Linus Pauling: In 1936, I gave a Grand Rounds talk at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
in New York about hemoglobin. And after my talk, Karl Landsteiner asked if I would
come to his laboratory and talk with him. He was doing very interesting work. He had
discovered the blood groups back in 1900. A, B and O. And he was then making studies
of the reactions of antibodies and antigens - homologous antigens or heterologous
antigens - and in fact this was the sort of work that would appeal to a chemist because
he would take a chemical off the shelf - something with known structure, simple substance
- and couple it to a protein, usually by diacetation of the amino group, and inject
this asoprotein into a rabbit and get antibodies which were characteristic of this
simple chemical. He would get proteins, a solution of protein molecules, that would
combine specifically with the chemical he took off the shelves, something that no
rabbit had ever seen before.
Clip
Creator: Linus Pauling Associated: Karl Landsteiner, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research Clip ID: 1983v.1a-04
Full Work
Creator: Linus Pauling Associated: University of California, Berkeley
