Jan-Ake Gustafsson

Professor Jan-Ake Gustafsson is a Professor in Biology, Biochemistry, and Medical Nutrition at Karolinska Institutet and University of Houston. Jan-Åke Gustafsson is a leading scientist within the field of steroid hormone receptors/nuclear receptors. Several of his achievements have lead to true paradigm shifts in the field and represent breakthrough discoveries. He was first to show that a nuclear receptor, the glucocorticoid receptor, is composed of three separate structural and functional domains, a ligand binding domain, a DNA binding domain and a third domain identified by Gustafsson and coworkers by its immunogenic properties. Furthermore, the Gustafsson lab was first to purify a nuclear receptor, the glucocorticoid receptor, to homogeneity and thereby to show that it represents a single molecular species rather than a complex of multiple smaller subunits. His prolific works have earned him numerous awards, including a 1997 election to the Swedish Academy of Sciences and the 2000 European Medal from the British Society for Endocrinology. In 2002, Gustafsson was elected a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences. His Inaugural Article, published in this issue of PNAS, identifies inherent differences in signaling between the two estrogen receptors. These findings clarify the roles that each receptor plays in mammary cell proliferation and point toward possible new therapeutics for breast cancer.