Rafael Kramann is Professor of Medicine, and Chair of the Department of Medicine 2 (Nephrology and Transplantation, Immunology, Rheumatology and Hypertension) at RWTH Aachen University, he has founded the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Systems Biology and the Institute of Phase Transition in Chronic Disease at RWTH Aachen. He further directs the Laboratory of Translational Kidney and Cardiovascular Research at the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, NL. He is serial entrepreneur and has recently founded the biotech Sequantrix developing novel antifibrotic therapeutics. He received his MD in cardiology at RWTH Aachen University in 2007, a PhD in internal medicine at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam and postdoctoral training at Brigham and Women´s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA. His basic and translational research focuses on understanding chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular diseases and organ fibrosis (www.kramannlab.com). He integrates state of the art genetic fate tracing, gene editing, single cell, multi-omics and systems biology technologies together with clinical datasets to unravel mechanisms, identify novel therapeutic targets and develop targeted therapeutics for patients with chronic kidney disease, heart failure and organ fibrosis.