Sylvia Thun appointed as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Robert Koch Institute

The Scientific Advisory Board has the task of regularly commenting on the technical and scientific performance of the RKI. It is also involved in an advisory capacity in the development of medium and long-term goals. It is to promote cooperation with state authorities and other public health service institutions, scientific institutions, professional associations, professional organizations. Another of its tasks is to advise on the optimization of the Institute's organization and, upon request, to provide expert advice in advance of decisions.

The BIH congratulates her warmly: 

“The appointment is another great honor for her long-standing commitment to digitally supported medicine with uniform standards for health data. We are delighted that Sylvia Thun also brings the translational perspective of the BIH to so many important national committees”, said Prof. Christopher Baum, Chairman of the BIH Board of Directors at Charité and Head of the Translational Research Department at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.   

A Digital Head

Sylvia Thun studied physical engineering/biomedical engineering (Dipl.-Ing.) and human medicine at RWTH Aachen University, where she did her doctorate in radiological imaging in 2001. She also obtained the additional qualification “Medical Informatics” from the North Rhine Medical Association and holds a certificate from the German Society for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS). She initially took on research tasks at the Federal Ministry of Health and the German Institute for Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI) in Cologne before being appointed to the professorship for Information and Communication Technologies at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences (HSNR) in Krefeld in 2011. In 2014, Sylvia Thun was named one of Germany's “Digital Minds” by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). During her work in setting up the BMBF's Medical Informatics Initiative, Sylvia Thun was appointed Visiting Professor at the BIH in 2017. She now heads the Digital Medicine and Interoperability Working Group and the Center of Health Data Sciences.  

In March 2022, Sylvia Thun was awarded the German Cross of Merit on Ribbon for her work by Germany’s Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. In April 2024, she was appointed to the Federal Government's Science Council as a member of the Medical Committee.  

She is particularly keen to promote the integration of digital technologies into medical research and practice to improve healthcare and make it ready for the future. The aim is to share health data from various sources for better diagnoses and treatments. In 2025, Thun was appointed to the Scientific Council for Medicine, the Scientific Advisory Board for Health and Medicine of the PTB and to the Leopoldina's Scientific Commission “Health System in Transition”.