Dr. Muna Abu Sin is Ambassador on Antimicrobial Resistance of the Federal Ministry of Health.

Trained as a medical doctor her focus is on infectious diseases and she is passionate about infection prevention and control. 

She is a public health professional with longstanding implementation experience in antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial use surveillance systems at the national and international level including at WHO.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Till Bärnighausen is the Alexander von Humboldt University Professor, and Director of the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH) at the Medical School and University Hospital of Heidelberg University, Germany.

Additionally, he serves as a senior faculty at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) in South Africa and fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies in the US.

His research interests are in the field of population health, with a particular focus on three areas: (i) establishing the causal impacts of large-scale global health interventions—such as HIV treatment, HIV prevention, and childhood vaccination—on health, economic and social outcomes; (ii) identifying and testing innovations to improve the delivery of global health interventions through public-sector health systems, and (iii) developing new methods for applied population-based health research. He has been the principal investigator on grants from a range of large science funders and has published over 800 peer-reviewed articles.

Jan Buer, MD, is a full professor of Medical Microbiology at the University Medicine Essen (UME) and since 2012 Dean of the Medical Faculty.

His research focuses on immune responses to acute and chronic infections, immune tolerance in autoimmune and cancer diseases, molecular diagnostics, multi-drug resistant pathogens, Lyme disease, skin infections, and tumor-associated infections, including the COVID-19 pandemic. He has published over 300 articles and reviews in international journals and serves as a reviewer for national (DFG, Leibniz Association) and international funding agencies (Genome Canada, NIAID, EU Framework Programme).

 He has held various important roles, including membership on the DFG review board, the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research supervisory board and the TWINCORE Scientific Advisory Board. He currently serves on the Hannover Medical School board and the Leibniz Research Alliance INFECTIONS advisory board, is a member of the DFG's Graduate College Selection Committee and serves as Advisory Professor of the Union Hospital, Wuhan, CN. From 2022-2024 he served as president of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology (DGHM).

Pau De Yebra Rodó comes from Barcelona, Catalonia, and he studied his bachelor degree in Microbiology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. During that time, he really enjoyed learning about immunology, infectious diseases and mathematics. He then decided to do a master degree in Bioinformatics as he was interested in linking the fields of  mathematics and microbiology together. Now he is at the end of his doctorate at IGB and IZW, analyzing the antimicrobial resistance distribution in water bodies. His project is funded by the Leibniz Research Alliance „INFECTIONS in an Urbanizing World – Humans, Animals, Environments“.

Dr. ir. Margo Diricks is a bioengineer trained at the University of Ghent (Belgium), where she completed a PhD focusing on the molecular engineering of glycosyltransferase enzymes.

After working for two years at a bioinformatics company, she joined the Research Center Borstel – Leibniz Lung Center in 2020 as a postdoctoral researcher. At the Research Center Borstel, Margo developed several bioinformatics pipelines to analyze, interpret, and visualize genomic data of emerging drug-resistant lung pathogens, including non-tuberculous mycobacteria, Haemophilus influenzae, and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Her work has advanced the understanding of the molecular epidemiology of these bacteria and enabled the monitoring of antibiotic resistance development.

In addition, Margo serves as the curator of the publicly available 7-loci MLST and cgMLST pubMLST typing schemes for Mycobacterium abscessus, which are widely used for molecular surveillance, as well as outbreak and transmission analysis.

Lisa Eichler is a geoinformatician in the research area Spatial Information and Modelling at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER). Her work focuses on the analysis of geodata with a landscape ecology background. She holds a Bachelor's degree in 'Landscape Use and Nature Conservation' and a Master's degree in 'Geoinformatics and Management'.

Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Grossart is head of the Aquatic Microbial Microbiology working group at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) and Professor of Aquatic Microbial Ecology and Functional Biodiversity at the University of Potsdam.

He studied biology at the Universities of Mainz and Constance and completed his doctorate at the Limnological Institute of the University of Constance on the diversity and biogeochemical role of aggregate-associated bacteria. After a postdoc at the Yigal Allon Kinneret Limnological Laboratory in Tiberias, Israel and a further postdoc at the Scripps Institution for Oceanography in San Diego, La Jolla, USA, he was an assistant at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM) at the University of Oldenburg.

He has been a research group leader at the IGB since 2002, where he investigates both the diversity and the ecological role of microbial communities in a wide variety of aquatic ecosystems. In recent years, his research group has focused on the spread of pathogenic bacteria and microbial antibiotic resistance in natural vs. urban waters. He is PI and member of the steering board of the Leibniz Research Alliance "INFECTIONS in an urbanizing world – Humans, Animals, Environments" as well as member of the "Leibniz Lab Pandemic preparedness".

Prof. Dr. Renate Hartwig is Professor of Empirical Development Economics at the Ruhr University Bochum and Head of the Research Group Population and Development at RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, Germany.

