19. The discovery of the ABO Blood group system was based on an analysis of blood samples from members of the laboratory staff, including the Leading’s Researcher.
Karl Landsteiner was an Austrian biologist, physician, and immunologist, who distinguished the main blood groups in 1900. Having developed the modern system of the classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the blood, he also identified the Rhesus factor, a discovery that laid the groundwork for the first successful blood transfusions in 1907. For his contributions to the world of medicine, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1930. This was a Nobel Prize he earned with his own blood. And when we say “own blood” we mean it in the most literal way possible.
Dr. Landsteiner published a paper that made the first mention of the isoagglutination of human blood, proposing that the occurrence was linked with the uniqueness of an individual’s blood as opposed to having a pathological cause. In 1901, Landsteiner cross tested sera and red cells from scientists working in his lab, including his own. His findings revealed that blood from certain scientists caused the blood of others to clump, suggesting the existence of at least two antibody classes. Landsteiner promptly dubbed them anti-A and anti-B. Eventually, his valuable conclusions led to the identification of the four blood groups: A, B, O, and AB.