Prof. Dr. med. Heiner Wedemeyer – Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Dr. Heiner Wedemeyer is Director of the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Infectious Diseases, and Endocrinology at Hannover Medical School (MHH).

Heiner Wedemeyer studied medicine and musicology at the University of Göttingen. He completed his specialist training in gastroenterology at Hannover Medical School under the mentorship of Prof. Michael Manns, where he later served as a senior physician. In 2012, he was appointed to a W2 professorship in Clinical Infectious Diseases in Liver Transplantation at Hannover Medical School. In February 2018, he accepted a W3 professorship in Internal Medicine, focusing on gastroenterology and hepatology, at the University Hospital Essen. On April 1, 2020, he returned to Hannover Medical School to succeed Prof. Manns as W3 Professor and Director of the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Endocrinology.

Prof. Wedemeyer served as Secretary General of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) from 2009 to 2011. Since January 2023, he has been President of the German Society for Gastroenterology, Digestive and Metabolic Diseases (DGVS). In September 2025, he was re-elected to serve as DGVS President for the term 2026–2028. Since October 1, 2024, Prof. Wedemeyer has also been Co-Editor of the Journal of Hepatology, one of the world’s leading hepatology journals. In addition, he is active in academic governance and was elected to the Senate of Hannover Medical School in April 2025.

Clinically, Prof. Wedemeyer’s expertise covers the full spectrum of gastroenterology and hepatology, as well as infectious diseases and transplant medicine. His scientific work focuses on inflammatory and viral diseases of the liver and gastrointestinal tract. From 1998 to 2000, he conducted a DFG-funded postgraduate research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, USA, where he investigated cellular immune responses in hepatitis C. Since 2001, he has led a research group at Hannover Medical School focusing on cellular immunology in viral hepatitis. His research has been, and continues to be, supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the European Union, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation. He currently serves as a principal investigator in the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), several BMBF-funded consortia, and as coordinator of the EU research network “D-SOLVE,” which investigates novel strategies for personalized therapy of hepatitis D.

Prof. Wedemeyer played a key role in the scientific coordination of the German Hepatitis Competence Network (since 2002) and the activities of the German Liver Foundation (since 2006), where he has served as Chair of the Board since October 2025. He is also Medical Managing Director of Leberstiftungs-GmbH Deutschland, which established the German Hepatitis C Registry—one of the world’s largest real-world cohorts on hepatitis C therapy, including more than 18,300 patients. In recent years, the company has also developed the German SLD Registry to document emerging treatments for metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD).

Over the past two decades, Prof. Wedemeyer has contributed to the development of numerous national and international clinical practice guidelines, particularly on viral hepatitis and liver tumors. He has authored more than 670 original research papers and over 130 review articles in leading journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Journal of Hepatology, Gastroenterology, and Hepatology. In addition, he has written more than 75 book chapters and co-edited four books. His current Hirsch index is 122 (Google Scholar, November 2025), and his publications have been cited more than 68,000 times.

In recognition of his scientific contributions, Prof. Wedemeyer has received numerous awards, including the Hans Popper Award of the International Association for the Study of the Liver (2002), the Prevention Award of the German Society of Internal Medicine (2008), the Innovation Award of German University Medicine (2011), the Rudolph Schoen Prize (2011), the EASL Registry Grant (2014), and the Solko W. Schalm Award (2023). In 2018, he served as Visiting Professor of the Canadian Hepatitis C Research Program (CanHep-C).

Contact

Univ.-Prof. Dr. med. Heiner Wedemeyer

Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Infectious Diseases and Endocrinology
Hannover Medical School
Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1
30625 Hannover
Germany

Telefon +49 511 532-3305
Fax +49 511 532-4896

gastroenterologie@mh-hannover.de