She is a development economist and demographer. Her expertise lies in global health problems including antimicrobial resistance. She studies health care and product markets, health care financing systems, and health care provider and patient behavior. In her current work, Renate studies, for example, antibiotic use by humans and in livestock production in Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Renate is also Lead Investigator and member of the Executive Committee of the Leibniz Research Alliance INFECTIONS in an Urbanizing World - Humans, Animals, Environment and member of the Technical Advisory Forum of the International Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions (ICARS).

In her other work she is researching the role of religion in access to and quality of health care, the role of religious messaging for health and fertility preferences. Renate’s methodological expertise are in randomized control trials, field experiments, survey design and econometric methods. She has a keen interest in decolonizing knowledge, opening up opportunities and capacity strengthening. In the past she has provided technical advice to governments and the Global North and South and interacted with the media on topics including social protection, health system strengthening and AMR.

Baban Kolte is a PhD researcher and bioinformatician at the Leibniz Institute DSMZ in Braunschweig, Germany. His doctoral project plays a central role in the Leibniz Research Alliance INFECTIONS, which focuses on investigating the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) across animals, the environment, and humans. This work leverages a multidisciplinary approach, integrating (meta)genomics, bioinformatics, bacteriology, and molecular epidemiology. Baban’s recent work has involved developing efficient computational pipelines to detect genetic determinants of AMR from both short- and long-read (meta)genomic sequencing data. Further details about his work can be found here: bit.ly/4jaKsGx.

Univ. Prof. Mag. Dr. rer. nat. Michaela Lackner is a distinguished expert in the field of medical mycology, currently serving as a University Professor for Experimental Mycology at the Institute of Hygiene and Medical Microbiology (HMM) at the Medical University of Innsbruck (MUI), Austria. She holds a Habilitation in Hygiene and Medical Microbiology from MUI (2016), a PhD in Natural Sciences (2010), and a Master of Science (2007) from Leopold Franzens University, Innsbruck.

Prof. Lackner's research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms and epidemiology of antifungal resistance, evaluating novel antimicrobial substances, and developing diagnostic tests. She is also dedicated to establishing novel animal-free drug evaluation platforms and assays. Her expertise is recognized internationally, and she holds the prestigious status of Fellow of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology (ECMM). Her group is part of the ECMM Excellent Center (Diamond status) for laboratory and clinical mycology at MUI.

Throughout her career, Prof. Lackner has held various academic positions at HMM, MUI, including Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Senior Postdoc, Head of Molecular Diagnostics and Deputy Director of the Institute for Hygiene and Medical Microbiology. She has authored over 100 publications in the field of medical mycology, contributing significantly to global treatment and diagnostic guidelines. Some of her notable recent publications include studies on antifungal resistance mechanisms and global guidelines for the diagnosis and management of rare mold infections.

In addition to her research and teaching responsibilities, Prof. Lackner runs a PhD training program on ONE HEALTH called MYCOS. She has supervised and co-supervised several PhD students, contributing to the development of the next generation of scientists in her field.

Prof. Lackner's professional achievements are complemented by her active participation in international studies and initiatives of organizations such as ESCMID, ESFIG, ECMM, FPCRI, ISHAM, and EAPCRI. She has also taken on leadership roles in clinical and translational working parties for mucormycosis and other international expert groups.

For more information, you can visit her profiles on ResearchGate and ECMM, or contact her via email at Michaela.Lackner@i-med.ac.at.

Sahar Saeedi Moghaddam holds a Bachelor's degree in Statistics and a Master's degree in Biostatistics. She is currently a PhD researcher specializing in Global Health Economics at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Germany. Her research focuses on the intersection of economics and global health, addressing critical issues that impact public health systems worldwide.

Sahar's primary scientific interests include population health metrics, where she explores methodologies to measure and analyze the health of populations in diverse contexts. She is also deeply engaged in research on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a global health challenge that threatens the efficacy of modern medicine. She is particularly interested in applying economic methods to evaluate the burden of AMR and develop effective strategies for its mitigation.  She has coauthored approximately 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including many in the leading journals, such as The Lancet, Nature, JAMA and The BMJ. Through her work, Sahar aims to contribute to evidence-based policymaking and foster sustainable solutions for improving health outcomes globally. By integrating statistics, biostatistics and economics, she seeks to provide actionable insights to address some of the most urgent challenges in global health.

Since 2014, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Nübel is head of the Microbial Genome Research group at the Leibniz Institute DSMZ and Professor of Microbial Genomics at the Technical University Braunschweig.

With his team, he investigates the evolution and spatial dispersal of bacteria, with a focus on pathogens and producers of novel antibiotics. By using large-scale DNA sequencing, they trace the emergence and spread of drug resistance and seek to accelerate the discovery of medically useful natural products.

Ulrich studied biotechnology at the TU Braunschweig and completed his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen and the University of Bremen. After a postdoctoral research stay at Montana State University in Bozeman (USA) he joined the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and Wernigerode, before taking on his current position.

