The breakthrough understanding of hepatitis came in 1963 when Dr. Baruch Blumberg discovered an antigen that detected the presence of hepatitis B (HBV) in blood samples.
He did not set out to discover hepatitis.
In the 1950s, Dr. Blumberg started to explore whether inherited traits could make different groups of people more or less susceptible to the same disease.
They studied hemophiliac patients who had received multiple blood transfusions and therefore would be exposed to blood they had received from donors.
Dr. Blumberg and his team identified an unusual antigen from a blood sample of an Australian native, which they called the Australia antigen.
After further research, this turned out to be the