Leon Orbeli

Leon Abgarovich Orbeli (, Levon Abgari Orbeli; , Levon Abgarovich Orbeli;  – 9 December 1958) was an Armenian physiologist active in the Russian SFSR. He was a member of the Academies of Science of USSR and Armenian SSR (the latter was founded by his brother Joseph Orbeli). Leon Orbeli became director of the Institute of Physiology in 1950. Orbeli played an important part in the development of evolutionary physiology and wrote more than 200 works on experimental and theoretical science, 130 of them journal articles. Career Levon (or Leon) Orbeli was born in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia (then Darachichag, Yerevan Governorate, Russian Empire). He graduated from the Gymnasium in Tbilisi in 1899 and entered the Imperial Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg. While still a student in the second course he began to work in the laboratory of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849–1936). For the next thirty-five years, Orbeli's life and scientific career were closely connected with the work of Pavlov. Orbeli graduated from the Military Medical Academy in 1904 and became an intern at the Nikolai Hospital in Kronstadt, the Naval Hospital in St. Petersburg. This gave him the opportunity to continue his experimental research in Pavlov's laboratory.