 Good afternoon and welcome back to our social media corner. I'm Diana and I'm the social media manager at IEA. Our scientific forum just kicked off this morning and it will go on until tomorrow. This year, the forum is all about the importance of nuclear science in preparing for and containing future pandemics. If you want to watch the afternoon sessions, click check the link in the comment section. Now, I'm very pleased to introduce you to our next guest, Thomas Mettenleiter. Dr. Mettenleiter, a biologist and virologist, is also the co-chair of the One Health iLevel Expert Panel. Dr. Mettenleiter, good afternoon. Thank you for joining us here. Thanks a lot. I'm pleased to be here. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you came to be working in this area? Actually, I was trained as a biologist at the university and right before that, I was already fascinated by these most tiny living beings as the discoverer of the iLevel called viruses. So, I'm a virologist by training and I'm still, by heart and soul, I'm a virologist. I started working with viruses that had a very specific host, animal host, and then moved into, I mean, broader host, tropism, including zoonotic infections and this brought me into the topic that is so prominent today. And one thing that changed in the last 18 months is I don't have to explain anymore what a virologist actually is and does. Can you explain to us and to our audience a little bit more about what zoonotic diseases are? Yes, zoonotic infections are defined as infections that cross from animals to humans and back by the natural way. For a biologist, this makes a lot of sense that there are zoonotic infections because humans are biologically part of the animal kingdom. So, for an infectious agent, speaking on that point of view, it doesn't really make that much of a difference, whether this is a human mammal or whether this is an animal mammal. So, we have agents that really cross this artificial border quite easily. Others are very specific for a certain species and others can infect multiple species, including humans. And this is then in terms of zoonosis relevant. And how do you think we can prevent or control future pandemics like the one that we are living now, COVID-19? That's a million dollar question, of course. I mean, the question is, I mean, can we do that at all? I think, I mean, zoonotic infections are part of nature and these so-called spillover events, as we call them, from animals to humans and back, they are also part of nature. So, they will probably occur also in the future. And we know that these spillovers occur a lot more frequently than we have been aware. The point is, I mean, can we stop infectious chains before they develop into epidemics and pandemics? And indeed, I mean, I'm pretty optimistic that we can get better in blocking these infection chains earlier. It took months or weeks before. It was now a few weeks in case of COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2. So, we are getting better. We need to squeeze out the last two or three weeks. And I think then we are in a much better shape than we have been before. The IEA recently launched Zodiac, an initiative that aims to help countries control zoonotic outbreaks. How do you see the various initiatives in this area, including Zodiac, come together to complement each other towards a common goal? Yeah, I think, I mean, one of the catch words is CCC. This is coordinate, cooperate, and communicate. There are indeed so many programs, initiatives, projects that actually are popping up globally in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that it's very difficult to have an overview. And this is one of the tasks of the One Health High Level Expert Panel to establish an inventory of what's actually going on. And for me, I mean, this cooperation is really, I mean, the prime goal. We need to cooperate. We need to put resources together. And we need all the tools in the toolbox that we can lay our hands on. This has a research component. This has an implementation component. And this is relevant, of course, I mean, then for being better prepared for the future. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us for this short but very insightful conversation. I hope you enjoyed the rest of the Scientific Forum. Thank you. Thank you very much. So as I mentioned before, our Scientific Forum is currently taking place. Check the links in the comment section so you can watch all the sessions live. I will come back tomorrow morning with two more live chats on the role of nuclear science for the rapid detection and response to outbreaks of zoonotic disease. Just tune in and don't forget, keep an eye on our hashtag, Atoms for Health, and get involved in the discussion. We'll see you tomorrow.