Reuben Ottenberg was an American physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 and haematologist , who served Mount Sinai Hospital

Mount Sinai Hospital, New York

Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is one of the oldest and largest teaching hospitals in the United States. In 2011-2012, Mount Sinai Hospital was ranked as one of America's best hospitals by U.S...

 in New York City with distinction for 50 years.

He received his B.A. from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in 1902 and his M.D. degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, often known as P&S, is a graduate school of Columbia University that is located on the health sciences campus in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan...

 three years later.

He published his groundbreaking paper on blood transfusion before World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. In haemocompatibility

Haemocompatibility

In biomedical engineering, haemocompatibility is the compatibility of a material with blood. It is an important consideration when designing devices that contact blood. Events that determine haemocompatibility often occur at the molecular level. Haemocompatibility can influence inflammatory...

 tests, which he had started in 1907 he found out that patient antibodies against donor red cells could be harmful but not vice versa. This report led to the use of group O (“zero”) individuals as universal donors.

In 1954 Ottenberg was the first to be awarded the 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...

Award from the
American Society of Blood Banks for "distinguished pioneering contributions to blood banking and hemotherapy."