Professor Christian Drosten

Dr Christian Drosten is a physician and virologist (board certificate in medical microbiology, virology and infection epidemiology). He is currently the head of the Institute of Virology at Charité Medical Center in Germany.

His research interests are in evolutionary and epidemiological aspects of virus emergence. He has worked on the diversity of RNA viruses in mammals and insects, with a focus over several years on coronavirus diversity in bats and other mammalian hosts. His previous research in epidemiological virology has focused on MERS-coronavirus in the Middle East and Africa, working on humans as well as animals. In functional virology the focus has been on virus virulence functions of MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, as well as SARS-CoV-2 with a particular interest on replication fitness and interferon-related evasion of host responses.