Karl Landsteiner was an Austrian immunologist and physician born in 1868, in Baden bei Wien, Austria.
In 1900 Landsteiner found basic differences in human blood that made blood transfusions dangerous. In 1902 he showed that there were four basic types of human blood – A, B, O and AB – and developed the ABO system for blood typing based on these groups. This discovery made it possible to determine blood compatibility for safe blood transfusions.
He also discovered the Rhesus (Rh) blood factor which can result in miscarriage or illness in an unborn if undetected. Along with Erwin Popper, Landsteiner was the first to isolate the polio virus in 1909. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1930 for his achievements.
In 1936 he published a book called The Specificity of Serological Reactions, which laid the foundations for the science of immunochemistry.
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