Prof. Henning Bliddal MD, DMSc

Prof. Henning Bliddal is Director and Research Professor at the Parker Institute, a clinical research unit of rheumatology at Copenhagen University Hospital, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, Denmark, a position he has held since 1997. He is also Clinical Associate Professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Copenhagen, and has held a full Professorship of Rheumatology with osteoarthritis as a special field of research at the University of Copenhagen since 2010. He is a specialist in rheumatology and has served as Chairman of the Danish National Board of Health’s commission for the preparation of a national program for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis since 2005. At IAG, Image Analysis Group, he serves as Scientific Advisor and Clinical Osteoarthritis Expert, contributing to IAG’s scientific strategy in osteoarthritis research and to the development of advanced imaging techniques for clinical trials in rheumatology.

Prof. Bliddal’s primary research focus is the treatment of knee osteoarthritis, with particular depth in weight loss interventions for musculoskeletal disease, GLP-1 receptor agonist therapy (including liraglutide) in patients with overweight and knee osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and soft tissue pain conditions including fibromyalgia. His research over recent years has concentrated on treatment of patients with knee osteoarthritis in combination with obesity, producing results he describes as very significant in that patient population. He coordinates the EU project ELECTOR and has led randomized controlled trials of weight loss and maintenance using liraglutide versus placebo.

His methodological contributions include the application of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) for quantification of synovial inflammation in active arthritis, imaging biomarker development for osteoarthritis using CT and MRI, and clinical trial design across osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and pain conditions. He has contributed to studies of intra-articular polyacrylamide hydrogel injections in knee osteoarthritis across five-year follow-up periods, open-label placebo response in knee osteoarthritis, and the comparative effectiveness of exercise and education versus intra-articular saline in knee osteoarthritis. He has also contributed to research on calcium crystal detection using dual-energy CT, ultrasound, cone-beam CT, and spectral photon-counting CT.

Prof. Bliddal has extensive experience as principal investigator and senior author on clinical trials in osteoarthritis and rheumatology. Named trials from supplied sources include: a randomized controlled trial of weight loss and maintenance using liraglutide versus placebo in knee osteoarthritis (including exploratory analyses of NGAL biomarker outcomes, Osteoarthritis and Cartilage Open 2025, DOI: 10.1016/j.ocarto.2024.100562); a randomized controlled equivalence trial of exercise and education versus saline injections for knee osteoarthritis (Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2022, DOI: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2021-221129); a randomized controlled trial on illness perception and open-label placebo response in knee osteoarthritis (Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2024, DOI: 10.1016/j.joca.2024.07.005); and a prospective open-label clinical investigation of a single intra-articular polyacrylamide hydrogel injection in knee osteoarthritis with five-year follow-up (Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2025, DOI: 10.1186/s13018-025-06526-0).

He co-ordinates the EU ELECTOR project and has participated in scientific boards of medical companies.

Prof. Bliddal has more than 16,000 citations and over 370 peer-reviewed publications, figures stated on the Parker Institute profile and consistent across supplied sources. He has supervised 32 PhD students and numerous medical students and physicians. He is a regular contributor and guest speaker at national and international congresses, and has contributed to textbook chapters in rheumatology. He has served as Chairman of the Danish National Board of Health’s commission for treatment of knee osteoarthritis since 2005, and has assessed professorships nationally and internationally as well as PhD theses. His work has appeared in journals including Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, ACR Open Rheumatology, Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology, Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology, and Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy.

Prof. Bliddal qualified as a doctor in 1978 and obtained his MD in 1986. He obtained his specialist qualification in rheumatology in 1987. In 1991 he became Chief Physician in Rheumatology at the Copenhagen Municipal Hospital. From 1997 he served as Chief Physician and Research Professor at Frederiksberg Hospital (later Copenhagen University Hospital, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg), where he and Prof. Bente Danneskiold-Samsøe established the Parker Institute. He was appointed head of the Parker Institute from 1 March 2011. He obtained the DMSc degree and was appointed full Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Copenhagen in 2010, with osteoarthritis as his special field of research. He served as principal teacher and course leader for the specialist training in rheumatology for 15 years and is a legal expert in rheumatology.