<Tr> <Th> Fields </Th> <Td> Medicine, virology </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Institutions </Th> <Td> University of Vienna Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research </Td> </Tr> <P> Karl Landsteiner, ForMemRS, (14 June 1868--26 June 1943) was an Austrian biologist, physician, and immunologist . He 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 blood, and identified, with Alexander S. Wiener, the Rhesus factor, in 1937, thus enabling physicians to transfuse blood without endangering the patient's life . With Constantin Levaditi and Erwin Popper, he discovered the polio virus in 1909 . He received the Aronson Prize in 1926 . In 1930, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine . He was posthumously awarded the Lasker Award in 1946, and has been described as the father of transfusion medicine . </P> <P> Landsteiner's father, Leopold (1818--1875), a renowned Viennese journalist who was editor - in - chief of Die Presse, died at age 56, when Karl was only 6 . This led to a close relationship between him and his mother Fanny (born Hess; 1837--1908). After graduating with the Matura exam from a Vienna secondary school, he took up the study of medicine at the University of Vienna and wrote his doctoral thesis in 1891 . While still a student he published an essay on the influence of diets on the composition of blood . </P>

Who won the nobel prize for his research in blood groups