Robert Koch Institute
Robert Koch Institut | |
Founded | 1 July 1891 |
---|---|
Type | Research institute |
Location | |
Area served | Germany |
Owner | German Federal Ministry of Health |
Key people | Lars Schaade (President) Johanna Hanefeld and Anke Engelbert (Acting Vice Presidents) |
Website | www.rki.de/EN |
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is a German federal government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention. It is located in Berlin and Wernigerode. As an upper federal agency, it is subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Health. It was founded in 1891 and is named for its founding director, the founder of modern bacteriology and Nobel laureate Robert Koch.
Tasks
The Robert Koch Institute monitors
RKI scientists regularly publish their results in scientific journals and in their own reports, e.g. the "Infectious Disease Epidemiology Annual Report", special reports on different diseases in Germany (influenza, tuberculosis, cancer), "Health in Germany". Apart from that, the Institute publishes several scientific periodicals, such as the monthly "Journal of Health Monitoring", "Epidemiological Bulletin" and the "Bundesgesundheitsblatt" (co-publisher). The institute is also home to various National Reference Centres and Consultant Laboratories. Around 15 scientific committees, such as the Standing Committee on Vaccination (STIKO) and the Commission for Hospital Hygiene and Infection Prevention (KRINKO), are also based at the Robert Koch Institute.[2]
RKI staff are involved in various international research projects and programmes, helping to tackle urgent public health problems such as the
Location and organisation
The Robert Koch Institute has its headquarters and two additional sites in Berlin (Nordufer, Seestraße, General-Pape-Straße) as well as a site in Wernigerode/Harz region.[citation needed]
RKI's focus is on research, some 450 of about 1,100 members of staff are scientists. The institute consists of the following units.[6]
- Department for Infectious Diseases
- Department for Epidemiology and Health Reporting
- Department for Infectious Disease Epidemiology
- Centre for Biological Threats and Special Pathogens
- Centre for International Health Protection
- Methodology and Research Infrastructure
- Project groups (Immune Defense Mechanisms; Acinetobacter baumanii; Epidemiology of Highly Pathogenic Microorganisms; Epidemiological Modelling of Infectious Diseases; Virulence Factors in Salmonella and Campylobacter)
- Junior research groups (Microbial Genomics; Metabolism of Microbial Pathogens)
- Staff units (e.g. Global Health and Biosecurity; Genetic Engineering)
- Central services (e.g. Human Resources)
A museum presenting the life and work of Robert Koch as well as of the institute today is located at the main building at Nordufer site and open to visitors from Monday to Friday. The mausoleum with Robert Koch's remains can also be visited.[7]
History
The institute was formed by the later Nobel Prize laureate Robert Koch in 1891 as the Royal Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases.[8] Koch lived until the age of 66, when he died of a heart attack in Baden-Baden, on 27 May 1910; his ashes were buried in a mausoleum in his institute on 10 December 1910.[9] The director from 1917 to 1933 was Fred Neufeld who discovered the pneumococcal types.[10] Neufeld's Deputy Director from 1919 to 1933 was Walter Levinthal.[citation needed]
During the
In 1952 the Institute became a subordinate agency of the Federal Health Agency. Following the German reunification in 1990, some former GDR health agencies were (partly) integrated in the Robert Koch Institute. One of them was the Institute for Experimental Epidemiology in Wernigerode/Harz region, which is still an RKI location today. In 1994, the Federal Health Agency was dissolved, and RKI became an independent federal agency within the portfolio of the German Federal Ministry of Health. Two of the former Federal Health Agency's institutes, the Berlin-based AIDS centre and the "Institut für Sozialmedizin und Epidemiologie" (Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology), were attached to the Robert Koch Institute. The RKI – which until then was occupied with infectious diseases alone – now had a second big topic: non-communicable diseases and their risk factors.[13]
In 2020, the institute was responsible for publishing
Presidents
Since its inception in 1891, the RKI has had 15 individual presidents.[16]
- Robert Koch (1891–1904)
- Georg Gaffky (1904–1913)
- Friedrich Loeffler (1913–1915)
- Fred Neufeld (1915–1933)
- Friedrich Karl Kleine (1933–1934)
- Richard Otto (1934–1935)
- Eugen Gildemeister (1935–1945)
- Otto Lentz (1945–1949)
- Bruno Harms (1949–1952)
- Georg Henneberg (1952–1969)
- Hansjürgen Raettig, Karl-Ernst Gillert, Hans Kröger, Wilhelm Weise (board of directors) (1970–1984)
- Wilhelm Weise (1985–1990)
- Hans Kröger, Joachim Weltz, Hans Hoffmeister (acting) (1990–1996)
- Reinhard Kurth (1996–2008)
- Jörg Hacker (2008–2010)
- Reinhard Burger (2010–2015)
- Lothar H. Wieler (2015–2023)
- Lars Schaade (2022–)
Notable people
- Robert Koch (1843–1910), German physician and microbiologist. Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology in 1905.[citation needed]
- Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915), Nobel Prize winning physician.[citation needed]
- Emil von Behring (1854–1917), German physiologist. Received the first Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology in 1901.[citation needed]
- Claus Schilling (1871–1946), German experimenter in Nazi human concentration camp experiments executed for war crimes, director of the tropical medicine division at the institute.[citation needed]
See also
References
- ^ "Protecting Health – Assessing Risks. Who we are, what we look back on, what we do and will do" (PDF). rki.de/EN. 2016. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
- ^ "The Public Health Institute. 125 Years Robert Koch Institute" (PDF). rki.de/EN. 2016. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
- ^ "Reports from the field: RKI staff responds to the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa". rki.de/EN. 2016. Archived from the original on 18 October 2020. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
- ^ "RKI's International Activities". rki.de/EN. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
- ^ "The BSL-4 laboratory at the Robert Koch Institute". rki.de/EN. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
- ^ "The Institute – Departments and Units". rki.de. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
- ^ "Museum and Mausoleum at RKI". rki.de/EN. Archived from the original on 1 April 2020. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
- ^ "RKI – Timeline of the Robert Koch Institute". rki.de. 3 December 2018. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
- ^ "RKI – Robert Koch". rki.de. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
- ISBN 978-0-12-802074-6.
- ISBN 978-1-10102230-6.
- ^ Hinz-Wessels, Annette. "Das Robert Koch-Institut im Nationalsozialismus" (PDF). rki.de (in German). pp. 15–17. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
- ISBN 978-3-89606-284-0.
- ^ "LATEST: Germany launches app in bid to monitor coronavirus spread". thelocal.de. 7 April 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- ^ Kelion, Leo (22 June 2020). "Ireland set to launch virus app despite UK delay". BBC News. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- ^ "RKI – Geschichte – Die Präsidenten des Robert-Koch-Instituts". rki.es (in German). Retrieved 9 March 2020.
External links
- Official website (in English)