Christian Drosten

Christian Heinrich Maria Drosten (German: [ˈkʁɪs.ti̯an ˈdʁɔs.tn̩] ^ⓘ, born 1972) is a German virologist whose field of research broadly concerns RNA-viruses, specifically in the areas of ecology, epidemiology and evolution of novel viruses (emergent viruses). During the COVID-19 pandemic, Drosten's extensive work on previously described Coronaviruses (MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV) enabled him and his laboratory to notably contribute to the efforts to identify, monitor and manage the spread of SARS-CoV2, which led to his national prominence as an expert on the implications and actions required to combat the illness in Germany.

Drosten was born in Lingen and grew up on a farm in Groß Hesepe [de], Emsland. After graduating from the episcopal college Gymnasium Marianum [de] in Meppen, Drosten initially studied chemical engineering and biology in Dortmund and Münster. From 1994, he studied medicine at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and completed his third state examination in May 2000. He did his doctorate at the Institute for transfusion medicine and immunohaematology of the German Red Cross (DRK) blood donation service Hessen in Frankfurt am Main. His dissertation (Dr. med.) on the establishment of a high-throughput system for testing blood donors was rated summa cum laude.

From June 2000, Drosten worked as an intern in the laboratory group of the physician Herbert Schmitz in the virology department of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM) in Hamburg, where he headed the laboratory group Molecular Diagnostics and established a research program for the molecular diagnostics of tropical viral diseases. From 2007, Drosten headed the Institute of Virology at University Hospital Bonn. During this time he worked with Isabella Eckerle, who would go on to lead the department of emerging viruses at the University of Geneva. In 2017, he accepted a call to the Charité in Berlin, where he heads the Institute of Virology.

From 2017 until 2019, Drosten was a member of the German Ministry of Health's International Advisory Board on Global Health, chaired by Ilona Kickbusch. Since 2022, he has been serving on the Technical Advisory Panel of the joint World Bank/World Health Organization Pandemic Fund.

Drosten was nominated by Alliance 90/The Greens as delegate to the Federal Conventions for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2022.

Drosten is committed to the transparent distribution of scientific data and therefore, publishes in specialist journals such as Eurosurveillance, where all articles are freely available online.

In 2017 Drosten warned that the SARS virus potential needed to be investigated. On 23 January 2020, Drosten, along with other virologists in Europe and Hong Kong, published a workflow of a real-time PCR (RT-PCR) diagnostic test, which was accepted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and which sent test kits to affected regions.

On 19 February 2020, Drosten, along with 26 other scientists, published the Lancet letter in support of scientists and medical professionals in China fighting the outbreak and condemning theories suggesting that the virus does not have a natural origin, which it referred to as "conspiracy theories."