London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Updated 13 November 2015

The Robert Koch Foundation has awarded Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Professor of Global Health, the Robert Koch Gold Medal for his work on the worldwide prevention of infectious diseases.

Prof Piot receives the medal for his lifetime achievements, in particular for his co-discovery of the Ebola virus in 1976 and the establishment of preventative strategies to combat the spread of HIV in Africa.

The Foundation notes that Prof Piot's numerous international activities have led to achievements including greater understanding about the heterosexual spread of HIV and to the investigation and implementation of preventive strategies against AIDS in African countries. He has also been engaged in negotiating substantial price reductions for antiretroviral drugs, which has resulted in the establishment of HIV prevention programmes in developing countries.

This year's Robert Koch Award - another honour from the Foundation - was jointly awarded to Professors Ralf Bartenschlager of Heidelberg, Germany and Charles M. Rice of New York, USA. The two molecular biologists are being honored for their groundbreaking work in developing cell proliferation systems for hepatitis C viruses, thus laying the foundation for tests of effective new substances against liver cell infection.

The Robert Koch Foundation is a non-profit foundation dedicated to the promotion of medical progress. It promotes basic scientific research in the field of infectious diseases, as well as exemplary projects that address medical and hygienic issues. The Foundation confers a number of distinguished scientific awards each year. German President, Joachim Gauck, is Patron of the Foundation, which was founded in 1907.

Robert Koch (1843 - 1910), after whom the award is named, was the founder of modern-day bacteriology, for which he was awarded the 1905 Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology. From 1891 until his retirement in 1904, Koch was Head of the Institute for Infectious Diseases in Berlin.

• Hear more about Prof Piot's career in global health in this episode of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

Update: Prof Piot received the Robert Koch Gold Medal on 6 November 2015 at an award ceremony at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.