Odesa University

The Odesa I.I.Mechnykov National University, often referred to as Odesa National University, located in Odesa, Ukraine, is one of that country's major state-sponsored universities, named after the scientist Élie Metchnikoff (1845-1916), who studied immunology, microbiology, and evolutionary embryology, and won a Nobel Prize in 1908. The university was founded in 1865 by an edict of Emperor Alexander II of Russia which reorganized the Richelieu Lyceum of Odessa into the new Imperial Novorossiya University. In the Soviet era, the university was renamed Odesa I. I. Mechnykov State University.