Microbiologist Megling Biography

Mechnikov Ilya Ilyich - - outstanding Russian and French scientist, biologist of the widest profile microbiologist, cytologist, embryologist, immunologist, physiologist and pathologist. Nobel Prize in the field of physiology and medicine, whose contribution to science is difficult to overestimate. From the brief biography of Mechnikov, you can draw interesting information about the life of a great scientist, his most important scientific discoveries.

Childhood and youth Ilya Ilyich was born on May 15 of the year in the parental estate of the Ivanovka Kupyansky district of the Kharkov region. He was the fifth and youngest child in the family of a guards officer and daughter of a wealthy Polish financier. All the offspring of the couple of the Mechnikovs received a decent education. From early childhood, Ilya showed great interest in the natural sciences and attended the classes of older brothers with pleasure.

Even then, a passion for knowledge, experiments, and experiments woke up in it. After graduating from the Kharkov male gymnasium with a gold medal, Ilya Mechnikov began to attend lectures at the University of Kharkov in comparative anatomy and physiology. Biology fascinated the young man so much that he persuaded him to send him to study in Germany. However, due to the acute lack of money, he was forced to return home soon.

Mechnikov brought with him the work of Charles Darwin “The Origin of Species”, which had a great influence on the formation of a future scientist. In his homeland, Mechnikov entered the natural department of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Kharkov University and graduated from the student program in just 2 years. The scientific career at the age of 20, Mechnikov went to Italy, where, together with biologist Alexander Kovalevsky, he worked in the field of embryology.

For the results of their labors, their award was the prestigious prize of Karl Baer. Upon returning to his homeland, Ilya Mechnikov sequentially defended the master's, and then a doctoral dissertation. Thus, the young scientist received honorary scientific degrees before reaching the age of 25. Ilya Ilyich was elected professor at the University of Novorossiysk in Odessa. Here, together with scientist Nikolai Gamalea, he worked in the field of microbiology.

Being the first Russian microbiologists, they made a great contribution to the development of this biology industry. In the year, Mechnikov received an invitation from the outstanding French microbiologist Louis Pasteur to work at his Paris Institute as head of the laboratory. So Ilya Ilyich moved to Paris, in which he lived until the end of his life. Once in the very center of world science, he made a number of most important discoveries, but at the same time always maintained contact with Russia.

The discoveries of Mechnikov Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, whose biography became a symbol of selfless service to science, made a huge contribution to the development of biology. He discovered the pathogen of mycosis in insects, proposed his own theory of animal evolution, and worked out issues of embryology. Among the most important achievements of Mechnikov is the discovery of the phenomenon of phagocytosis and its thorough study.

These studies form the basis of the phagocytic theory of immunity, and in the year the scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize. The discovery of phagocytosis allowed Mechnikov to successfully develop a number of important theories, in particular immunity, atrophy, aging. The scientist paid especially much attention to aging problems. He believed that the wear of the body and subsequent death occur as a result of the body's poisoning with various poisons.

His lover was so seriously ill with tuberculosis that she could not move independently. The scientist believed that he could cure her beloved woman, but she died after 4 years. This loss was so shocked by Mechnikov that he wanted to commit suicide, but the dose of morphine turned out to be too large and caused him a vomiting reflex. The second wife of the scientist was the young Olga Belokopytova.

This marriage was long and strong, but the married couple did not have children. Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov died on July 2, after a series of myocardial infarction. Biography test.