Who discovered blood types?
In 1930 Dr. Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine for his discovery of human blood types. He was the first to classify human blood groups into A, B, AB, and O types. His work made safe blood transfusions possible and transformed the medical industry.
How do blood types work?
Although all blood has the same basic components, not everyone has the same blood type. Your blood type is determined by your ABO type and a negative or positive Rh factor. There are eight common blood types (A+, A-, B+, B-, AB+, AB-, O+, and O-) and many rare ones.
Just like eye color, your blood type is passed genetically from your parents. You inherit a gene from each parent so your blood type may not be the same as your parents.
For example:
- If you inherit an A gene from your father and an A gene from your mother, you will either have type A or O blood.
- Type B from one parent and type B or type O gene from the other parent will give you either type B or O blood.
- But inherit an A gene from one parent and a B from the other and you could have A, B, AB, or O type blood.
- Those with type O blood have inherited the O gene from each parent.