January    2014      Volume 3    Number 1          ISSN：2305‐5154 (Print)    2306‐6210 (Online)        ‐ 1 ‐ 

People @ Virology

Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovsky - Founders of Virology

By Yan Wei*
Department of Environmental Hygiene, School of Public Health, Guiyang medical University,
Guiyang, P.R. China, 550004

minuscule infectious agent in the Crimea

Prof. Ivanovsky(1864-1920)
Prof. Ivanovsky was born on October
28, 1864, Village of Nizy, Gdov Uyezd, St.
Petersburg Governorate, Russian Empire.
He was a Russian botanist, one of the
discoverers of filterable nature of viruses,
and thus one of the founders of virology [1].
He studied at the University of St.
Petersburg in 1887, and was sent to
Ukraine and Bessarabia to investigate a
tobacco disease. He discovered that both
diseases were caused by an extremely
  *:Yan Wei,    Ph.D., major in Environmental Health 
Tel: 86‐0851‐6908908    Fax: 86‐0851‐6908908
E‐mail: weiyan925@foxmail.com 
region. The agent was capable of
permeating porcelain Chamberland filters,
something which bacteria could never do.
He described his findings in an article
(1892) [2] and a dissertation (1902) [3]. Six
years later, Martinus Beijerinck[4], a
microbiologist in the Netherlands, replicat-
-ed Ivanovski's experiment and convince-
-ingly showed that the disease was caused
by an infectious life form of some kind,
which he named virus. Unlike bacteria,
however, which can reproduce
independently, this life form could only
reproduce by infecting tobacco leaves.
Beijerinck subsequently acknowledged
Ivanovsky's priority of discovery [1].
This mysterious life form became
known as tobacco mosaic virus - the first
virus to be recognized. Tobacco mosaic
virus (TMV) is a positive-sense single
stranded RNA virus that infects plants,
especially tobacco and other members of
the family Solanaceae. TMV was the first
virus to ever be discovered. Although it
was known from the late 19th century that
 

Copyright©2012‐2014 Published by Hongkong Institute of Biologicals Standardization Limited.   
All rights reserved.
 ‐ 2 ‐          ISSN：2305‐5154 (Print)      2306‐6210 (Online)                                        J. Appl. Virol.   

an infectious disease was damaging tobacco Reference

crops, it was not until 1930 that the infectious [1]. Lustig A, Levine A J. One hundred
agent was determined to be a virus. years of virology [J]. Journal of
For the great achievement, and the memory of virology, 1992, 66(8): 4629.
Prof. Ivanovsky, A stamp (See below) was [2]. Ivanowski D. Concerning the
made up by the Union of Soviet Socialist mosaic disease of the tobacco plant.
Republics in 1964. St. Petersburg Acad Imp Sci Bul
1892; 35:60–7. English edition:
Ivanowski D (Trans: Johnson J). In:
Phytopathological classics. Number
7. St. Paul, MN: American
Phytopathological Society Press;
1942. p. 27–30.
[3]. Iwanowski D. Über die
mosaikkrankheit der tabakspflanze
[J]. Zeitschr. Pflanzenkrankh, 1903,
13: 1-41.
[4]. Tang C. Biography of Professor
Martinus Willem Beijerinck [J].
Journal of Applied Virology, 2013,
2(3): 4-5.

Copyright©2012‐2014 Published by Hongkong Institute of Biologicals Standardization Limited. 
  All rights reserved.