Mihai Netea was born and studied medicine in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He completed his PhD at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, on studies investigating the cytokine network in sepsis. After working as a post-doc at the University of Colorado, he returned to Nijmegen where he finished his clinical training as an infectious diseases specialist, and where he currently heads the division of Experimental Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Nijmegen University Nijmegen Medical Center. He is mainly interested in understanding the memory traits of innate immunity (trained immunity), the factors influencing variability of human immune responses, and the immune dysregulation during bacterial and fungal infections. He is the recipient of the Spinoza Prize 2016 and an ERC Advanced grant in 2019, and since 2016 he is a member of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Sciences (KNAW).