Eliava was born in Sachkhere. From 1909 to 1912 he studied medicine, at Novorossiysk University, continued his studies in Geneva until 1914, and graduated at Moscow University in 1916. The same year, he became head of the bacteriological laboratory in Trabzon, in 1917 he headed the bacteriological laboratory in Tbilisi. In 1918–1921, and again in 1926–1927, he worked at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he met Félix d'Hérelle, the co-discoverer of bacteriophages. Eliava got excited about the potential of bacteriophages in medical applications, and brought the research (and, eventually, d'Hérelle), to Tbilisi.
