Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine

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Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine; (Bernhard-Nocht-Institut für Tropenmedizin) is a medical institution based in Hamburg, Germany which is dedicated to research, treatment, training and therapy of tropical and infectious diseases, (including HIV).

The Bernhard-Nocht Institute is allied with the Kwame Nkrumah University in Ghana, where there is a laboratory complex named the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine. Today, there is a staff of approximately 400 people working in Hamburg and Kumasi combined. Presently, it is considered the most important research facility regarding tropical medicine in Germany.

On October 1, 1900 the "Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases" was opened in the former administration building of a naval hospital in Hamburg. Bernhard Nocht (1857-1945), a naval physician is appointed superintendent and director of the clinic. In 1942, the institute's name is changed to "Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases" in honor of Nocht's 85th birthday. In 1990 it adopted its present name.

The following list contains a few of the contributions made at the Bernhard Nocht Institute:

1905- Nocht's assitant, chemist Gustav Giemsa creates the Giemsa stain, a histological improvement of the existing Romanowsky stain.
1916- Pathologist Henrique da Rocha Lima identifies the casusative agent (Rickettsia prowazeki} of epidemic typhus.
1911-1926- Improvements regarding malaria therapy are made; experimentation is concentrated on producing effective derivatives of quinine to reduce side-effects.
1918- Dr. Rocha-Lima identifies the causative agent of trench fever (Rochalimea quintana), later renamed Borrelia.
1943- The discovery concerning the missing part of the reproduction cycle of (Plasmodium praecox) in bird malaria is made.
1950- Helminthologist Hans Vogel demonstrates that macaques can be immunized against Schistosoma japonicum, the cause of Far Eastern schistosomiasis.
1961- Dr. Vogel publishes the life cycle of Echinococcus multilocularis.
1985- In a joint project with American scientists, Paul Racz and Klara Tenner-Racz exhibit that in patients infected with HIV, massive viral replication takes place in the lymph nodes.

Today the institute continues its research and treatment of tropical diseases, including dangerous diseases such as Lassa fever, Marburg virus, Ebola fever and leishmaniasis.