Prof. Dr. med. Christopher Baum is an experienced translational scientist, research leader, and innovator. He studied medicine in Essen, Freiburg, and Hamburg, followed by a doctorate and, in 1999, a habilitation at the University of Hamburg. The following year, he was appointed to the Hannover Medical School (MHH); at the same time, he was an associate professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital in the USA from 2002. In 2006 he became Director of the Institute of Experimental Hematology at MHH. From 2013 to 2018, Professor Baum served as President of Hannover Medical School. He subsequently joined the executive leadership of the University of Lübeck and was a member of the Board of Directors of University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein until September 2020. On October 1, 2020, he was appointed Chairman of the Executive Board of the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) and, from January 01, 2021 onwards also as Head of the Translational Research Division and member of the Executive Board of Charité. Since 2024, Baum has also been spokesperson for the National Strategy for Gene and Cell-Based Therapies, whose design and implementation is coordinated by the BIH on behalf of the BMFTR (Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space).

Scientifically, Christopher Baum was involved in gene therapy at an early stage. He developed gene vectors for introducing genes into blood stem cells and uncovered the basics of so-called insertion mutagenesis in gene therapy, which can lead to blood cancer in patients treated with gene therapy. Based on this, he developed test procedures with which this dangerous side effect can be excluded before the genetically modified blood stem cells are transferred. In science management, he shaped national and international networks for translational research in stem cell and gene therapy. In Hannover, he introduced the Voluntary Scientific Year as a new form of voluntary social year, the PhD program "Regenerative Sciences" of the Cluster of Excellence REBIRTH (From regenerative biology to reconstructive therapy), the Clinician-Scientist program "Young Academy of the MHH" and the continuing education program "TRAIN Academy" for translational sciences. He was responsible for the overall coordination of the MHH's excellence concepts. At the University of Lübeck, a center of artificial intelligence, and at the UKSH, he devoted himself primarily to the linking of informatics and medicine, the cooperation of the locations in Lübeck and Kiel, and the expansion of interprofessional teaching. He also introduced a medical informatics doctoral program with dual supervision on the part of informatics and medicine.

Baum has received numerous awards for his scientific work, including the Ursula M. Händel Animal Welfare Prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Luise & Horst Köhler Prize for Research on Rare Diseases. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Medical Faculty Association (MFT), where he chairs the Science Working Group. Christopher Baum is involved as an inventor on patents on viral gene transfer vectors and on determining toxic side effects of gene transfer, as well as in the commercialization of an anti-infective agent.