Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM)

Nicola Low on the board of directors of the new Multidisciplinary Center for Infectious Diseases and Immunity (MCIDI)

Nicola Low

27.01.2021 - Despite widespread warnings from the WHO in 2019 about the risks and the prediction of a «disease X», the COVID-19 pandemic caught the world completely off guard. This event has demonstrated the sensitivity to epidemics and pandemics from interdependency of societies, as infectious pathogens have the capability of posing an existential threat to the world’s population, nations, economy and science in a globalized era.

The University of Bern is establishing a multidisciplinary center to study the origin and course of infectious diseases and their impact on health, society and economics. The new research center is to receive some 30 million Swiss Francs financial support from the Vinetum Foundation over a period of 10 years. Prof. Nicola Low from ISPM will be on the board of directors as the leader of the epidemiology cluster. The epidemiology cluster currently comprises staff from ISPM: PD Dr. Christian Althaus, Dr. Julien Riou, Prof. Georgia Salanti, Prof. Gilles Wandeler, and Prof. Gertraud Schüpbach (Vetsuisse).