Hans Lutz was professor emeritus at the University of Zurich, where he taught for 30 years. A specialist in feline infectious diseases, he has 609 impact publications to his credit and has been cited more than 18,000 times.

He was a member of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group and, from the start of the Iberian Lynx captive breeding programme in 2004, was an advisor to the programme on infectious diseases.

He has worked tirelessly to prevent the effect of pathogens in the population, most notably in the management of the outbreak of feline leukaemia virus in the Doñana population in 2007.

It provided the Junta de Andalucía with all the protocols for the detection of infectious agents specific to the Iberian lynx that had been developed in its laboratory.