Prof. Dr. Ulrich E. Schaible is CEO of the Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center, since 2021, after serving as Dept. Director Infection Biology (2008-2012), Program Director Infection (2012-2021) and Professor for Immunochemistry and Biochemical Microbiology at University of Luebeck (2008-today). Previous posts include Professor for Immunology at the London School for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2006-2008) and Group Leader at the Max-Planck-institute of Infection Biology, Berlin (1996-2006). He is founder and speaker of the Leibniz Research Alliance ‘INFECTIONS in an Urbanizing Word – Humans, Animals, Environments’ since 2015.

His research group Cellular Microbiology investigates host-pathogen interactions and innate immune responses, primarily, in tuberculosis but also in other lung infections with a focus on biofilm forming microbes. His interests include the role of the microbiota in lung infections and the development of novel host-directed therapies and nanomedicine-based antibiotics targeting pulmonary sites of infections.

Ulrich studied biology at the University of Freiburg and completed his PhD at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg. Following postdoctoral research at Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA, he moved to the Max-Planck-institute of Infection Biology, Berlin.

Dr. Michael Stolpe is a Senior Economist at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, in Germany, where he leads its research group on the global health economy.

He is a founding member of the DFG Cluster of Excellence "Precision Medicine," one of the world’s leading research collaborations on chronic inflammatory processes in the human body, associated with a wide range of diseases whose prevalence is rapidly increasing in many industrialized countries.

Michael Stolpe also serves as co-speaker and research lead of the focus area “pandemic management” within the new interdisciplinary Leibniz Lab “Pandemic Preparedness: One Health, One Future” that mobilizes experts from 41 Leibniz Research Institutes to generate evidence-based policy advice in preparation for and reaction to future pandemics. Michael Stolpe is also a principal investigator in two interdisciplinary Leibniz Research Alliances – namely “INFECTIONS in an Urbanizing World – Humans, Animals, Environments“, where his contribution addresses economic implications of antimicrobial resistance, and “Resilient Ageing”, where he explores sustainable health investment opportunities in ageing populations.

Michael Stolpe’s other research is focused on health inequalities, investments in health over the lifecycle, early retirement and pension policy, the social costs of HIV/AIDS, medical decision making, and innovation in health technology and medical practice. From previous projects, he has additional expertise in venture capital finance, international economics and economic growth. Michael Stolpe is an associate editor of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, the interdisciplinary Springer Nature journal for peer-reviewed academic research across the full spectrum of social sciences and the humanities, and sits on the editorial board of the Health Economics Review.

Prof. Heiman Wertheim is a professor in clinical microbiology and heads the clinical microbiology department at Radboud University Medical Center and is chair of the Radboud Center of Infectious Diseases (RCI). Until 2015, Heiman was director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) in Hanoi, Vietnam. He coordinated laboratory capacity strengthening and conducted research in Southeast Asia. One of his main interests is antibiotic resistance in both resource rich and resource constrained settings and does this through a multidisciplinary approach: One Health,  health systems, policy development, behavior, surveillance, prevention, genomics, and clinical trials. Heiman is currently part of the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on AMR (STAG-AMR). He is president of the Dutch Society of Medical Microbiology and president-elect for the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC).

Dr. Sigrid Weiland is working in the Policy Strategy Unit of DG Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE).

Having graduated in biology in Bonn, Germany, she holds a PhD for her work on genetic causes of human hereditary epilepsies.

Before joining the European Commission, she was business-developer in a biotech start-up company and was patent examiner in the area of biotechnology at the European Patent Office in Munich. Since 2005, she has worked on different life sciences and health-related subjects in several services of the European Commission, including the Joint Research Centre, DG Agriculture and DG Research and Innovation, most recently as Secretary of the European Commission’s Group of Chief Scientific Advisors (GCSA) and as Assistant to the Special Advisor on COVID-19 to the President of the European Commission. As Secretary of the GCSA she contributed to several scientific opinions, including on ‘New Techniques in Agricultural Biotechnology’, ‘Adaptation to Health Effects of Climate Change in Europe’ and ‘Towards a Sustainable Food System’.

In 2021 she joined DG SANTE and is following various health- and food-related files, including several ones for which the One Health approach is particularly relevant, such as antimicrobial resistance, climate change induced health impacts and non-communicable diseases.

Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Lothar H. Wieler, a veterinarian by training, is microbiologist and global public health expert. His research focuses on pandemics and infectious diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans, known as zoonoses. In his work he particularly concentrates on infections involving multi-resistant bacteria and investigates transmission mechanisms and microevolution, as well as disease-causing factors and disease control strategies.
Initially focusing his research on the molecular pathogenesis, genomic surveillance and evolution of infectious agents, he extended his research on public and global health, focusing on disease prevention and containment of pathogens with epidemic and pandemic potential. Currently Wieler further extends his research on the prevention of non-communicable diseases, conducting research in the field of digital health, focusing in particular on global public health issues. His goal is to reduce health inequalities by promoting digital public health, at local, national and international levels.