Alexander S. Wiener
Encyclopedia
Alexander Solomon Wiener (March 16, 1907 - November 6, 1976), a lifelong resident of New York City, was recognized internationally for his contributions to medicine
. He was an outstanding leader in the fields of forensic medicine, serology
, and immunogenetics
. His pioneer work led to discovery of the Rh factor
in 1937, along with Dr. Karl Landsteiner
, and subsequently to the development of exchange transfusion
methods that saved the lives of countless infants with hemolytic disease of the newborn. He received a Lasker Award
for his achievement in 1946.
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. Since 1932 he had a medical practice and in 1935 he founded the Wiener Laboratories for clinical pathology
and blood grouping. In 1938 he became a member of the Department of Forensic Medicine
of New York University School of Medicine
, rising to the rank of professor by 1968. Since the 1930s he co-operated with the office of the Chief Medical Examiner
of New York City.
Wiener was a good pianist and he also enjoyed tennis and golf. He kept up his his life-long interest in mathematics and physics by reading in these areas. In recognition of his contribution to forensic medicine he was awarded an honorary membership of the Mystery Writers of America
.
In 1932 Wiener married Gertrude Rodman and they had two daughters, Jane and Barbara. Wiener died of leukemia in New York on 6 November 1976.
This encouraged them in their quest to create a blood "fingerprint," a unique blood profile that could be used in legal and criminal matters. Wiener pioneered much of the type of blood testing that has now, in the age of DNA
, become commonplace . Along with his work in his Brooklyn lab, Wiener also did a considerable amount of work in a Manhattan lab where he concentrated on forensics, assisting the police in numerous investigations by analyzing the blood (or related fluids) of those involved.
Numerous articles and chapters of books with real life crime stories were written about Dr. Wiener's work in criminology. Along with his father, George Wiener, a lawyer. Wiener helped draft a new set of laws addressing the recent scientific advancements in blood identification. He was a member of the American Medical Association
legal committee that sponsored blood test laws in all states, and he was the co-author of its 1935 report. His work in the genetics of the blood factors also allowed him to be of assistance in many paternity cases.
He was eventually made an honorary member of the Mystery Writers of America
for his work.
in 1937 (named after the Rhesus monkeys used as test subjects), they did not immediately realize its significance. It was seen as yet another factor, not much different from the M, N, or P factors--useful for "fingerprinting," but not having much more extended implications. However, Wiener soon realized that the new blood factor they had discovered was associated with problems in blood transfusions. Although the first time Rh positive blood is transfused into someone with Rh negative blood, it may not cause any harm, it does cause the creation of antibodies which make a second such transfusion very dangerous. By the time he and Landsteiner published in 1940, Wiener was able to demonstrate the role of Rh sensitization as a cause of intragroup hemolytic reactions, thus increasing the safety of blood transfusions.
Also, in conjunction with Philip Levine
's separate work which helped identify the Rh factor as a major cause of erythroblastosis fetalis, or Rh disease
, he was able to help solve a major cause of infant fatality. Dr. Wiener created the first medical procedure to combat the problem, which he called an exchange transfusion
. It consisted of a complete blood transfusion for the affected baby. The method was further refined by Harry Wallerstein, a transfusionist.
Since then, less extreme methods have been found to deal with erythroblastosis fetalis. However, at the time, the procedure was able to save over 200,000 lives.
of the Rh factor. In the process, he became embroiled in controversy, as an alternative theory, the so called CDE-nomenclature was proposed by Robert Russell Race und Ronald Fisher
, hence also called Race-Fisher theory, which was somewhat simpler to understand. Although Wiener's theories on the genetics of the Rh factor have recently proven to be closer to the actual DNA structure of the genes (though the truth lies somewhere between the two theories), there are still many who have adopted the CDE notations.
Wiener's theory is that Rh inheritance is controlled as follows:
There is one Rh locus
at which occurs one Rh gene, but this gene has multiple allele
s.
For example, one gene R1 produces one agglutinogen (antigen) Rh1 which is composed of three "factors": rh', Rh(o), and hr' '. The three factors are analogous to C, D, and e respectively in the CDE nomenclature. The d gene does not exist in Wiener's theory, and, in fact, has been proven not to exist at all.
In fact, it has recently been proven that there are two connected genes, one of which has multiple specificities, as Wiener theorized. So although he was incorrect to theorize that there was only one gene involved, the principle that a single gene can have multiple alleles, a revolutionary idea at the time, has proven true.
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
. He was an outstanding leader in the fields of forensic medicine, serology
Serology
Serology is the scientific study of blood serum and other bodily fluids. In practice, the term usually refers to the diagnostic identification of antibodies in the serum...
, and immunogenetics
Immunogenetics
Immunogenetics is the branch of medical research that explores the relationship between the immune system and genetics.Autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, are complex genetic traits which result from defects in the immune system. Identification of genes defining the immune defects may...
