Dmitry Iosifovich Ivanovsky (1864 – 1920) – Russian plant physiologist and microbiologist, founder of virology (Rostov State University). At the Southern Federal University, the name of the outstanding microbiologist is named after the Academy of Biology and Biotechnology – ABiB named after. DI. Ivanovsky.

The discovery of viruses played a huge role in the development of biology, medicine, veterinary medicine and phytopathology. It made it possible to decipher the etiology of diseases such as rabies, smallpox and encephalitis. Dmitry Ivanovsky also studied the process of alcoholic fermentation and the influence of oxygen, chlorophyll and other pigments of green leaves involved in the process of photosynthesis on it. His work on general agricultural microbiology is also known.

Ivanovsky was a Darwinist, he emphasized the dependence of organisms on environmental conditions and proved the evolutionary significance of this fact. Subsequently, Ivanovsky conducted a scientific study of the air nutrition of plants; he focused his attention on studying the state of plant chlorophyll, the importance of carotene and xanthophyll for plants, the resistance of chlorophyll to light in a living leaf and the second maximum of assimilation.

In 1915, the University of Warsaw, where Ivanovsky worked, was evacuated to Rostov. It was not possible to transport the laboratory that Ivanovsky had been creating for many years, and the scientist had to recreate it in a new place from scratch. The Academy of Biology and Biotechnology of SFU is named after D.I. Ivanovsky.

In recognition of the scientist’s outstanding services to virological science, the Institute of Virology of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences (now RAMS) was named after him in 1950, and the Ivanovsky Prize was established at the Academy of Medical Sciences, which is awarded once every three years for the best scientific work in virology.