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Mathias Uhlén

Dr. Mathias Uhlén, Senior Professor of Microbiology

Mathias Uhlén.

KTH School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health
Department of Protein Science
Division of Systems Biology
KTH Royal Institute of Technology (CBH School)
106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Email: mathiasu@kth.se
Direct phone: +46 70 513 2101

CV (docx 449 kB)

Biography

Mathias Uhlen research has resulted in more than 800 peer-reviewed publications leading to more than 100,000 academic citations with an h-index of 144 (Google Scholar). His focus in science has been technology- and data-driven research, involving protein science, antibody engineering, systems biology and precision medicine. Examples of major achievements are:

1. Next generation DNA sequencing.

The concept of real time sequencing by synthesis is today used in all major “next generation sequencing” systems and it has led to hundreds of thousand publications in the last decade. This concept involves the detecting of the incorporation of nucleotides in real-time during synthesis by a DNA polymerase. The concept, first described in 1993 (1) depends on several important underlying technologies, including attachment of DNA to solid supports, the use of engineered polymerases for synthesis of a complementary nucleotide and the detection of the incorporated nucleotide in real-time to generate sequencing. This concept (2) was successfully used in the first massive parallel sequencing instrument (454) launched in 2005 (3) and this scientific break-through was later followed by alternative technology platforms, often based on fluorescent detection (4).

2. The Human Protein Atlas

The Human Protein Atlas (www.proteinatlas.org) program started in 2003 with the aim to contribute to the holistic understanding of all the proteins encoded from our DNA. The objective of the program, funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, is to map all the human proteins in cells, tissues, organs and blood using integration of various omics technologies, including antibody-based imaging, mass spectrometry-based proteomics, transcriptomics, and AI-based systems biology. The ultimate aim for the project is a complete understanding of the functions and interactions of all proteins. During the first 20 years, the open access resource has launched more than 5 million web pages with 10 million high-resolution microscope images, to allow individual researchers both in industry and academia to explore the proteome space across the human body (5.6.7). The Tissue Atlas paper published in Science in 2015 (5) is one of the most cited publications from Europe in the last 10 years.

3. The national infrastructure SciLifeLab

Dr Uhlen was the Founding Director of the Science for Life Laboratory initiated with support from the Swedish government in 2010 (8). This national infrastructure, originally in Stockholm and Uppsala, was launched to allow technology- and data-driven research in life science. The number of researchers has grown to more than thousand at the Stockholm site, with collaborations across all universities in Sweden Many thousands of projects are executed annually, spanning many research fields, such as genomics, proteomics, structural biology, planetary biology, data-driven life science, drug development and precision medicine. Many projects in data-drive life science are supported by the non-profit Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

4. Affinity-based protein engineering

This broad concept was developed to use specific binding of proteins (affinity) in combination with protein engineering and it has led to many successful applications widely used in the life science community. This includes engineered protein A (9) and protein G for purification of antibodies, affinity tags for purification of recombinant fusion proteins,(10), clinically validated protein scaffold binders, such as Affibodies (11), solid phase methods for DNA handling (12) and alkali-stable matrix for purification of antibodies, such as MabSelect SuRe. This latter platform has been used for the manufacturing of the majority of therapeutic antibodies on the market today.

5. Precision medicine

Several analytical platforms have been developed to allow the determination of protein profiles from a small drop of blood. Quantitative data was obtained using mass spectrometry-based technology as well as antibody-based proximity extension assays. The concept has been used to generate an open access Human Disease Blood Atlas (13) covering tens of thousands of patients having various diagnosis, such as cancer, autoimmune, neurodegenerative, infectious and cardiovascular disease, respectively. The platform has also been used to study wellness and age/sex-related changes in blood profiles (14).

Recognition

Dr Uhlen has supervised more than 100 graduate students to PhD-exam. He has co-founded more than 20 start-up companies based on his research, including publicly listed companies, such as Biotage (Sweden) and Abclon (South Korea). He is member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science (IVA), the Royal Swedish Academy of Science (KVA), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in USA and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). He was Vice-President of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) from 1999 to 2001 and President of the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) from 2015 to 2019. He was the Founding Director of the national infrastructure Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) started in 2010.

Key references

  1. Nyrén, Pettersson and Uhlen (1993) Anal. Biochem. 208: 171-175

  2. Ronaghi, Uhlen and Nyren (1998) Science 281: 363- 365

  3. Margulies et al (2005) Nature 437 (7057): 376-380

  4. Uhlen and Quake (2023) Trends Biotechnol. 41 (12): 1565-1572

  5. Uhlen et al (2015) Science 347: eann126041

  6. Uhlen et al (2019) Science 366: eann9198

  7. Sjöstedt et al (2020) Science 367: eaay5947

  8. Travis (2010) Science 328: 805

  9. Uhlen et al (1984) J Biol Chem. 259 (3): 1695-702

  10. Löwenadle et al (1986) EMBO Journal 5(9): 2393-8

  11. Nord et al (1997) Nature Biotechn. 15(8) 772-8

  12. Uhlen (1991) Nature. 340 (6236): 733–734

  13. Alvez et al (2023) Nature Commun. 14: 4308

  14. Zhong et al (2021) Nature Commun. 12: 2493

See full publication lists on Google Scholar , Web of Science  or ORCID .

Career

1979 M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) , Stockholm, Sweden

1984 Ph.D. Dept. of Biotechnology, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

1985 – 86 Post-doc, EMBL , Heidelberg, Germany

1988 – 2024 Full professor in Biotechnology, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

1999 – 2001 Vice-President KTH, responsible for external relations

2003– Director of the Human Protein Atlas (HPA)  program

2010 – 2015 Founding Director, Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab)

2012 – 2020 Professor (20%), Danish Technical University (DTU) , Denmark

2019 – 2025 Guest professor (25%) at Karolinska Institutet

2019 – 2024 Member of the Board of Directors for the Swedish Research Council

2024– Senior professor (25%), KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

Recognition

Bibliometry

  • Number of publications in total: 800

  • Number of total citations: 115,000 citations

  • Number of citations last year (2024): 10,500

  • H-index: 144

(Statistics according to Google Scholar, April 2025)

Relevant links

Entrepeneurial achievements (selected)

More than 70 international patent applications. Founders of 20 start-up companies and former member of several Board of Directors, including public companies such as Bure (Sweden), Biotage (Sweden), Alligator Bioscience (Sweden), Novozymes (Denmark), Nordiag (Norway) and Amersham (UK). Vice-President KTH (1999–2001) responsible for external relations.

Publications