Georg Peters

Georg Peters (March 11, 1951 in Asperden – August 8, 2018 Karwendel) was a German physician, microbiologist and university professor. From 1992 until his fatal mountain accident he headed the Institute of Medical Microbiology at the University of Münster. He was an internationally recognised expert in the field of staphylococci and the infectious diseases caused by them, to which he had devoted himself since the beginning of his scientific career.

Professional career Georg Peters came from a simple farming background. He studied human medicine at the University of Cologne, where he passed the state examination in 1975 and received his doctorate in 1976. After professional stations at the Children's Hospital Norderney and at the Clinic for Internal Medicine II at the University Hospital Cologne, he worked for several years at the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene at the University of Cologne, first as a research assistant, later as a senior physician. In 1982, he was recognised as a specialist in microbiology and infection epidemiology in Cologne and went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for one year on a scholarship by the German Research Foundation (DFG). His reputation in this field was reflected, among other things, in his election as vice-president (1991) and president (1993) of the "Gordon Research Conference on Staphylococcal Diseases".

He was able to inspire young academics to research pathogens and was awarded the teaching prize by the students of the Medical Faculty of the University of Münster several times.

Peters fought with dedication for the expansion of medical microbiology and infectious medicine in Germany. The German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology (DGHM) held a "Georg Peters Memorial Lecture" at its 71st Annual Meeting in Göttingen, and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) held a "Georg Peters Memorial Session" on coagulase-negative staphylococci at the 29th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Amsterdam.

Activity in committees/specialist societies Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hygiene und Mikrobiologie, president from 1998 to 2000 German Paul Ehrlich Society for Chemotherapy, president from 2002 to 2004 Robert-Koch-Institut, since 2003 on the scientific advisory board, from 2009 its chairman. German Research Foundation (DFG) Collaborative Research Centres "Mechanisms of inflammation" and "Breaking barriers", Spokesperson Board of trustees of the German Sepsis Foundation Incentive program Innovative Medical Research (IMF) Münster, chairman from 1996 to 2002 Board of Directors of the Dr Mildred Scheel Foundation for Cancer Research, since 2015 Federation of bioscientific and biomedical societies, Vice-President (today: Federation of Biology, Biosciences and Biomedicine in Germany) Advisory board of the medical journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt