Recruiting top international scientists, world-leaders in their respective field, and providing them with grants to enable them to establish top scientific institutions in Texas, is part of the government of the State of Texas' vision to establish top-tier research and educational institutions in the state, institutions that will be able to rival the top institutions on the American East and West Coasts. The importance of research and scientific progress to the senior levels of the Texas government was illustrated by personal interest that governorRick Perry took in the recruitment of professor Gustafsson and the establishment of the center.
Jan-Åke Gustafsson holds two parallel professorships: Robert A. Welch Professor of Biology and Biochemistry (80%) at the University of Houston's Department of Biology and Biochemistry, as well as Professor of Medical Nutrition (20%) at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. Gustafsson is one of Europe's leading scientists in the fields of medicine and natural science.[2]
He is one of the scientists in Sweden that receives the largest annual research and science grants, i.e. government- and private funding, for his research projects.
He is the founder of the Novum Research Park, a research park geared towards biotechnology and medicine at the Karolinska institutet, campus Huddinge He was also one of the leading proponents behind locating the Södertörn University College, southern Stockholm's new university, to Huddinge.[3] Institutions of higher learning and research have traditionally been located to the northern parts of the Stockholm county. Establishing a leading research park and a new university in Huddinge, with special reference to Flemingsberg, is part of a broader vision of achieving a regional balance: stimulating economic growth and enabling southern Stockholm to catch up with the wealthier northern parts of the county. Since the establishment of the research park and university was initiated, several other government and private organizations have followed suit, establishing a presence in the area. In 1997, Stockholm Syd-Flemingsberg, southern Stockholm's major national- and regional-train hub was established in the area, giving excellent communications with central Stockholm.
It was Jan-Åke Gustafsson's strong track record of establishing a leading research center with close connections to biotech companies, in addition to his outstanding scientific achievements and world-wide scientific reputation, that convinced the State of Texasgovernment of hiring him for the establishment of a new major research center in a similar guise, at the University of Houston.
Jan-Åke Gustafsson is the founder of Karo Bio AB, a biotechnology company listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and based in the Novum Research Park. He is also the coordinator for the European Union-financed research network CASCADE.
In the mid-1990s, Gustafsson's research group at the Karolinska Institutet discovered estrogen receptor-beta, which plays a pivotal role in the function of the brain, lungs, and immune system. Today, drugs are being developed to stimulate that receptor to battle a number of diseases, including breast, prostate and lung cancers. In some instances, the abnormal cell division that creates cancerous tumors can be slowed down or stopped by stimulating the receptor.
Additional discoveries include early demonstration of the three-domain structure of nuclear receptors, specific binding of nuclear receptors to DNA, discovery of steroid response element, cloning of the first nuclear receptor fragment, first determination a 3-D structure of a nuclear receptor (the DNA binding domain of the glucocorticoid receptor), discovery of the first physiological ligand of a nuclear receptor (fatty acids for the peroxisome proliferator activated receptor alpha), discovery of liver X receptor beta (LXRβ), discovery of estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) and unravelling of some of their functions.
Gustafsson also is credited with 12 patents, more than 1,400 peer-reviewed publications and more than 70,000 citations.
Awards and recognitions
Honorary doctor in medicine, University of Turku, Finland, 2011