. His pioneer work led to discovery of the Rh factor
Rhesus blood group system
The Rh blood group system is one of thirty current human blood group systems. Clinically, it is the most important blood group system after ABO. At Present, the Rh blood group system consists of 50 defined blood-group antigens, among which the 5 antigens D, C, c, E, and e are the most important...
in 1937, along with Dr. Karl Landsteiner
Karl Landsteiner
Karl Landsteiner , was an Austrian-born American biologist and physician of Jewish origin. He is noted for having first distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the...
, and subsequently to the development of exchange transfusion
Blood transfusion
Blood transfusion is the process of receiving blood products into one's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used in a variety of medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood...
methods that saved the lives of countless infants with hemolytic disease of the newborn. He received a Lasker Award
Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research
Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award is awarded by the Lasker Foundation for the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and cure of disease. The award was renamed in 2008 in honor of Michael E. DeBakey...
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 UniversityCornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
where he continued his study of mathematics and even contributed mathematical problems to the American Mathematical Monthly
American Mathematical Monthly
The American Mathematical Monthly is a mathematical journal founded by Benjamin Finkel in 1894. It is currently published 10 times each year by the Mathematical Association of America....
. He majored in biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, 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
Jewish Hospital
Jewish Hospital can refer to:*Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri*Jewish Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio*Long Island Jewish Hospital, Long Island, New York*Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Quebec...
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
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
and Biometrics
Biometrics
Biometrics As Jain & Ross point out, "the term biometric authentication is perhaps more appropriate than biometrics since the latter has been historically used in the field of statistics to refer to the analysis of biological data [36]" . consists of methods...
(1933-1935) and as the head of the blood transfusion division until 1952. Since 1932 he had a medical practice and in 1935 he founded the Wiener Laboratories for clinical pathology
Clinical pathology
Clinical pathology , Laboratory Medicine , Clinical analysis or Clinical/Medical Biology , is a medical specialty that is concerned with the diagnosis of disease based on the laboratory analysis of bodily fluids, such as...
and blood grouping. In 1938 he became a member of the Department of Forensic Medicine
Forensic medicine division
The Forensic Medicine Division, formerly known as the Centre for Forensic Medicine, is part of the Applied Sciences Group of the Health Sciences Authority. In the 1960s to 1980s, it was a section within the Department of Pathology under the Ministry of Health. In 1989, it was known as the...
of New York University School of Medicine
New York University School of Medicine
The New York University School of Medicine is one of the graduate schools of New York University. Founded in 1841 as the University Medical College, the NYU School of Medicine is one of the foremost medical schools in the United States....
, rising to the rank of professor by 1968. Since the 1930s he co-operated with the office of the Chief Medical Examiner
Coroner
A coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...
of New York City.
Wiener was a good pianist and he also enjoyed tennis and golf. He kept up his his life-long interest in mathematics and physics by reading in these areas. In recognition of his contribution to forensic medicine he was awarded an honorary membership of the Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
.
In 1932 Wiener married Gertrude Rodman and they had two daughters, Jane and Barbara. Wiener died of leukemia in New York on 6 November 1976.
Blood "fingerprinting"
Wiener began working with Landsteiner at the age of 23, shortly after beginning his work at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, where he remained for the rest of his life. Much of their initial work revolved around the M Factor, which they discovered was actually five different, distinct blood factors.This encouraged them in their quest to create a blood "fingerprint," a unique blood profile that could be used in legal and criminal matters. Wiener pioneered much of the type of blood testing that has now, in the age of DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
, become commonplace . Along with his work in his Brooklyn lab, Wiener also did a considerable amount of work in a Manhattan lab where he concentrated on forensics, assisting the police in numerous investigations by analyzing the blood (or related fluids) of those involved.
Numerous articles and chapters of books with real life crime stories were written about Dr. Wiener's work in criminology. Along with his father, George Wiener, a lawyer. Wiener helped draft a new set of laws addressing the recent scientific advancements in blood identification. He was a member of the American Medical Association
American Medical Association
The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...
legal committee that sponsored blood test laws in all states, and he was the co-author of its 1935 report. His work in the genetics of the blood factors also allowed him to be of assistance in many paternity cases.
He was eventually made an honorary member of the Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
for his work.
Rh factor
When Wiener and Landsteiner discovered the Rh factorRhesus blood group system
The Rh blood group system is one of thirty current human blood group systems. Clinically, it is the most important blood group system after ABO. At Present, the Rh blood group system consists of 50 defined blood-group antigens, among which the 5 antigens D, C, c, E, and e are the most important...
in 1937 (named after the Rhesus monkeys used as test subjects), they did not immediately realize its significance. It was seen as yet another factor, not much different from the M, N, or P factors--useful for "fingerprinting," but not having much more extended implications. However, Wiener soon realized that the new blood factor they had discovered was associated with problems in blood transfusions. Although the first time Rh positive blood is transfused into someone with Rh negative blood, it may not cause any harm, it does cause the creation of antibodies which make a second such transfusion very dangerous. By the time he and Landsteiner published in 1940, Wiener was able to demonstrate the role of Rh sensitization as a cause of intragroup hemolytic reactions, thus increasing the safety of blood transfusions.
