former Soviet Union.
The first transfusions with the Landsteiner compatibility criteria were performed at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York in 1907, performed by surgeon Reuben Ottenberg.
In Buenos Aires (Argentina), on November 9, 1914, E. Merlo, then academic administrator of the Medical Clinic of the University of Buenos Aires, successfully performed the first indirect transfusion in a human being using the method of Dr. Luis Agote. The donor was R. Mosquera, a doorman at the establishment.
In 1916, at the aforementioned Mount Sinai Hospital, surgeon Richard Lewisohn successfully used the anticoagulant sodium citrate to preserve samples refrigerated for two to three weeks, opening up the possibility of banking blood. Transfusions using this method would save thousands of lives during World War I.
Since then, numerous researchers such as Alexis Carrel, George Washington Crile, and Lester J. Unger developed new techniques to optimize blood transfusion.
In 1930, Landsteiner's contributions gained international recognition from the scientific community, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology by the Swedish Academy.
The date World Blood Donor Day commemorates the birth of Karl Landsteiner.
The lunar crater Landsteiner is named in his memory.