Prof. Dr. Jörg Distler is director of the Department of Rheumatology and of the Hiller-Research Center at the University Hospital Düsseldorf of the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Germany. He is also holding an affiliation of the Fraunhofer-Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine. He is CEO of 4D Science GmbH and scientific lead and Co-CEO of FibroCure GmbH.

His clinical focus are connective tissue diseases and fibrotic diseases, in particular systemic sclerosis (SSc). His scientific focus are mesenchymal tissue responses in chronic inflammatory and fibrosing processes.

He and his team aiming to identify novel targets to interfere with pathological tissue remodeling in fibrotic diseases, to validate them in human and murine models and to translate these findings from bench-to-bedside. Particular areas of interest include target identification by spatial proteomics and transcriptomics, selective targeting of subpopulations of mesenchymal cells in fibrotic diseases, targeting of the epigenetic alterations in fibroblasts (“tissue memory”), molecular imaging of mesenchymal tissue responses and personalized medicine approaches in rheumatic diseases. His work has a strong translational focus: Preclinical work from his group provided the scientific basis for several clinical trials in fibrotic diseases such as SSc. He is principal investigators in numerous international clinical trials (investigator-initiated and industry-sponsored).

He published > 370 Pubmed-listed articles including > 290 original publications including contributions as senior and corresponding author in journals such as Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation and PNAS and additional contributions in Nature, Nature Immunology and the New England Journal of Medicine with more than 26000 citations and an H-factor of 85. He received several awards including the Carol-Nachmann-Award as the award with the highest international honor in rheumatology research.