Stefan Karlsson (professor)

[1] He is recognized for significant contributions to the fields of gene therapy and hematopoietic stem cell biology and in 2009 was awarded the Tobias Prize[2] by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

He performed postdoctoral studies with Professor Arthur W. Nienhuis (1983-1986) at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda Maryland, where he received a Fogarty International Research Collaboration Award.

Karlsson's early research focused on retroviral vector based gene correction of hematopoietic cells from monogenetic disorders, such as Gaucher’s disease[9] and hemoglobinopathies.

[10] The results of these studies led to the first gene therapy clinical trial for the treatment of Gaucher’s disease (1995).

[14] An equal component of his research has been in the field of hematopoietic stem cell biology, where Dr. Karlsson focused on studying the mechanisms of hematopoietic stem cell expansion and maintenance with major contributions to understanding the role of Tgf-beta[15] and more recently Cripto.