Prof. em. Jan Lindsten from the Karolinska institute has been elected as new president of the Academy, from July 1, 2003 to June 30, 2006. He was formerly Professor in Medical genetics at the Centre for Molecular Medicine at the Karolinska Hospital.
Jan Lindsten is Professor emeritus earlier worked at a Centre dedicated to integrate clinical and experimental research. The main diseases studied are dehabilitating ones common in the Swedish population, e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, allergies and atherosclerosis. Special use is made of the Swedish general health care system, which simplifies identification and follow-up of individual patients, and allows mapping of disease genes.
Prof. Lindsten has served as hospital director at the Karolinska hospital in Stockholm and Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen. At the Karolinska institute he was for several years Dean of the medical faculty and also secretary for the Nobel committee for Medicine. He was also assigned to work as specialist investigator on Swedish stem-cell research for the Swedish Research Council.