Professor Dr. Lothar H. Wieler, a former dean of research in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at Freie Universität Berlin, studied veterinary medicine at Freie Universität and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. He earned his doctorate in Munich on infectious diseases and completed his habilitation in the fields of infectious diseases and animal hygiene at Justus-Liebig-Universität in Gießen. Following a research stay at the Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, during the fall/winter term 1998/1999 Wieler accepted an appointment as Chair of Microbiology and Animal Health Research at Freie Universität. In 1997 he received the Young Investigator Award of the German Veterinary Medical Society (DVG), and in 2007 he was awarded the main prize of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology (VAH). Since 2007 he has been coordinator of the BMBF-funded network FBI-Zoo (Food-borne Zoonotic Infections of Humans), and since 2010 coordinator of the DFG-funded International Research Training Group, Functional Molecular Infection Epidemiology, which was set up jointly with the University of Hyderabad in India.

The German Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina, is the oldest academy in Germany involved in natural sciences and medicine. It was founded in 1652, and in 2008 it was appointed Germany’s National Academy of Sciences. Its members are appointed to ad-hoc commissions and working groups to issue statements and recommendations for policy makers and the broader public. They also represent German scientists in international academy circles.