كارل لاندشتاينر Karl Landsteiner (عاش 14 يونيو1868 - 26 يونيو1943)، كان عالم أحياء وطبيب نمساوي. ويُذكر لكونه أول من ميز فصائل الدم الرئيسية في 1900، بتطويره نظاماً حديثاً لتصنيف فصائل الدم من تمييزه لوجود أگلوتنينات في الدم، وتمييزه، مع ألكسندر س. ڤينر، عامل البندر، في 1937، وبذلك مكـَّن الأطباء من نقل الدم بدون تهديد حياة المريض. ومع كونستانتين لڤاديتي وإروين پوپر، اكتشف ڤيروس شلل الأطفال، في 1909. حصل على جائزة نوبل في الطب لعام 1930. وقد حصل على جائزة لاسكر في 1946 بعد وفاته ويُعترف به كأبي طب نقل الدم.

النشأة والتعليم

والد لاندشتاينر، ليوپولد (1818–1875)، صحفياً مشهوراً في ڤيينا وكان رئيس تحرير دي پرسه، وتوفي في عمر 56 عاماً، حين كان كارل في السادسة من عمره. وقد أدى ذلك لنشوء علاقة قوية بين كارل ووالدته فاني (لقبها قبل الزواج: هس؛ 1837–1908). بعد التخرج بامتحان ماتورا من مدرسة ثانوية في ڤيينا، بدأ في دراسة الطب في جامعة ڤيينا وخط أطروحته للدكتوراه في 1891. وبينما كان طالباً، قام بنشر منطق حول تأثير الحميات على تكوين الدم.

من 1891 إلى 1893، تفهم لاندشتاينر الكيمياء في ڤورتس‌بورگ تحت إشراف هرمان إميل فيشر، في ميونخ، أويگن بامبرگر وفي زيورخ تحت إشراف آرتور رودلف هانتش. وكان له عدد من المنشورات من تلك الفترة، بعضهم بالاشتراك مع أساتذته.

العمل البحثي في ڤيينا؛ اكتشاف ڤيروس شلل الأطفال

بعد العودة إلى ڤيينا أصبح مساعداً لـماكس فون گروبر في معهد النظافة. وفي دراساته ركـَّز على آلية المناعة وطبيعة الأجسام المضادة. ومن نوفمبر 1897 إلى 1908 كان لاندشتاينر مساعداً في المعهد الپاثولوجي-التشريحي في جامعة ڤيينا تحت إشراف أنطون ڤايكسل‌باوم، حيث نشر 75 ورقة بحثية، تتعامل مع قضايا في serology, bacteriology, virology and pathological anatomy. In addition he did some 3,600 autopsies in those ten years. Weichselbaum was Landsteiner's tutor for his postdoctoral lecture qualification in 1903. From 1908 to 1920 Landsteiner was prosector at the Wilhelminenspital in Vienna and in 1911 he was sworn in as an associate professor of pathological anatomy. During that time he discovered – in co-operation with Erwin Popper – the infectious character of poliomyelitis and isolated the polio virus. In recognition of this groundbreaking discovery, which proved to be the basis for the fight against polio, he was posthumously inducted into the قاعة مشاهير شلل الأطفال في وورم سپرنگز، جورجيا, which was dedicated in January 1958.

اكتشاف فصائل الدم

In 1900 Karl Landsteiner 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 labelled 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 cells, whereas this occurred between persons of different blood groups. Based on his findings, the first successful blood transfusion was performed by Reuben Ottenberg at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York in 1907.

Today it is well known that persons with blood group AB can accept donations of the other blood groups, and that persons with blood group O-negative can donate to all other groups. Individuals with blood group AB are referred to as universal recipients and those with blood group O-negative are known as universal donors. These donor-recipient relationships arise due to the fact that type O-negative blood possesses neither antigens of blood group A nor of blood group B. Therefore, the immune systems of persons with blood group A, B or AB do not refuse the donation. Further, because persons with blood group AB do not form antibodies against either the antigens of blood group A or B, they can accept blood from persons with these blood groups, besides from persons with blood group O-negative.

In today's blood transfusions only concentrates of red blood cells without serum are transmitted, which is of great importance in surgical practice. In 1930 Landsteiner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of these achievements. For his pioneering work, he is recognized as the father of transfusion medicine.

العمل البحثي في هولندا والولايات المتحدة

بعد الحرب العالمية الأولى، أصبحت ڤيينا وجمهورية النمسا الجديدة، ككل، في وضع اقتصادي يائس، وهوما جعل لاندشتاينر ليرى عدم وجود فرصة له ليمواصلة عمله البحثي. He decided to move to The Netherlands and accepted a post as prosector in the small Catholic St. Joannes de Deo hospital (now MCH Westeinde) in The Hague and, in order to improve his financial situation also took a job in a small factory, producing old tuberculin (tuberculinum prestinum). He also published a number of papers, five of them being published in Dutch by the Royal Academy of Sciences. Yet working conditions proved to be not much better than in post-war Vienna. So Landsteiner accepted the invitation that reached him from New York, initiated by Simon Flexner, who was familiar with Landsteiner's work, to work for the Rockefeller Institute. He arrived there with his family in the spring of 1923. Throughout the 1920s Landsteiner worked on the problems of immunity and allergy. In 1927 he discovered new blood groups: M, N and P, refining the work he had begun 20 years before. Shortly thereafter, Landsteiner and his collaborator, Philip Levine, published the work and, later that same year, the types began to be used in paternity suits.

الجوائز والتكريم

Landsteiner was posthumously awarded the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 1932 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and 1946 and elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1941.

الحياة الخاصة

Landsteiner converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism in 1890. In 1916 he married Leopoldine Helene Wlasto, a Greek Orthodox who converted to her husband's Roman Catholic faith. In 1937 Landsteiner took unsuccessful legal action against an American publisher who had included him in the book Who's Who in American Jewry, stating that "it will be detrimental to me to emphasize publicly the religion of my ancestors."

قراءات إضافية

• Paul Speiser: Karl Landsteiner: Entdecker der Blutgruppen und Pionier der Immunologie, 3rd ed. Berlin 1990 ISBN 3-89412-084-3

المصادر

وصلات خارجية

• Biography at the Nobel e-Museum
• 1946 Lasker award for clinical medicine
• Key Participants: Karl Landsteiner — It's in the Blood! A Documentary History of Linus Pauling, Hemoglobin, and Sickle Cell Anemia