He has a long-standing interest and expertise in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and conducted basic research focusing on the vascular changes in steatosis and their contribution to disease progression. His research unit continues to study pathophysiological mechanisms of NASH. He is also conducting clinical research and his unit is partner in several research consortia supported by the European Commission and by the Innovative Medicines Initiative with a focus on NASH pathophysiology, biomarker research and hepatocellular carcinoma. His clinical trial unit participates from the early days of clinical trials in NASH in many clinical trials in the field. Prof. Francque is as scientific committee member involved in the design of several phase 2 and current phase 3 trials in NAFLD and is national and international lead PI of several of these trials. He is author/co-author of over 180 papers in peer-reviewed journals and authored several book chapters on NAFLD. He is editor of JHep Reports, the open-access journal of the European Association for the Study of the Liver. He is senior clinical researcher for the Research Fund of the Flemish government.