Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine

Founded in 1900, the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM), originally a department of the Hamburg Health Authority, has been an independent, non-profit research institution in the form of a foundation under public law based in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg since 2008. By the foundation's purpose, the BNITM is dedicated to research, teaching, training and further education as well as counselling and care in the field of tropical diseases and emerging infectious diseases. The institute combines modern laboratory research on the biology of pathogens, their reservoirs and vectors with clinical research on the pathophysiology, epidemiology and disease control of tropical diseases in endemic areas. Current foci are malaria, worm infections and other parasitic diseases, diseases caused by arboviruses and haemorrhagic fever viruses, and the development of new diagnostics. To handle highly pathogenic pathogens and infected insects, the Institute has laboratories of the highest biological safety (BSL-3, BSL-4) and a safety insectarium (BSL-3).

Role within eWHORM

In eWHORM, BNITM leads the “Capacity Building & Training Activities" work package. Thus, BNITM will implement appropriate training for clinical trial conduct at International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) and GXP. BNITM will train and build capacities within a series of short-term training modules that cover all relevant aspects of clinical trial conduct and clinical trial research, including the development of SOPs, how to set up data banks, how to manage FAIR data and how to communicate the obtained results, developing a clinical trial protocol, regulatory processes and authorizations, biostatistics and valorise the generated R&I knowledge.