The Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNI) is Germany’s oldest and largest institution for research in Tropical Medicine. It is a government institution affiliated to the Federal Ministry of Health of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Ministry of Health of the State of Hamburg. It belongs to the institutes of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz Society that have impact for science in Germany and are financed jointly by the Federal Government and the States of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The BNI was founded in 1900 to pursue research on tropical infections and to treat patients with tropical diseases coming to Hamburg harbor by ship. It is still located in the historical building of 1914 overlooking the harbor. Today the BNI is a modern research institute focussing on diseases caused by tropical parasites and viruses. Its main aim is the analysis of the host-parasite relationship including immunological defense mechanisms, pathogenicity factors of parasites, cell biology of parasites and definition of genes causing susceptibility to certain tropical infections.

The BNI is cooperating and has many contacts with developing countries, most of them in Africa but also in South America and Asia. The Institute maintains the permanent "Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine" (KCCR), Ghana.

Besides research the BNI has multiple educational activities. It is engaged in postgraduate training in the area of Tropical Medicine. Several members of the Institute are affiliated with the University of Hamburg as professors. The Institute has a Department of Clinical Medicine where patients with tropical diseases are treated. The Central Diagnostic Unit of the Institute performs specialized diagnostic tests for the detection of pathogens causing parasitic diseases. The Institute is equipped with the only P4 facility in Germany for work with hemorrhagic fever viruses. The BNI is national expert laboratory for amoebae, plasmodia, leishmaniae, trypanosomas, filariae, dengue viruses and arenaviruses.