Bio
Dr. Tryggvason is Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Adjunct Professor at Duke University, North Carolina, and Emeritus Professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. His research concerns the molecular composition, biology and diseases of basement membranes (BM), a special compartment of the extracellular matrix. His group has cloned almost all human BM proteins and clarified genetic causes of many BM-associated diseases, such as Alport and congenital nephrotic syndromes, junctional epidermolysis bullosa and congenital muscular dystrophy. He has studied matrix metalloproteinases, discovered MMP-2 and determined its crystal structure of. His group has produced most laminins as recombinant human proteins and recently the group has shown that different laminin isoforms influence stem cell growth and differentiation. His group has developed fully human and chemically defined laminin-based methods for generation of stem cell derived cardiomyocytes, retina RPE and photoreceptors, keratinocytes and pancreatic islet cells. Currently, the group works on the development stem cell derived cells for regenerative medicine.
Tryggvason has published over 400 research articles. He is a member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, and has served for 18 years as a member of the Nobel Assembly and Committee for Physiology or Medicine at the Karolinska Institute. He has received several international awards, and he is co-founder of BioLamina AB, Stockholm, that produces laminins for cell biology and cell therapy purposes.
Education
Doctor of Philosophy
Oulu University, Sweden
Doctor of Medicine
Oulu University, Sweden