Jonathan Baum studied biochemistry at the Freie Universität Berlin. He was a visiting researcher at the Weizmann Institute in Israel and at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. His interest in disease control led him to work for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in the German Biosecurity Program. Working for the European Mobile Laboratory in Guinea he helped to contain the Ebola out-break. As a Mercator Fellow, he will focus on the international control of pandemics, with a particular interest in the “white helmets“ proposed by the German Federal Government.