Mr Wolfgang Philipp is the Principal Adviser - Chief Science Officer of the new Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) in the European Commission. HERA’s mission is to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to health emergencies. HERA works to ensure the development, production and distribution of medicines, vaccines, and other critical medical countermeasures in case of health emergencies. Wolfgang Philipp holds a PhD in microbiology from the University of Paris, France. He has been working in tuberculosis research at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, at the Universities of Bern and Basel and was a Member of the Basel Institute of Immunology, Switzerland, before joining the European Commission in 2001.