[1] After graduating from medical school in 1925 he worked with Hans Sachs at Heidelberg primarily on brain and organ tissue, as well as blood group antigens.
In 1933, he left Germany for Switzerland as a result of Nazi pressure, and in 1935 joined the Medical School of the University at Buffalo.
[3] In 1967 the State University of New York created The Center for Immunology in Buffalo and appointed him as its first director.
[1] Witebsky helped develop procedures for the isolation and partial characterization of A and B blood antigens.
In 2019, Witebsky was posthumously honored alongside his mentee, Noel Rose, with a Golden Goose Award for their work on autoimmune disease.