Elie Metchnikoff was born in 1845 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He was a Russian-born zoologist and microbiologist who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1908.
He proposed the theory of cellular immunity which describes the protective immune process of an organism, where individual cells of the immune system recognize and react to invading germs by engulfing and destroying them. These immune cells are called white blood cells or leukocytes and work as the first line of defence against foreign bodies (antigens).
Leukocytes are made up of phagocytes and lymphocytes. Whilst phagocytes swallow foreign particles, lymphocytes keep a memory of previous invaders so that the body can act against them if they attack again. Metchnikoff was the first to discover the white blood cells called phagocytes and suggest that these cells had an immune function in our bodies. This process is called phagocytosis and laid the foundation of the theory of cellular immunity. Metchnikoff is therefore called the “Father of Innate Immunity”.
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