Professor Lars L Gustafsson, PhD

Member of International Editorial Advisory Board, GaBI Journal

Certified Specialist in Clinical Pharmacology and in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care
Professor of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
Senior Consultant, Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden

Professor Gustafsson received his PhD in Clinical Pharmacology (1985) and did his postdoctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine (1988–1990).

Currently, Professor Gustafsson is Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet (since 1 January 1999); and Senior Consultant at Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden. With his main duties focussed on research, supervision of PhD students, postdocs and senior researchers; and international collaboration in Africa, Europe and USA. Additionally, he has clinical responsibilities in the area of rational use of medicines.

Previously, Professor Gustafsson was Consultant in Anaesthesia (1980) and Clinical Pharmacology (1985). Director of the Clinical Trial Unit at Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet at Huddinge (1992–2002), Director of a major regional IT-project (the Janus project; Stockholm County Council and Karolinska Institutet) for development of computerized drug prescribing tools (1996–2001), Medical Executive Director and Founder of Department of Drug Management and Informatics (2000–2008). He was Chairman for Regional Drug and Therapeutics Committee in Stockholm Healthcare Region (2000–2009) which developed an internationally appreciated model for recommendations of essential medicines (‘Wise List’) bridging primary and hospital care in Stockholm metropolitan region.

Professor Gustafsson has an interest in leadership and organizational development, in particular, translating scientific advances into routine medical practice. Throughout his experience, he has collaborated with innovative biotech companies and has worked in politically governed organizations.

He has extensive teaching experience in anaesthesia and clinical pharmacology on local, national and international levels. He has published above 250 scientific papers. He has supervised 18 students awarded PhD. His main research interests include tropical clinical pharmacology, rational use of medicines, drug informatics and informatics supported by Swedish and international funding organizations.

He has been member of several boards for major research and educational initiatives at Karolinska Institutet since 1990, for instance, Board Member of Pain Research (1992–1997), Board Member of Research Network in Public and Global Health since 2008. He is one of the founders of the Piperska Group.

Professor Gustafsson received various distinctions and awards, amongst which: Siemens-Elema research award (1980), NIH-Fogarty award for postdoc research at Stanford University (1988–1990), appointed citation classic paper for 207 citations in British Journal of Anaesthesia (1998) (the third most cited paper in this period), national award for innovative electronic prescribing support (Janus window) by Daily Medicine (2004), award for best scientific paper in British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology by a PhD student (2008).