Karl Landsteiner

Karl Landsteiner

Karl Landsteiner (1868 - 1943) Austrian biologist and physician, noted for his development of the modern system of blood group classification, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1930. Together with the American physician, Alexander Wiener,  he discovered the Rh factor in 1937. He was also the discoverer of the polio virus, along with Erwin Popper in 1909. Landsteiner's father was a famous Vienna journalist who died when he was 6, which made him form a strong association with his mother, whose death mask he kept in his room till the day he died. Landsteiner moved to the USA in 1923, accepting an invitation from Simon Flexner, as economic conditions at the turn of World War I in Austria were no longer conducive to research. Landsteiner was much devoted to his work, and he is famously said to have died holding "a pipette in his hand".

Paul Langerhans

Paul Langerhans

Paul Langerhans (1847 - 1888) German pathologist & biologist. Langerhans was an outstanding scholar who during his undergraduate years described the Langerhans' cells in the skin, whose function was not discovered until nearly a century later. He was also the first to describe the group of cells now known as the islets of Langerhans, though he could not identify their function correctly. His illness from tuberculosis made him retire early from his career as Professor of Pathology. He settled in the island of Madeira seeking a cure, where he developed a strong interest in the study of certain marine worms, one of which he named Virchowia after his former mentor and friend, the famous pathologist Rudolf Virchow. He also studied meteorology, wrote a travel book on Madeira and tried to treat patients suffering from tuberculosis in the island. He died at the age of 41 from complications of his illness.