Karl Tryggvason, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor, Duke-NUS Medical School Adjunct Professor, Duke University

Dr. Karl Tryggvason is a professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, and adjunct professor at Duke University in North Carolina, and a Professor Emeritus at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He 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. In 2005, Dr. Tryggvason was also awarded membership in the Academia Europaea and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Tryggvason is a citizen of both Sweden and Iceland, and received his medical training at the University of Oulu in Finland. Before moving to the Karolinska Institute, he spent four years as a post-doctoral and visiting professor in the United States, as well as a professor of biochemistry at the University of Oulu.

Dr. Tryggvason is a specialist in clinical chemistry and a member of the Nobel Assembly and Committee for Physiology or Medicine at the Karolinska Institute. He has a special interest in the basement membrane, which is a component of the glomerulus, the kidney’s filtering mechanism. He’s 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. 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
Rodin S, Antonsson L, Hovatta O, Tryggvason K. Monolayer culturing and cloning of human pluripotent stem cells on laminin-521-based matrices under xeno-free and chemically defined conditions. Nat Protoc. 2014 Oct; 9(10):2354-68.

Lal MA, Andersson AC, Katayama K, Xiao Z, Nukui M, Hultenby K, Wernerson A, Tryggvason K. Rhophilin-1 Is a Key Regulator of the Podocyte Cytoskeleton and Is Essential for Glomerular Filtration. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2014 Jul 28.

Sambo F, Malovini A, Sandholm N, Stavarachi M, Forsblom C, Mäkinen VP, Harjutsalo V, Lithovius R, Gordin D, Parkkonen M, Saraheimo M, Thorn LM, Tolonen N, Wadén J, He B, Osterholm AM, Tuomilehto J, Lajer M, Salem RM, McKnight AJ; GENIE Consortium, Tarnow L, Panduru NM, Barbarini N, Di Camillo B, Toffolo GM, Tryggvason K, Bellazzi R, Cobelli C; FinnDiane Study Group, Groop PH. Novel genetic susceptibility loci for diabetic end-stage renal disease identified through robust naive Bayes classification. Diabetologia. 2014 Aug; 57(8):1611-22.

He B, Ebarasi L, Zhao Z, Guo J, Ojala JR, Hultenby K, De Val S, Betsholtz C, Tryggvason K. Lmx1b and FoxC Combinatorially Regulate Podocin Expression in Podocytes. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2014 May 22.

Sandholm N, Forsblom C, Mäkinen VP, McKnight AJ, Osterholm AM, He B, Harjutsalo V, Lithovius R, Gordin D, Parkkonen M, Saraheimo M, Thorn LM, Tolonen N, Wadén J, Tuomilehto J, Lajer M, Ahlqvist E, Möllsten A, Marcovecchio ML, Cooper J, Dunger D, Paterson AD, Zerbini G, Groop L; SUMMIT Consortium, Tarnow L, Maxwell AP, Tryggvason K, Groop PH; FinnDiane Study Group. Genome-wide association study of urinary albumin excretion rate in patients with type 1 diabetes. Diabetologia. 2014 Jun; 57(6):1143-53.

Xiao Z, Rodriguez PQ, He L, Betsholtz C, Tryggvason K, Patrakka J. Wtip- and gadd45a-interacting protein dendrin is not crucial for the development or maintenance of the glomerular filtration barrier. PLoS One. 2013 Dec 20; 8(12):e83133.

Sandholm N, McKnight AJ, Salem RM, Brennan EP, Forsblom C, Harjutsalo V, Mäkinen VP, McKay GJ, Sadlier DM, Williams WW, Martin F, Panduru NM, Tarnow L, Tuomilehto J, Tryggvason K, Zerbini G, Comeau ME, Langefeld CD; FIND Consortium, Godson C, Hirschhorn JN, Maxwell AP, Florez JC, Groop PH; FinnDiane Study Group and the GENIE Consortium. Chromosome 2q31.1 associates with ESRD in women with type 1 diabetes. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2013 Oct; 24(10):1537-43.

Tryggvason SH, Guo J, Nukui M, Norlin J, Haraldsson B, Jörnvall H, Tryggvason K, He L. A meta-analysis of expression signatures in glomerular disease. Kidney Int. 2013 Sep; 84(3):591-9.

Duke University