Metchnikoff, ÉLie

(born May 16, 1845, near Kharkov, Ukraine, Russian Empire—died July 16, 1916, Paris, France) Russian zoologist and microbiologist. In 1888 Louis Pasteur offered him a post at the Pasteur Institute, and he succeeded Pasteur as director in 1895. Working with starfish, he discovered amoebalike cells in their systems that engulf foreign bodies such as bacteria. He established that phagocytes (as he named these cells, using the Greek for “devouring cells”) are the first line of defense against acute infection in most animals. This phenomenon, now known as phagocytosis, is fundamental to immunology. He shared a 1908 Nobel Prize with Paul Ehrlich.

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