Blood types are the most important data about us that we carry around. This is because though blood flows through all of our veins and arteries, each group of people can only receive certain types of blood. These people are grouped into the categories of A, B, O, and AB. Added to this is something called the rhesus factor that is shown as + or -. What all of these alphabets and letters mean is that the red blood cells of a person are coated with surface antigens. These antigens are what makes groups of people unique, and these can only receive blood transfusions from each other or as the case of blood type O, can give blood to any group of people.
The history of blood typing goes back to a Czech scientist in 1900 and an Austrian scientist called Karl Landsteiner. Both of these scientists were the first serologist who tested the effects of blood from two different people coming into contact. He noticed that when the samples of two different groups were mixed, the red blood cells would aggulintate - clumping together. This is the process of the immune system that sees the new blood group as a foreign entity. Landsteiner then went on to discover that there were three blood groups A, B, and O. Since these were the days of the war, Landsteiner stayed away from the popular spotlight until 1923 when he was invited to work at the Rockefeller center and in 1930 he won the Noble prize for the discovery of the blood groups. However, this was just the first part of the blood type discovery.
There is another component of the blood type called the Rhesus factor. This is yet another antigen grouping. Positive indicates that the antigen is present and negative, the contrary. Karl Landsteiner and Alexander Weiner together discovered the Rhesus factor of blood groups in1937. This was a godsend for many newborns and fetuses who used to die of incompatibility with the blood grouping of the mothers. Since these early days it has been discovered that there are 30 major blood groups. There are ethnicity-specific differences and one of the last major discoveries of blood groups was the discovery of Bombay phenotype. This was the discovery connected a special blood group in the area named after the phenotype. This group can donate blood to all but can only receive blood from the hh blood type.
Author Resource:-
Kevin Pederson is the chief contributor of content for http://www.medicalhealthtests.com, an authoritative source for information on medical tests. The articles are not only informative and insightful, but they are also simple and intelligible. This makes them a reliable resource for anyone seeking information on medical tests.
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