Prof. Jürgen Floege

MD FERA
RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Professor Jürgen Floege trained at the Hannover Medical School. His particular interest in renal diseases developed during various research periods in physiology, pharmacology, nephrology and pathology at the Hannover Medical School, Germany, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York and the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. He was appointed as head of the Division of Nephrology and Immunology at the University of Aachen, Germany in 1999.

Professor Floege is a former executive council member of the International Society of Nephrology (ISN), the European Renal Association (ERA-EDTA), and KDIGO, a society developing world-wide nephrology guidelines. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the ERA-EDTA and recipient of the 2018 ERA-EDTA Award for Outstanding Clinical Contributions to Nephrology, immediate past-president of the German Society of Nephrology as well as honorary member of the Japanese, Polish, Portugese, Serbian and Slowakian Societies of Nephrology. Since April 2019 he is president of the German Society of Internal Medicine, Europe’s largest professional medical society. Together with Professors Richard Johnson, Marcello Tonelli and John Feehally he edits the best-selling textbook “Comprehensive Clinical Nephrology”. Finally, Professor Floege is associate editor of Kidney International since Jan 2018 and currently is a member of the editorial board of Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Journal of Nephrology and others. Until 2017 he served as associate editor of Nephrology, Dialysis Transplantation.

Research interests encompass both basic research, i.e. studies underlying progression of renal disease in particular renal fibrosis, as well as clinical research in immune-mediated renal disease, in particular IgA-nephropathy, as well as bone and mineral disorders (CKD-MBD) and cardiovascular disease in uremic patients.

His scientific work encompasses about 585 original papers, reviews and editorials, and 40 book chapters.

Selected publications

• Ketteler M, Bongartz P, Westenfeld R, Wildberger JE, Mahnken AH, Böhm R, Metzger T, Wanner C, Jahnen-Dechent W, Floege J: Cardiovascular mortality in dialysis patients: Low Ahsg/fetuin levels may be a critical factor. Lancet 361 (2003): 827-33
• Ostendorf T, van Roeyen CR, Peterson JD, Kunter U, Eitner F, Hamad AJ, Chan G, Jia XC, Macaluso J, Gazit-Bornstein G, Keyt BA, Lichenstein HS, LaRochelle WJ, Floege J: A fully human monoclonal antibody (CR002) identifies PDGF-D as a novel mediator of mesangioproliferative glomerulonephritis. J Am Soc Nephrol. 14 (2003):2237-47.
• Yu D, Petermann A, Kunter U, Rong S, Shankland SJ, Floege J: Urinary Podocyte Loss Is a More Specific Marker of Ongoing Glomerular Damage than Proteinuria. J Am Soc Nephrol. 16 (2005): 1733-1741
• Kunter U, Rong S, Boor P, Eitner F, Muller-Newen G, Djuric Z, van Roeyen CR, Konieczny A, Ostendorf T, Villa L, Milovanceva-Popovska M, Kerjaschki D, Floege J: Mesenchymal stem cells prevent progressive experimental renal failure but maldifferentiate into glomerular adipocytes. J Am Soc Nephrol. 18 (2007):1754-64.
• Heymann F, Meyer-Schwesinger C, Hamilton-Williams EE, Hammerich L, Panzer U, Kaden S, Quaggin SE, Gröne HJ, Floege J, Kurts C: Kidney dendritic cell activation is required for progression of renal disease in a mouse model of glomerular injury. J Clin Invest. 119 (2009):1286-97
• Schlieper G, Aretz A, Verberckmoes SC, Krüger T, Behets GJ, Ghadimi R, Weirich TE, Rohrmann D, Langer S, Tordoir JH, Amann K, Westenfeld R, Brandenburg VM, D'Haese PC, Mayer J, Ketteler M, McKee MD, Floege J. Ultrastructural analysis of vascular calcifications in uremia. J Am Soc Nephrol. 21 (2010):689-96
• van Roeyen CR, Eitner F, Boor P, Moeller MJ, Raffetseder U, Hanssen L, Bücher E, Villa L, Banas MC, Hudkins KL, Alpers CE, Ostendorf T, Floege J. Induction of progressive glomerulonephritis by podocyte-specific overexpression of platelet-derived growth factor-D. Kidney Int. 2011;80:1292-305
• Chertow GM, Block GA, Correa-Rotter R, Drueke TB, Floege J, Goodman WG, Herzog CA, Kubo Y, London GM, Mahaffey KW, Mix TC, Moe SM, Trotman ML, Wheeler DC, Parfrey PS: Effect of cinacalcet on cardiovascular disease in patients undergoing dialysis. N Engl J Med 2012, 367:2482-94
• Pasch A, Farese S, Graber S, Wald J, Richtering W, Floege J, Jahnen-Dechent W: Nanoparticle-based test measures overall propensity for calcification in serum. J Am Soc Nephrol 2012, 23:1744-52.
• Braun GS, Nagayama Y, Maruta Y, Heymann F, van Roeyen CR, Klinkhammer BM, Boor P, Villa L, Salant DJ, Raffetseder U, Rose-John S, Ostendorf T, Floege J: IL-6 Trans-Signaling Drives Murine Crescentic Glomerulonephritis. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2016;27:132-42
• Moe SM, Chertow GM, Parfrey PS, Kubo Y, Block GA, Correa-Rotter R, Drueke TB, Herzog CA, London GM, Mahaffey KW, Wheeler DC, Stolina M, Dehmel B, Goodman WG, Floege J: Cinacalcet, Fibroblast Growth Factor-23, and Cardiovascular Disease in Hemodialysis: The Evaluation of Cinacalcet HCl Therapy to Lower Cardiovascular Events (EVOLVE) Trial. Circulation 2015, 132:27-39.
• Rauen T, Eitner F, Fitzner C, Sommerer C, Zeier M, Otte B, Panzer U, Peters H, Benck U, Mertens PR, Kuhlmann U, Witzke O, Gross O, Vielhauer V, Mann JF, Hilgers RD, Floege J: Intensive Supportive Care plus Immunosuppression in IgA Nephropathy. N Engl J Med. 2015;373:2225-36
• Floege J, Amann K: Primary glomerulonephritides. Lancet 2016;387:2036-48
• Sun Q, Baues M, Klinkhammer BM, Ehling J, Djudjaj S, Drude NI, Daniel C, Amann K, Kramann R, Kim H, Saez-Rodriguez J, Weiskirchen R, Onthank DC, Botnar RM, Kiessling F, Floege J, Lammers T, Boor P. Elastin imaging enables noninvasive staging and treatment monitoring of kidney fibrosis. Sci Transl Med. 2019 Apr 3;11(486)