The Hindu News

Ilya Mechnikov and Paul Ehrlich: Nobel laureates who defined the scientific foundations of immunology

The 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine recognised Ilya Mechnikov and Paul Ehrlich for research that explained how the body resists infection. By establishing the cellular and molecular mechanisms of immunity, their work transformed scattered observations into a structured biological discipline and laid the groundwork for vaccines, immunotherapy and modern public health practice.