Mark van der Linden is Director of the National Reference Center for Streptococci, Department of Medical Microbiology, University Hospital Aachen, Germany. The Reference Center is responsible for epidemiology of Streptococci in Germany. Apart from standard analyses (serotyping, MIC), a large number of studies focusing on different aspects of streptococcal disease (resistance mechanisms, clonal spread) are conducted at the center. Dr van der Linden gained his PhD in Biochemisty in 1993 at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. During his post-doctoral career in Germany, first at the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin and then at the University of Kaiserslautern, Dr van der Linden was engaged in research on molecular aspects of antibiotic resistance in S. pneumoniae. During his stay at the Bioinformatics Department of the German Cancer Research Center he developed his skills in bioinformatics, which he then applied in an industry position as Director of Bioinformatics at a start-up company. Dr van der Linden has given many presentations at international meetings, and published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Recent papers have focussed on aspects of post-vaccination serotypes among Streptococcus pneumoniae infections in Germany.