PD Dr. Johannes Chang

PD Dr. Johannes Chang has been head of the Laboratory for Liver Fibrosis and Portal Hypertension at Medical Clinic I of the University Hospital Bonn (Director: Prof. C. Strassburg) as a clinician scientist since 2018. He is thus continuing the scientific tradition of the working groups of Prof. Dr. T. Sauerbruch and Prof. Dr. J. Trebicka. He studied medicine at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and the Technical University of Munich, where he completed his studies. He obtained his doctorate as part of the DFG-funded research group KFO 115 under the supervision and support of Prof. Dr. J. Kalff, PD Dr. Marcus Overhaus, and Prof. Dr. S. Wehner. His research focused on the influence of sterile inflammation on postoperative intestinal atony in animal models.

He began his clinical training in general internal medicine with a focus on gastroenterology and hepatology. He obtained his specialist qualifications in internal medicine and gastroenterology in 2017 and 2023, respectively. He devoted himself to translational research early on: in 2014, he received a Clinician Scientist Fellowship from the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation, followed in 2019 by a junior research group fellowship from the BONFOR program to establish and further develop his own research group.

His scientific focus is on liver cirrhosis and its complications, both in experimental animal models and in clinical cohorts. A central research interest is the interface between hepatology and surgery. In this context, he investigates, among other things, surgical interventions and the use of transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunts (TIPS) in liver cirrhosis and acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), with the aim of improving the postoperative outcome of patients with liver disease. In this field, he is also involved in the current German guideline update on the complications of liver cirrhosis.

Other areas of focus in his translational research include the optimization of non-invasive diagnostic procedures for liver cirrhosis, particularly with regard to cardiac function. Until recently, this project was funded by a research grant from the Ernst and Berta Grimmke Foundation. He completed his habilitation in June 2023.

Clinically, Dr. Chang specializes in the treatment of portal hypertension with and without liver cirrhosis. He is co-director of the Cirrhosis Center Bonn (CCB) and, since 2024, has been coordinating the nationwide PERSEVERE study, which investigates the postoperative outcomes of patients with liver cirrhosis after surgical procedures. In addition, he is regularly involved in multicenter studies and is actively engaged in national (German Cirrhosis Study Group) and international research networks (including the European Rare Liver Network and EURO-TIPS Group).