Ebola, Zika, AIDS, tuberculosis, flu – the new pandemics and old epidemics not only instil fear in people worldwide, but also have a variety of social implications. At the same time, our body provides a habitat for our microbiota with which we have not only a symbiotic but dependent relationship. In fact, our body’s microbial cells outnumber our own cells. What needs to be done to contain epidemics and how our microbiome influences non-infectious diseases is explained by Stefan H.E. Kaufmann, director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology and professor of immunology and microbiology at the Charité Berlin, in a lecture on January 13, 2017, at 7:30 p.m., at the Natural History Museum in Berlin.