Fredrik Bäckhed
Professor of Molecular Medicine
University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Biografi
Fredrik Bäckhed is Professor of Molecular Medicine at the University of Gothenburg. He holds a PhD in infectious biology from Karolinska Institutet and trained with Jeffrey Gordon at Washington University in St. Louis, where he helped show that the gut microbiota regulates host energy metabolism and fat storage.
Bäckhed leads a research group combining clinically oriented studies with gnotobiotic mouse models to investigate how the gut microbiota contributes to cardiometabolic disease. His work has shown microbiota changes in prediabetes and untreated type 2 diabetes and explores microbiota-based strategies for prevention. A key contribution from his group is identifying microbial metabolites as regulators of cardiometabolic disease.
From November 2024, he is Director of the Novo Nordisk Foundation–funded Microbiome and Health Initiative and leads the Wallenberg Laboratory for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research at Sahlgrenska University Hospital.
