Fredrik Bäckhed
Fredrik Bäckhed is Professor of Molecular Medicine at the University of Gothenburg and leads Bäckhed Lab, where his research focuses on understanding how the gut microbiota communicates with the human body and how these interactions influence metabolism, physiology, and cardiometabolic disease.
Over the past two decades, his research group has contributed to establishing the gut microbiota as an important regulator of human metabolism and to uncovering how microbial metabolites can influence health and disease. His laboratory combines microbial ecology and bacterial physiology with metabolomics, systems biology, experimental models, and clinical research to identify the molecular mechanisms that connect the gut microbiota with the host.
A central theme of his research is the role of microbial metabolites as mediators between microbes and humans. By identifying these metabolites, determining how they are produced, and defining their effects on host signalling and physiology, the Bäckhed Lab seeks to move microbiome research from associations towards causal mechanisms.
Fredrik's research spans fundamental biology and clinical medicine. Observations in human cohorts generate questions that can be explored mechanistically in experimental systems, while discoveries in the laboratory are brought back to human studies and clinical interventions. The long-term ambition is to translate an understanding of host–microbiota interactions into better biomarkers, diagnostics, therapies, and strategies for preventing cardiometabolic disease.
Fredrik is Director of the Wallenberg Laboratory for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research and the Microbiome Health Initiative. Through these initiatives, he brings together basic scientists and clinicians across disciplines to accelerate the translation of microbiome discoveries into improved human health.
He is also actively engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship, working with academic, clinical, biotechnology, and industry partners to develop microbiome-based diagnostics and therapeutics.
Fredrik has co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, including studies published in Nature, Science, Cell, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In 2025, he was recognized by Clarivate as a Highly Cited Researcher in both Microbiology and Molecular Biology & Genetics.
He is an elected member of EMBO, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. His research has received support from the European Research Council through both Consolidator and Advanced Grants, and he has received several scientific distinctions, including the Minkowski Prize from the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, the Göran Gustafsson Prize in Medicine, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences Gold Medal.
Fredrik Bäckhed has co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, including numerous papers in leading journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In 2025, he was recognized by Clarivate as one of the World's Most Cited Researchers in both Microbiology and Molecular Biology & Genetics, reflecting the global impact of his research.
To full list of publications: ORCID: 0000-0002-4871-8818