Victor Babeș was a Romanian physician, bacteriologist, academician and professor. One of the founders of modern microbiology, Victor Babeș is author of one of the first treatises of bacteriology in the world – Bacteria and their role in pathological anatomy and histology of infectious diseases, written in collaboration with French scientist Victor André Cornil in 1885. In 1888, Babeș underlies the principle of passive immunity, and a few years later enunciates the principle of antibiosis. He made early and significant contributions to the study of rabies, leprosy, diphtheria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. He also discovered more than 50 unknown germs and foresaw new methods of staining bacteria and fungi. Victor Babeș introduced rabies vaccination and founded serotherapy in Romania.

The Babeș-Bolyai University is a public research university located in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. It was created from a 1959 merger of Bolyai University and Victor Babeș University, whose histories can be traced to the Jesuit Academy of Kolozsvár founded in 1581. It occupies the first position in the University Metaranking, initiated by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research in 2016