Scientific Advisory Board

Karl Tryggvason, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor, Division of Matrix Biology
Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics
Karolinska Institutet 
S-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden                        
Business:          +46-8-524 87720
Business Fax:   +46-8-316 165
Email:   karl.tryggvason@ki.se

Dr. Karl Tryggvason is a professor in the Department of Medical Chemistry and Biophysics at Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Dr. Tryggvason is the co-founder of BioStratum Inc and NephroGenex Inc. In 2002, he was awarded the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in Geneva, Switzerland, for his outstanding biomedical research on kidney disease and renal filtration. The award is presented each year to three scientists conducting biomedical research in Europe. Dr. Tryggvason was also awarded membership in the Academia Europaea and the Royal Academy of Sciences, Sweden, both in 2005.

Dr. Tryggvason is a citizen of Iceland and Sweden and received his M.D. training at the University of Oulu in Finland. Before moving to Karolinska Institute, Dr. Tryggvason spent four years as a postdoc and visiting professor in the United States, as well as a professor of biochemistry at the University of Oulu in Finland.

He is a specialist in clinical chemistry (clinical pathology) and a member of the Nobel Committee for physiology and medicine. He has made broad contributions to the characterization of the structure and biology of basement membranes and has identified the molecular basis of five genetic diseases, two of which are kidney diseases. Dr. Tryggvason has special interest in the basement membrane, a component of the glomerulus, the kidney’s filtering mechanism. He is a frequent speaker at major medical conferences worldwide and a reviewer for key medical journals, including the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Selected Publications:

Dahl, M., Bauer, AK., Arredouani, M., Soininen, R., Tryggvason, K., Kleeberger, SR., Kobzik, L. Protection against inhaled oxidants through scavenging of oxidized lipids by macrophage receptors MARCO and SR-AI/II. J Clin Invest. 117, 757-764, 2007

Chen, Y., Sankala, M., Ojala, JR., Sun, Y., Tuuttila, A., Isenman, DE., Tryggvason, K., Pikkarainen, T. A phage display screen and binding studies with acetylated LDL provide evidence for the importance of the scavenger receptor cysteine-rich (SRCR) domain in the ligand-binding function of MARCO. J. Biol. Chem. 281, 12767-12775, 2006