Science
Lothar Wieler becomes spokesman at the Hasso Plattner Institute
Lothar Wieler, still President of the Robert Koch Institute, is moving to the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam. photo
© Carsten Koall/dpa
He was a central figure in the corona pandemic. Only recently Lothar Wieler surprisingly announced his retirement from the head of the Robert Koch Institute. But a new task is already waiting.
After retiring as President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler will move to the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) in Potsdam on April 1. He will be spokesman for the new Digital Health cluster, which deals with the digitization of medicine and healthcare, as the HPI and the Hasso Plattner Foundation announced on Tuesday.
After eight years at the head of the RKI, Wieler said he was looking forward to the opportunity to bring his experience from the public health sector and the fight against pandemics to the HPI. “This pandemic will not be the last, but we can better prepare for the next one by drawing the right conclusions and investing in research now.”
Wieler announced three weeks ago that he would be leaving the RKI on April 1 of his own volition in order to be able to devote himself to “new tasks in research and teaching”. Wieler was a central figure in the corona pandemic. Especially at the beginning he regularly informed about the development at press conferences. Most recently, the 61-year-old appeared less often in public.