Climate change, increasing world population, and the concomitant encroachment of humans into natural habitats are creating new transmission routes and increasing the risk for zoonotic diseases. This implies that global human health is a product of human interactions with animals and the environment. As a result, approaches focused on human or animal health in isolation, will fail at understanding disease emergence and hinder the development of preventive measures. Integrative transdisciplinary approaches working in an One Health framework, which focus on the health of humans and animals within their environment, are clearly needed to deal with these complex multifaceted problems.
Fabian Leendertz is the founding director of the Helmholtz Institute for One Health in Greifswald and heads one of its three departments: “Ecology and emergence of zoonotic diseases”. He is veterinarian by training with scientific focus on understanding the „where“, „how“, and „why“ microorganisms transfer from one species to another. To address these questions, he worked on viruses, bacteria, parasites, and more recently also bacteriophages. Each project builds on a One Health framework, including both data on the host and the surrounding environment.
Begrüßung und Moderation: Professorin Dr. Ulla Bonas