Christian Drosten

Director of the department of virology at Charité Medical Center in Berlin

Christian Drosten is a physician and virologist (board certificate in medical microbiology, virology and infection epidemiology). His research is focused on clinical, epidemiological and evolutionary aspects of RNA viruses. He has specific working experience on the diversity and animal origins of emerging coronaviruses (CoV) such as SARS- and MERS-CoV with field activities in the Middle East and Africa, working on humans as well as animals. His experimental work focuses on MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 with a particular interest on replication and evasion of interferon and antibody responses during viral adaptation. During the COVID-19 crisis his laboratory has made relevant contributions to clinical and epidemiological virology problems such as virus testing, viral load, antibodies, vaccination and antibody escape. His current interest is on functional changes during the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants. He is the director of the department of virology at Charité Medical Center in Berlin.