Alexandre Mikhailovich Besredka was born in Odessa, Ukraine, on March 27, 1870. He received his undergraduate degree in biology in 1892 and moved to Paris the following year, where he began his career at the Pasteur Institute as an assistant to Russian immunologist Elie Metchnikoff (Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov). He received his medical diploma in 1897, and in 1910 was granted French citizenship. Besredka specialized in describing the self-defense mechanisms of cells and researched immunologicals for a number of infectious diseases. His name is linked to the development of a desensitization technique for averting anaphylactic shock during serum therapy, a procedure now known as the “Besredka method.” During World War I, he served as a medical officer at Verdun and Bar-le-Duc. After the war, he replaced Metchnikoff, who had passed away, as section head at the Pasteur Institute. In the following years, he dedicated himself to researching the immunity of intestinal infections and infectious carbuncles. He died in Paris on February 28, 1940.