Thanks to him, we knew about the existence of probiotics: Who is Élie Metchnikoff?

A scientist named Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, who lived between 1845 and 1916, discovered the basic principles of immunology and demonstrated the existence of probiotics. Mechnikov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1908 for his research on phagocytosis.

Russian physiologist and bacteriologist Élie Metchnikoff (1845-1916) is best known for his theory of phagocytic immunity. He also contributed to comparative pathology, evolutionary embryology, and microbiology.

Elie Metchnikoff was born on May 15, 1845, in the Ukrainian village of Ivanovka. He entered Kharkiv University at the age of 17; The following year he wrote his first scientific work, Some Facts from the Life of Infusoria, and at the age of 19 he completed his studies in the natural sciences. Rudolf Leuckart, father of modern parasitology.

Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (15 May 1845 – 15 July 1916), also spelled Élie Metchnikoff, was a Russian zoologist of Moldavian noble ancestry best known for his pioneering research in immunology. He and Paul Ehrlich were jointly awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "in recognition of their work on immunity".

Metchnikoff went to the universities of Göttingen and Munich. Returning to Russia in 1867, after presenting Sepiola's thesis on the History of Embryonal Development, he earned a master's degree in zoology and was appointed dozen to the University of Novorossiisk in Odessa. In 1868 St. He successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, The History of the Development of Nebalia, at St. Petersburg University.

Élie Metchnikoff, who had studied the relationship between microbes and the immune system early in his career, suggested after his experiments with starfish and larvae that white blood cells could destroy pathogens such as bacteria. He named this radical theory, which he stated, “phagocytosis”. Ridiculed by many microbiologists, including Pasteur, Élie Metchnikoff nevertheless won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1908.

Stating that microbes in the gut can have a bad effect on the host, Élie Metchnikoff also thought that the anaerobic breakdown of proteins by bacteria produces toxic substances. He associated this condition with various diseases such as atherosclerosis, dementia, and aging in general. Élie Metchnikoff also coined the term "dysbiosis" for the first time to describe an imbalance in the gut caused by too many pathogenic gut bacteria.

Probiotics

In the late 19th century, Ilya Élie Metchnikoff, the inventor of probiotics, formulated a theory linking dairy products and lactic acid bacteria. He suggested that acid formation by lactic acid bacteria would prevent the growth of bad bacteria in the gut. Élie Metchnikoff, who strongly believed in this theory he stated, consumed fermented milk products every day until he passed away. It took a long time for this theory, put forward by Ilya Ilyich Metsjnikov, to be taken seriously in the scientific world. Until the 1960s, research on this theory gained momentum and the term "probiotic" began to be used for microbes with a possible health-promoting effect on the person.