Is Professor and Director of the Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics at the Center for Medical Biometry and Informatics, Medical Center – University of Freiburg, Germany and member of the directorate of the Freiburg Center for Data Analysis and Model Building. He received his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Dortmund, Germany in 1977. After that time he worked as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Statistics, University of Dortmund, with major interest in medical applications of statistics and mathematics. From 1979 to 1983 he was Research Fellow at the Institute of Medical Statistics and Documentation of the University of Heidelberg and a member of the Collaborative Research Center “Stochastic Mathematical Models”. In 1983 he became Professor of Statistics at the University of Dortmund, in 1984 he was Visiting Professor at the Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington in Seattle. He was appointed to his current position in April 1986. His scientific interests include the development of statistical methods for complex problems in clinical and epidemiological research as well as the design and analysis of clinical studies. Besides applications in cancer and other chronic diseases he contributed especially to investigations on determinants and impact of hospital-acquired infections. Projects have continuously been supported by the German Research Association (DFG), the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education, the European Union, German Cancer Aid, and many other sources. Until recently he was leading a Research Unit “Statistical modeling and data analysis in clinical epidemiology”. Currently, he is the scientific coordinator of a Marie-Curie training network on “Novel statistical methodology for diagnostic/prognostic and therapeutic studies and systematic reviews”. He is a member of the International Biometric Society, the International Society for Clinical Biostatistics, the German Society for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Epidemiology and Fellow of the International Statistical Institute.