Karl Landsteiner

June 14, 1868, Mr.. - June 26, 1943
Austrian-American bacteriologist and immunologist Karl Landsteiner was born in Vienna, the son of newspaper publisher and journalist Leopold Landsteiner Landsteiner and Fanny (Hess). When Charles was six years old, his father died, and the boy raised by his mother.
In 1885, Mr.. the end of the school L. enrolled in medical school at the University of Vienna, and in 1891. received a medical degree. Then he became interested in chemistry, which he studied for the next five years - in Wц?rzburg, Munich and Zurich. In 1896, Mr.. He returned to Vienna and went to work at the Department of Hygiene, University of Vienna, where interest in immunology.
At a time when L. took the first steps in immunology, it only became a scientific discipline. In 1890, Mr.. Emil von Behring discovered, . that immunity to disease, . which occurs after vaccination or illness, . due to the fact, . that the body produces antibodies, . interact with it penetrating pathogens or their toxins, and thus render them harmless,
. Six years later, Jules Bordet showed that the transfusion of blood of animals of one species of animal of another species usually leads to agglutination ( 'sticking') and the destruction of red blood cells. Bordet understood that such effects are caused by antibodies produced by the animal recipient and attacking proteins or antigens of the animal blood donor.
The first studies on the effect of antibodies, conducted in 1896, L. found that laboratory cultures of bacteria can be agglutinated by the addition of immune serum. Since L. wanted to focus on the study of immunity, he in 1898. moved to the Department of Pathologic Anatomy, University of Vienna. Here he began working under the leadership of Anton Veyhselbauma, scientist, discovered the causes of meningitis and pneumonia. As an assistant Veyhselbauma L. made the 3639 autopsies, which allowed him to deeply study medicine and pathology, as well as to acquire a significant post-mortem experience. Despite the fact that the scientific direction of the Department Veyhselbauma was to study the pathological anatomy, he let L. continue to work in the field of physiology and immunology.
In 1900, Mr.. L. published article, . in a footnote to that revealed the essence of one of his greatest discoveries: agglutination, . occur during the mixing of the plasma (the liquid part of blood, . remaining after removal of the formed elements) of one person and another person's red blood cells, . - Is a physiological phenomenon.,
. A year later
. described a simple way to separate blood into three groups: A, B and C (the latter group later became designated as O). Later came the fourth group - AB. For the separation of blood group erythrocytes were mixed with test sera - the so-called serum anti-A and anti-B. L. found, . that group O red blood cells are not agglutinated any of the sera; group AB erythrocytes agglutinated by both sera, erythrocytes agglutinated group A serum anti-A, . but not agglutinated serum anti-B, and finally, . erythrocytes agglutinated group B serum anti-B, . but not agglutinated serum anti-A,
. In the serum of a group G contains the group of anti-A antibody and anti-B, in serum of group A only available anti-B antibodies in the serum of group B - antibody anti-A, and in the serum of AB group antibodies absent. Consequently, in accordance with the formula L. the serum contained only antibodies (idioagglutinin), which do not agglutinate erythrocytes of this group.
Although the method of determining blood groups of R. was implemented in practice only a few years later, he gave the opportunity to safely transfuse blood of one person to another. In 1914, Mr.. Richard Lyuison found antikoaguliruyuschie properties of sodium citrate and concluded that the addition of this substance in the blood prevents its closure. Thus was found a way to conserve blood and the opportunity to keep donrskuyu blood if it is cooled to three weeks. It was a great achievement, tk. operations on the heart, lungs and blood vessels, which had virtually no conducted because of the large blood loss, it is now possible. In addition, it is possible the full exchange transfusion in poisonings and severe neonatal jaundice.
L. interest, not whether there are other differences between the blood of different people, and suggested that the individual properties of blood appear in the antigenic characteristics. He believed that on these characteristics, as the fingerprint, we can distinguish one person from another.
When L. substantiated his hypothesis serological identification, he did not know that the blood groups are inherited. The fact that the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor Mendel, after the publication in 1866. been long forgotten. In 1900, Mr.. Mendel's work once again attracted the attention, the problems of heredity began to arouse great interest, and in 1910. Emil von Dungern together with one of its employees for the first time suggested the inheritance of blood groups. In 1924, Mr.. This theory was tested mathematician BA. Bernstein, after which the concept of inheritance of blood groups was firmly established among scientists. Serologic and genetic methods are used today in the examinations to establish paternity.
Parallel with the experiments on the identification of L. worked on describing and understanding the physiological mechanisms of cold agglutination of erythrocytes. Together with Julius Donat he developed a way to diagnose paroxysmal cold hemoglobinuria. In this disease in patients affected by supercooling, hemoglobin appears in the urine due to the destruction of a number of red blood cells. Paul Ehrlich believed that this phenomenon is due to pathological changes of the endothelium of blood vessels. However L. suggested that hemoglobinuria is caused by an antibody (hemolysins), which after exposure to cold interacts with red blood cells, and when the blood is re-warmed, causing their hemolysis. He was able to reproduce these phenomena in vitro, and this method is called the method Donata - Landsteiner.
In 1908 ... 1919. Working dissector (mostly pathologist) in the Vienna Imperial Queen's Hospital Wilhelmina, L. focused on the study of poliomyelitis. Received at the opening of the homogenate of brain and spinal cord of the child, who died from the disease, he brought him into the abdominal cavity of rhesus monkeys. On the sixth day after injection the animals developed symptoms of paralysis, similar to those of patients with poliomyelitis. At autopsy the appearance of the tissues of the central nervous system of monkeys was the same as that of people who died from this disease. Since L. unable to allocate from the spinal cord of the dead children bacteria, he suggested that the cause of polio is a virus. 'We can assume - he wrote LA - that disease is caused by the so-called invisible virus or a virus belonging to the class of single-cell'.
In 1923, Mr.. L. received an offer to go to work at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now - Rockefeller University). Adopting the proposal, he moved to the United States of America in 1929. received U.S. citizenship.
In 1930. L. was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discovery of human blood groups'. In his Nobel lecture L., referring to the blood group, said: "The amazing thing was that when agglutination occurred, it was expressed in the same way as we already know the reaction of the interaction between serum and cells of animals of different species'. Opening L. groups of blood marked the beginning of new lines of research in many scientific fields and allowed to achieve great success in the practice of medicine.
In 1940. L. and his colleagues Alexander Wiener and Philip Levine described another factor in human blood - the so-called Rhesus, or Rh-factor. It was found an association between this factor and hemolytic jaundice newborns. It turns out that if the mother is absent Rh factor (ie. Rh factor is negative), the Rh-positive fetus may lead to the development of his mother's antibodies against Rh factor in fetal. These antibodies cause hemolysis of fetal red blood cells, resulting in hemoglobin becomes bilirubin, which is the cause of jaundice.
In 1916, Mr.. L. married to Helen Vlatso. The family was born to them one son. June 26, 1943, Mr.. L. died in New York after a heart attack, he had emerged during the work in the laboratory.
L. won such awards and honorary degrees, as the Berlin Hans Aronson Foundation Prize (1926), the Gold Medal of the Netherlands Red Cross Society (1933), Cameron Prize and an honorary lecturer at Edinburgh University (1938). He was also a knight of the French Legion of Honor. L. was a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, . American Philosophical Society, . American Society of Naturalists, . American Association of Immunologists, . French Academy of Sciences, . New York Academy of Medicine, . Philadelphia Society of Pathologists, . Society of Pathologists of Great Britain and Ireland, . London Royal Scientific Society, . London Royal Society of Medicine, . Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, . Royal Swedish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Swedish Medical Society.,
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