Professor Dr Petra Gastmeier studied medicine in Halle and at the Universitätsmedizin Berlin –Charité. In 1985, she completed her docotrate at the Institute for Hygiene at the Universitätsmedizin Berlin –Charité. For her PhD she received the Robert Koch Award of the Humboldt University. In 1990 she became hospital hygienist at the Ernst von Bergmann Hospital in Potsdam and held a teaching position at the Institute for Hygiene of the Free University Berlin. Beginning in 1993 she also was a research assistant and later senior physician there. In 2000 she became an associated professor for hospital hygiene at the Hannover Medical School and in 2007 she transitioned to a Full-Professor for hygiene at the Universitätsmedizin Berlin – Charité. Since 2008 she is also Director of the Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine of the Universitätsmedizin Berlin – Charité and heads the National Reference center for the surveillance of nosocomial infections. Professor Gastmeier is member of the board of the interdisciplinary research consortium InfectControl and holds many other offices in the scientific and medical community. She serves on advisory boards of the World Health Organization as well as in many working groups of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.