Rikard Holmdahl

Rikard Holmdahl Swedish physician and immunologist

Rikard Holmdahl is a Swedish physician and immunologist. He was appointed as a full professor and the head of Medical Inflammation Research (MIR) unit at Lund University in 1993. In 2008, Rikard and his whole research group were moved to Karolinska Institute. ^[1] His team was the first to discover and positionally clone a single nucleotide polymorphism at the Ncf1 gene causing susceptibility to autoimmune diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis in rat models. ^[2] Rikard is an adjunct member of the Nobel Committee for physiology or medicine between 2016-2021 ^[3] and was ranked 3rd among the top immunology scientists in Sweden in 2024. ^[4]

Career

Rikard Holmdahl obtained his Doctor of Philosophy and Medical Doctor degrees at Uppsala University in 1985 and 1987, respectively. ^{[5] [1]} After his clinical residency training during 1988–1989, he started his research fellowship and was promoted as Associate Professor at Swedish Medical Research Council in 1990. ^[1]

He became a full professor since 1993, and he is now the head of the MIR unit at Division of Immunology at Karolinska Institute (2008–present). ^[6] He is also serving as visiting professor at Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, at Uppsala University since March 2025. ^[7]

He was a member of the Nobel Assembly during 2014–2021 and an adjunct member of the Nobel committee for physiology or medicine during 2016–2021. ^[3] He is also a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science since 2017. ^[8]

Awards

• 1994: The Göran Gustafsson prize in medicine, Swedish Royal Science Academy. ^[9]
• 2002: The European Descartes prize “the most prestigious prize in medicine given by the European Community” ^[10]
• 2003: The SalusAnsvar Nordic Medical prize. ^[11]
• 2015: The Anders Jahre main scientific prize, "the most prestigious Nordic prize in medicine". ^[12]
• 2015: The Yangtze River Scholar Award, "the highest academic award issued to an individual in higher education by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China". ^[13]

References

1. "Rikard Holmdahl | Medarbetare". staff.ki.se. Retrieved 2025-06-03.
2. Olofsson, Peter; Holmberg, Jens; Tordsson, Jesper; Lu, Shemin; Åkerström, Bo; Holmdahl, Rikard (January 2003). "Positional identification of Ncf1 as a gene that regulates arthritis severity in rats" . Nature Genetics. 33 (1): 25–32. doi:10.1038/ng1058. ISSN   1546-1718. PMID   12461526. S2CID   20806067.
3. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2018". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
4. "World's Top Immunology Scientists: H-Index Immunology Science Ranking in Sweden". Research.com. Retrieved 2022-06-15.
5. Holmdahl, Rikard (1985). "Collagen induced arthritis : pathogenetic mechanisms and relevance for rheumatoid arthritis".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
6. "MIR - Research group | Karolinska Institutet". ki.se. Retrieved 2022-06-15.
7. "Holmdahl, Rikard - Uppsala universitet". www.uu.se (in Swedish). 2025-04-09. Retrieved 2025-06-03.
8. "Rikard Holmdahl". Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien. Retrieved 2022-07-08.
9. "Pristagare" (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-06-22.
10. "Five years of Descartes Prize winners".
11. "Pristagare av Nordiska medicinpriset 2014". Folksam (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-06-22.
12. "Two KI researchers receive Anders Jahre's Awards for Medical Research | Karolinska Institutet Nyheter". news.ki.se. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
13. "教育部关于公布2015年度"长江学者奖励计划"入选名单的通知 - 雪花新闻". www.xuehua.us. Retrieved 2022-06-22.