Houston, TX — Jan-Ake Gustafsson M.D., Ph.D., is being recognized by Continental Who’s Who as a Top Distinguished Doctor in the fields of Medicine, Education, & Research for his outstanding contributions at the University of Houston.
Internationally renowned as a leading authority in biochemistry and biosciences, Dr. Gustafsson is a Robert A. Welch professor and founding director of the Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling at the University of Houston. He is widely recognized for his expertise in hormone receptors, and most notably discovered a previously unknown estrogen receptor during the mid-1990s. He has since been devoted to working on innovative approaches to slowing the growth of early-stage cancers and combating late-stage cancers. As a result, he was awarded $5.2 million in grant money by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas in 2011 and began developing new methods for treating the most severe form of prostate cancer and drugs that would target new areas of the androgen signaling system that would work differently from existing therapies. He and his highly trained team also tested plant-derived and synthetic chemicals resembling hormones to prevent and combat prostate cancer.
Throughout his extensive academic career, Dr. Gustafsson has trained over 200 Ph.D. students, post-doctoral fellows, and visiting scientists. After completing his medical degree, he was appointed Associate Professor of Chemistry at the Karolinska Institute in 1971 and was made full professor in 1976. In 1979, he was named Professor of Medical Nutrition and Chairman of the Department of Medical Nutrition at Huddinge University Hospital at the Karolinska Institute. In 1987, together with Dr. John Baxter, founded Karo Bio, a campus-situated biotechnology company with approximately 80 employees, to develop and commercialize products to treat human diseases such as obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and breast cancer. He was appointed Director of The Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling at the University of Houston, with a joint appointment at Houston Methodist Research Institute, in 2009. He also was appointed as a Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry in 2009 at the University of Houston. Later, he was named a Distinguished Professor of Dalian Medical University in China in 2015.
In light of his academic achievements, Dr. Gustafsson obtained his Bachelor of Medicine in 1964 at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. He then received his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the same institute in 1968, as well his Medical degree in 1971. Since then, he has been a member of the Faculty Board of the Karolinska Institutet and regularly carries out various assignments for the President’s Office of the Karolinska Institutet. He also received an honorary doctorate in Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Milan in Italy in 2008, a Doctorate in Medicine from the University of Turku in Finland in 2011, and an additional Doctorate in Medicine at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2014.
Remaining abreast of the latest advancements in Biochemistry and Biosciences, Dr. Gustafsson is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He was also named an honorary fellow at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute in 2014. He has published more than 1,600 peer-reviewed journal articles.
As a testament to his professional excellence, Dr. Gustafsson is the recipient of many awards and accolades including receiving the Grand Silver Medal from the Karolinska Institute in 2011, an Award of Merit from the Princess Takamatsu Cancer Research Fund in 2009, and a Grand Nordic Fernstrom Prize from Lund University in 2009. He is also the recipient of the Bristol Meyers Squibb / Meed Johnson Award for Nutrition Research in 2004, and was recognized as a Foreign Honorary Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2002. In the same year, he received the Fred Conrad Koch Award by the Endrocrine Society, and in 1999 he received the Soderberg Prize in Medicine in Stockholm. In 1994, he was awarded the Gregory Pincus Medal and Award by the Worcester Foundation, and in 1992 he received the Anders Jahre Prize.
Dr. Gustafsson dedicates this honorable recognition to his Father Ake Gustafsson and the Nobel Laureate Sune K. Bergstrom.
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