Christoph Lange awarded the Spinoza Chair

Prof. Christoph Lange

© FZ Borstel

The University of Amsterdam has awarded the Spinoza Chair in Medicine for the academic year 2016/2017 to DZIF Professor Christoph Lange, Research Center Borstel/ University of Lübeck.  Lange is scientist DZIF scientist, co-coordinating the research field "Tuberculosis"

The Spinoza Chair was established in 1995 by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam in honor of the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Each year the award goes to two high-profile laureates one in medicine and the other in philosophy.

Lange will be attending the University of Amsterdam for one week in March 2017 to present lectures to the faculty, conduct master classes with residents and medical students and to deliver a public "Spinoza lecture".

Lange studied Biology at the University Kiel and Medicine at the University Witten-Herdecke. Part of his clinical education and research was conducted in Cape Town, South Africa, and Cleveland, USA. In 2014 he was appointed as Chair of International Health / Infectious Diseases at the University of Lübeck and Head of Clinical Infectious Diseases at the Medical Clinic of the Research Center Borstel.  He is Foreign adjunct Professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

The expert in tuberculosis focuses on improving clinical care of patients by precision medicine. He is a co-founder of the Tuberculosis Network European Trialsgroup (TBNET) which in addition to conducting collaborative research is supporting education of physicians and scientists in Eastern Europe.

Tuberculosis is a major global public health problem: nine million people contract TB every year; 1.5 million die from the disease. There is still no vaccine against TB and the therapy often takes many months. DZIF scientists in the research field "Tuberculosis" investigate new methods for prevention and diagnosis.