Christian Drosten receives award for outstanding achievements in scientific communication
Prof. Dr. Christian Drosten, Director of Charité’s Institute of Virology and scientist in the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), has been awarded the ‘Special Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scientific Communication during the COVID-19 Pandemic’. Presented by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and ‘Stifterverband’ (Donor’s Association), the award carries a prize of €50,000.
The prize, which recognizes Prof. Drosten's outstanding achievements in the field of science and in the promotion of the public understanding of science, was awarded by the DFG and Stifterverband. Commenting on their decision, the awarding committee emphasized the significance of Prof. Drosten’s unique position as an advocate for science and the role it must play during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to his role as Director of the Institute of Virology on Campus Charité Mitte, Prof. Drosten also holds a Professorship at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) and conducts research at the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF). Expressing his delight at the award, he says: “This pandemic represents a set of highly exceptional circumstances for our country. Our ability to meet the challenges involved will, in my view, depend on how well the public is informed about the state of the outbreak and the biological mechanisms underpinning it. It is therefore of particular importance to me that the current state of knowledge regarding the SARS-2 virus – including areas where uncertainty remains – should be communicated to the public as promptly and as comprehensively as possible. Only by doing so will people feel enabled to make up their own minds, to overcome their fears, and to make decisions in their daily lives which will have an impact on the spread of the infection.”
Created as a one-time award by the DFG and Stifterverband, the Special Award will not replace but complement the 2020 Communicator Prize.
Prof. Dr. Christian Drosten
After passing his State medical licensing examinations in May 2000, Christian Drosten moved to the German Red Cross (DRK) Institute for Transfusion Medicine and Immunohaematology in Hesse, where he completed a doctorate on the development of a high-throughput virus screening system for blood donors. Shortly after completing his doctorate, he moved to the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, where he specialized in Microbiology, Virology and Infectious Disease Epidemiology. During his time in Hamburg, he developed a research program dedicated to the diagnosis of tropical viral diseases. His discoveries include the infectious agent responsible for SARS. As its Founding Director, Prof. Drosten led the University of Bonn's Institute of Virology from 2007 to early 2017. Since the DZIF’s foundation in 2012, Prof. Drosten has been involved in coordinating its ‘Emerging Infections’ unit. In 2017, he was appointed Director of Charité's Institute of Virology, Head of the Department of Virology at Labor Berlin – Charité Vivantes GmbH, and Spokesperson for the National Research Network for Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. Prof. Drosten is also the Scientific Director of Charité Global Health, an interdisciplinary research center established in 2018.
Source: Charité's press release
