Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovsky (alternative spelling ''Dmitrii'' or ''Dmitry Iwanowski''; ; 28 October 1864 – 20 June 1920) was a Russian botanist, the co-discoverer of :viruses (1892), and one of the founders of

virology Virology is the Scientific method, scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host (biology), ...

Life

Ivanovsky was born in the village of Nizy, Gdov Uyezd. He studied at the

University of Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

under

Andrei Famintsyn Andrei Sergeyevich Famintsyn (; 29 June (Old Style, O.S. 17 June) 1835, Moscow – 8 December 1918, Petrograd) was a Russian Empire, Russian botanist, public figure, and academician of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1884). Career Famintsy ...

in 1887, when he was sent to

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

and

Bessarabia Bessarabia () is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova, with the Budjak region covering the southern coa ...

to investigate a tobacco disease causing great damage to plantations located there at the time. Three years later, he was assigned to look into a similar disease occurrence of tobacco plants, this time raging in the

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

region. He discovered that both incidents of disease were caused by an extremely minuscule infectious agent, capable of permeating porcelain

Pasteur-Chamberland filter A Chamberland filter, also known as a Pasteur–Chamberland filter, is a porcelain water filter invented by Charles Chamberland in 1884. It was developed after Henry Doulton's ceramic water filter of 1827. It is similar to the Berkefeld filter ...

s, something which bacteria could never do. He described his findings in an article (1892) and a dissertation (1902). Then he worked at the

Imperial University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well as 100 specializat ...

and at Donskoy University in

Rostov on Don Rostov-on-Don is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East European Plain on the Don River, from the Sea of Azov, directly north of th ...

. In 1898, the Dutch microbiologist

Martinus Beijerinck Martinus Willem Beijerinck (, 16 March 1851 – 1 January 1931) was a Dutch microbiologist and botanist who was one of the founders of virology and environmental microbiology. He is credited with the co-discovery of viruses A virus i ...

independently replicated Ivanovsky's experiments and became convinced that the filtered solution contained a new form of infectious agent, which he named virus. Beijerinck subsequently acknowledged Ivanovsky's priority in the discovery of the filterable, submicroscopic entity.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ivanovski, Dmitri 1864 births 1920 deaths Saint Petersburg State University alumni Russian virologists 19th-century botanists from the Russian Empire Russian scientists Academic staff of the University of Warsaw