Jean Krutmann was born in 1959 in Menden, Germany, and obtained his MD from the University of Münster in 1986. After several stays abroad (postdoc at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA and DFG stipend at the University Hospital for Dermatology in Vienna, Austria) he became resident, assistant/associate professor at the University Hospital for Dermatology of Freiburg. From 1994 until 2001 he was full professor/deputy director of the University Hospital for Dermatology Düsseldorf. In 2001 he was appointed Chair of Environmental Medicine at the Medical Faculty of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and thereby also Director of IUF. Under his directorship in 2011 the institute became a member of the Leibniz Association and was renamed IUF – Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine.

His research focuses on dermatoxicology, immunodermatology and photodermatology with a special emphasis on environmentally-induced skin diseases and skin aging.

He is author/coauthor of more than 450 contributions to scientific journals and books as well as editor of 9 textbooks.

Jean Krutmann was awarded several national and international prizes: Arnold Rikli Award, Albrecht Fleckenstein Award, Paul Gerson Unna Award, Oscar Gans Award, CE.R.I.E.S. Research Support Award, Dermopharmacy Innovation Award, the Tanioku Kihei Memorial Award and the Gerald Levene Oration. Since 2010, he is member of the Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Science. Since 2023, he is speaker of the DFG Research Unit FOR 5489 (Understanding AHR signaling in skin disorders). Since 2021, he is co-speaker of the Leibniz Research Alliance “Resilient Ageing”. Since 2019, he is honorary member of the American Society for Investigative Dermatology (SID) and the Japanese Society for Investigative Dermatology (JSID). Within the scope of the cooperation with Fudan University in Shanghai, China, he is Distinguished Adjunct Professor as well as Senior Visiting Professor of the Human Phenome Institute at the School of Life Sciences, and Associate Chair of the Strategic Steering Committee of the International Human Phenome Project.