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Jan Lötvall
Professor
University of Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Sweden
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Jan Lötvall is Professor at the Institute of Medicine at Göteborg University since 2002 where he directs a research laboratory studying extracellular vesicles. He is a medical specialist in both Clinical Allergy and Clinical Pharmacology, and has a long-term experience in translational studies of inflammatory diseases, as well as cancer. He was first elected President of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV, 2011-2016), a rapidly growing non-profit organisation in the field of exosomes, microvesicles and other extracellular vesicles (www.isev.org; >1100 members). The research line focusing on extracellular vesicle biology has received extensive international recognition, as the lab was first to already in 2007 discover that exosomes can shuttle functional RNA between cells. The current research focus is aiming to harness the intrinsic function of extracellular vesicles to develop the next generation of therapies in complex diseases. During the period of May 2016 to January 2018, JL served as Chief Scientist at Codiak BioSciences, a startup biotech company focusing on developing exosomes as a therapeutic platform, but is now actively working on translating discoveries in the Gothenburg laboratory to clinical use, specifically in the field of severe and deadly inflammatory diseases. JL helped start the first scientific journal in the field, Journal of Extracellular Vesicles (JEV: 2020 IF 25.8), and is the current Editor-in-Chief of JEV since August 2019. In 2023, Jan Lötvall received the Camurus Lipid Research Foundation Annual Prize for the discovery of exosomal shuttle of RNA (http://www.clrf.se/lipid/clrf-lipid-science-prize-2023/). Jan has started a biotechnology company Exocure Sweden AB focusing on developing extracellular Vesicles as therapeutics in multiple types of diseases (Exocure.com), which is managed through the University of Gothenburg technology transfer company called GUVentures. The company is preparing for multiple clinical trials in the next few years.