Dr. Assassi is the Director of the Division of Rheumatology and Professor of Medicine at the UTHealth Houston. He also co-directs the UTHealth Scleroderma Program, which houses one of the largest specialized scleroderma clinics in the USA. In addition, he holds adjunct appointments at the McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

After graduating from Albert Ludwig Medical School in Freiburg, Germany, Dr. Assassi completed his internal medicine and rheumatology, as well as Master’s in Clinical Research training at UTHealth Houston.

Dr. Assassi’s research focuses on the clinical and molecular aspects of systemic sclerosis. His laboratory conducts multi-level molecular profiling of longitudinal blood and skin samples obtained from patients with systemic sclerosis, with the goal of developing clinically useful biomarkers and identifying novel therapeutic targets. He is also the immediate past President of the Scleroderma Clinical Trial Consortium and is currently a Steering Committee member of several international clinical trials, including the recently completed FIBRONEER-ILD trial.