Alexander S. Wiener: the man and his work

To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Solomon Wiener, a lecture was presented before the 2007 Wiener Award winner's talk at the New York Blood Center. This article is based on that talk. Dr Wiener was very committed to his career and very devoted to his family, and living family members remember him with fondness. He had numerous personal and professional interests. He used his knowledge of blood groups in forensics, parentage studies, testing and monitoring mothers, and treating their babies for erythroblastosis fetalis (now known as hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn). Dr Wiener's method for exchange transfusion was highly efficient. He appreciated the value of collecting plasma from women whose babies had hemolytic disease and making reagents with it. Indeed, the US National Institutes of Health license he obtained for this function was one before that obtained by ortho diagnostics. He was a stickler for doing tests correctly and insisted on the use of appropriate controls. Toward the end of his career, Dr Wiener became obsessed by the terminology for antigens in the Rh blood group system, but that should not distract from his contributions.