Alexander S. Wiener
American hematologist (1907-1976)
Alexander Solomon Wiener (March 16, 1907 – November 6, 1976) was an American biologist and physician, specializing in the fields of forensic medicine, serology, and immunogenetics. His work led to the discovery of the Rh factor in 1937, along with Karl Landsteiner, and subsequently to the development of exchange transfusion methods that saved the lives of infants with hemolytic disease of the newborn. He received a Lasker Award for his achievement in 1946.
Life
Alexander Solomon Wiener was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of George Wiener, an attorney who had emigrated from Russia in 1903, and Mollie (Zuckerman) Wiener. He attended Brooklyn public schools, graduating from Brooklyn Boys' High School at the age of 15. He was awarded scholarships to attend Cornell University where he continued his study of mathematics and even contributed mathematical problems to the American Mathematical Monthly. He majored in biology, however, receiving his A.B. in 1926. He then entered the Long Island College of Medicine where he was awarded an M.D. in 1930.
During his time in medical school Wiener did research work on blood groups at the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn and from 1930 to 1932 he interned there and kept up a lifelong affiliation with that institution as the head of the Division of Genetics and Biometrics (1933–1935) and as the head of the blood transfusion division until 1952. From 1932 he had a medical practice and in 1935 he founded the Wiener Laboratories for clinical pathology and blood grouping.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alexander S. Wiener” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.