FIBRO-NET Research Consortium

Organ fibrosis is a metabolically driven disease process of high clinical relevance affecting, among others, the liver, kidneys, lungs, and heart. The FIBRO-NET research consortium combines academic expertise in metabolism research with industrial know-how to develop novel antifibrotic therapeutics using AI-assisted drug design and innovative human organ-on-chip models.

Worldwide, organ fibrosis represents a major medical challenge and is directly or indirectly responsible for approximately 45 percent of all deaths. Despite this significant disease burden, there are still very few effective causal therapies available.

This is where FIBRO-NET comes in: Launched in 2026, the research consortium aims to develop a pharmaceutical compound that specifically targets fibrotic tissue and opens up new therapeutic options for patients.

The project is funded for three years under the Gesünder.IN.NRW program with support from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). In addition to the Fraunhofer ITEM, the consortium includes the University Hospital Cologne, the University of Tübingen, the German Diabetes Center (DDZ), and CureDiab Metabolic Research GmbH, bringing together five partners across four locations.

The research group “Molecular biomarkers for disease modeling” at Fraunhofer ITEM, led by Priv.-Doz. Dr. Jan Fiedler, contributes its expertise in human 3D liver tissue slices and OMICS-based efficacy studies as a pharmacological platform technology to the consortium’s drug development efforts.