The Department of Infectious Dis-eases under the medical leadership of Professor Oliver Witzke was founded in 2015 as part of the West German Centre for Infectious Dis-eases (WZI). The major focus of the Department is the interdisciplinary management of infectious diseases in the context of immunosuppression. Connecting expertise from various medical fields, infectious disease specialists work closely with microbiologists, virologists, nephrologists, hepatologists and immunologists to develop optimal prevention, diagnosis and treat-ment for the benefit of patients. This pooling of expertise is a real advantage, with doctors and sci-entists involved in diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases collaborating closely on an inter-disciplinary basis. Together with Professor Benjamin Wilde, profes-sor of experimental nephrology, we combine expertise in the fields of transplantation and infectious dis-eases to ensure optimal patient care and conduct research on infectious diseases after solid organ transplan-tation. In addition to caring for affected patients, research and teaching in the field of infectious diseases take high priority. In 2018, Oliver Witzke was appointed professor of infectious diseases, with fund-ing from the Rudolph Ackermann Foundation. The newly founded research laboratory led by Adalbert Krawczyk is focused on the devel-opment of novel drugs against viral infections that are a major health burden, particularly in immuno-suppressed patients. These include, e.g., herpes simplex viruses (HSV), the human cytomegalovirus or BK polyomaviruses. Within the past years, the group has developed a humanized monoclonal antibody against HSV, which was patented by the University of Duisburg-Essen and ultimately sold to a pharmaceutical company in Hei-delberg. Supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), we recently developed a novel vac-cine candidate against HSV, which effectively protected mice from an otherwise lethal HSV infection.