Also, in conjunction with Philip Levine
Philip Levine (physician)
Philip Levine was an imuno-hematologist whose clinical research advanced knowledge on the Rhesus factor, Hemolytic disease of the newborn and blood transfusion.-Life and career :...
's separate work which helped identify the Rh factor as a major cause of erythroblastosis fetalis, or Rh disease
Rh disease
Rh disease is one of the causes of hemolytic disease of the newborn...
, he was able to help solve a major cause of infant fatality. Dr. Wiener created the first medical procedure to combat the problem, which he called an exchange transfusion
Exchange transfusion
An exchange transfusion is a medical treatment in which apheresis is used to remove one person's red blood cells or platelets and replace them with transfused blood products...
. It consisted of a complete blood transfusion for the affected baby. The method was further refined by Harry Wallerstein, a transfusionist.
Since then, less extreme methods have been found to deal with erythroblastosis fetalis. However, at the time, the procedure was able to save over 200,000 lives.
Nomenclature and genetics
A lot of Wiener's later work involved examining the geneticsGenetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
of the Rh factor. In the process, he became embroiled in controversy, as an alternative theory, the so called CDE-nomenclature was proposed by Robert Russell Race und Ronald Fisher
Ronald Fisher
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and geneticist. Among other things, Fisher is well known for his contributions to statistics by creating Fisher's exact test and Fisher's equation...
, hence also called Race-Fisher theory, which was somewhat simpler to understand. Although Wiener's theories on the genetics of the Rh factor have recently proven to be closer to the actual DNA structure of the genes (though the truth lies somewhere between the two theories), there are still many who have adopted the CDE notations.
Wiener's theory is that Rh inheritance is controlled as follows:
There is one Rh locus
Locus (genetics)
In the fields of genetics and genetic computation, a locus is the specific location of a gene or DNA sequence on a chromosome. A variant of the DNA sequence at a given locus is called an allele. The ordered list of loci known for a particular genome is called a genetic map...
at which occurs one Rh gene, but this gene has multiple allele
Allele
An allele is one of two or more forms of a gene or a genetic locus . "Allel" is an abbreviation of allelomorph. Sometimes, different alleles can result in different observable phenotypic traits, such as different pigmentation...
s.
For example, one gene R1 produces one agglutinogen (antigen) Rh1 which is composed of three "factors": rh', Rh(o), and hr' '. The three factors are analogous to C, D, and e respectively in the CDE nomenclature. The d gene does not exist in Wiener's theory, and, in fact, has been proven not to exist at all.
In fact, it has recently been proven that there are two connected genes, one of which has multiple specificities, as Wiener theorized. So although he was incorrect to theorize that there was only one gene involved, the principle that a single gene can have multiple alleles, a revolutionary idea at the time, has proven true.
Awards
- 1946 Albert Lasker Award for clinical research awarded jointly with Karl LandsteinerKarl LandsteinerKarl Landsteiner , was an Austrian-born American biologist and physician of Jewish origin. He is noted for having first distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the...
and Philip LevinePhilip LevinePhilip Levine may refer to:*Philip Levine , American populist poet & professor of English, 2011-2012 Poet Laureate of the United States*Philip Levine , Russian-born American immuno-hematologist, researched blood groups... - 1951 Passano FoundationPassano FoundationThe Passano Foundation, established in 1945, provides an annual award of $ 100 000 to an American research scientist whose work is thought to have immediate practical benefits. Many Passano laureates have subsequently won the Nobel Prize....
Award
Publications
- Rh-Hr Blood Types, New York 1954
- with Irving Bernard Wexler: Heredity of the Blood Groups, New York 1958
- with Karl Landsteiner: An agglutinable factor in human blood recognized by immune sera for rhesus blood. Proc Soc Exp Biol Med 1940;43:223-224.
Further reading
- Addine Erskine The Principles and Practices of Blood Grouping,1978 ISBN 978-0801615313
- Pauline M. H. Mazumdar Species and Specificity:An Interpretation of the History of Immunology, Cambridge University Press, 1995 ISBN 0-521-43172-7
- David R. Zimmerman, Rh: The Intimate History of a Disease and Its Conquest Macmillan (1973) ISBN 0-02-633530-1.
- Edward Radin, Twelve Against Crime, 1951 Specifically Chapter 8, "Master of Invisible Clues."