Professor Håkan Mellstedt, MD, PhD

Member of International Advisory Board, GaBI Journal

Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Haematology and Oncology
Professor of Oncologic Biotherapy, Karolinska Institute and Cancer Centre Karolinska (CCK), Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden

Professor Håkan Mellstedt has been a Professor of Oncologic Biotherapy at the Karolinska Institute and Cancer Center Karolinska, Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, since 1999.

Professor Mellstedt was Professor of Experimental Oncology at Uppsala University and Head of the Department of Experimental Oncology, Department of Oncology, Uppsala University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden from 1996–1999, and Administrative Director of Cancer Center Karolinska from 1999–2010.

Professor Mellstedt is Senior Consultant (Haematology and Oncology) at Sophiahemmet Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden since 1980. From 1980–1996 and 1999–2011, Professor Mellstedt was Senior Consultant at the Department of Oncology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden; and was a Consultant in Internal Medicine from 1974–1980 at the Seraphimer University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.

Professor Mellstedt was President of ESMO (European Society of Medical Oncology) from 2004–2009 and Chair of the ESMO Foundation from 2008–2012. From 1993–2000, he was the Chair of the Swedish Medical Society of Oncology. He was a member of the Scientific Committee of the Swedish Cancer Foundation from 1987–2000.

Professor Mellstedt is currently the Chair of the Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation. He was Scientific Secretary of the Cancer Society in Stockholm and King Gustaf V Jubilee Fund (1984–2014). He has been a member of the Accreditation Council of Oncology in Europe (ACOE) since 2009.

In 2011, Professor Mellstedt co-founded a biotech company, Kancera AB, developing anticancer drugs, and holds several patents.

Professor Mellstedt´s main areas of research are tumour immunology and immunotherapy, with a focus on the development of cancer vaccines and antibody and cytokine treatment in gastrointestinal and chronic B cell malignancies. Further, he has implemented a programme developing targeted therapy using small molecules for the treatment of lymphoproliferative diseases. He has a great interest in the development of biosimilars.

He was awarded the Alfaferone Prize (Italy, 1989), the Jan Waldenström Award (USA, 2001), and the Cancer and Allergy Foundation Grand Medicine Prize (Sweden, 2014).

Professor Mellstedt has published about 500 manuscripts in peer reviewed journals, is the author of numerous oncology chapters in professional medical textbooks, and has been an invited speaker at about 200 international symposia. He is and has been on the editorial board of several international scientific journals.