Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov
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| Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov | |
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| Born | 16 May 1845 Ivanivka, Kupyanskyi Raion, Kharkiv Province, Ukraine |
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| Died | 15 July 1916 (aged 71) Paris, France |
| Fields | Microbiology |
| Alma mater | Kharkiv University University of Giessen University of Göttingen Munich Academy |
| Known for | phagocytosis |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize in Medicine (1908) |
Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (Russian: Илья Ильич Мечников) (also translated into English as Elie Metchnikoff) (16 May 1845 – 15 July 1916) was a Russian microbiologist best remembered for his pioneering research into the immune system. Mechnikov received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1908, for his work on phagocytosis.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early years
Mechnikov was born in a village near Kharkov in the Russian Empire, now Kharkiv, Ukraine, the youngest son of Ilya Mechnikov, a Russian Imperial Guard, and Emilia Nevakhovich Mechnikov. His elder brother Lev became a prominent geographer and sociologist. Mechnikov was raised predominantly by his Jewish mother, and developed a passion for natural history. When Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species was published, Ilya vehemently undertook the survival of the fittest, testing and teaching it.
He attended Kharkov University where he studied natural sciences, completing his four-year degree in two years. He then went to Germany to study marine fauna on the small North Sea island of Heligoland and then at the University of Giessen, University of Göttingen and then at Munich Academy. In 1867 he returned to the Russian Empire to the appointment of docent at the new University of Odessa, followed by an appointment at the University of St. Petersburg. In 1870 he returned to Odessa to take up the appointment of Titular Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy.
[edit] Research
Mechnikov became interested in the study of microbes, and especially the immune system. In 1882 he resigned his position at Odessa University and set up a private laboratory at Messina to study comparative embryology, where he discovered phagocytosis after experimenting on the larvae of starfish. His theories were radical: certain white blood cells could engulf and destroy harmful bodies such as bacteria. The ‘sophisticated’ microbe hunters in the West — Pasteur, Behring, etc. — scorned the Russian and his humble theory.
Mechnikov returned to Odessa as director of an institute set up to carry out Louis Pasteur's vaccine against rabies, but due to some difficulties left in 1888 and went to Paris to seek Pasteur's advice. Pasteur gave him an appointment at the Pasteur Institute, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Later vindicated, Mechnikov's work on phagocytes won him the Nobel Prize in 1908. He worked with Émile Roux on Calomel, an ointment that to prevent people from contracting syphilis, an sexually transmitted disease.
Mechnikov also developed a theory that aging is caused by toxic bacteria in the gut and that lactic acid could prolong life. Based on his theory, he drank sour milk every day. He died in 1916 at 71 years of age (well above the average life expectancy of the general population at the time and a slightly more than other notable scientists of his time), after writing three books: Immunity in Infectious Diseases, The Nature of Man, and The Prolongation of Life: Optimistic Studies.
It was the last of these works, along with Metchnikoff's studies into the potential life-lengthening properties of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that inspired Japanese scientist Minoru Shirota to begin investigating the causal relationship between bacteria and good intestinal health. Convinced that a healthy balance of intestinal bacteria held the key to man's general well-being, Shirota dedicated his life and work to isolating a strain of LAB which would pass into the intestines, positively contributing to the balance of gut flora. In 1935, he succeeded in cultivating a unique bacterium, sufficiently robust to bypass the acidic environment of the stomach and enter the intestines directly. He placed this pioneering strain into a fermented milk drink in order to make its benefits accessible to all - this drink remains available worldwide today (in a recipe almost unchanged from Shirota's original formula) as the Yakult drink.
[edit] Personal life
Mechnikov was married to his first wife Ludmilla Feodorovitch in 1863 who died from tuberculosis on 20 April 1873. Her death, combined with other problems, caused Mechnikov to unsuccessfully attempt suicide, taking a large dose of opium. He married again in 1875, to Olga Belokopytova who died in 1880 from typhoid. After her death, he made another failed attempt at taking his life by injecting himself with relapsing fever, from which he became very ill. He died in 1916 in Paris from heart failure.
[edit] References
- Microbe Hunters, by Paul De Kruif (p. 1926)
- Schmalstieg, Frank C; Goldman Armond S (May. 2008). "Ilya Ilich Metchnikoff (1845-1915) and Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915): the centennial of the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine". Journal of Medical Biography (England) 16 (2): 96-103. doi:. ISSN 0967-7720. PMID 18463079.
- Breathnach, C S (September 1984). "Biographical sketches--No. 44. Metchnikoff". Irish medical journal (IRELAND) 77 (9): 303. ISSN 0332-3102. PMID 6384135.
- Karnovsky, M L (May. 1981). "Metchnikoff in Messina: a century of studies on phagocytosis". N. Engl. J. Med. (UNITED STATES) 304 (19): 1178-80. ISSN 0028-4793. PMID 7012622.
- Lavrova, L N (September 1970). "[I. I. Mechnikov and the significance of his legacy for the development of Soviet science (on the 125th anniversary of his birth)]". Zh. Mikrobiol. Epidemiol. Immunobiol. (USSR) 47 (9): 3-5. ISSN 0372-9311. PMID 4932822.
[edit] External links
- Nobel biography
- Books written by I.I.Mechnikov (In Russian)
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