Joakim Larsson is a professor in environmental pharmacology at the Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He is also the director for the multidisciplinary Centre for Antibiotic Resistance Research (CARe) in Gothenburg.

Larsson received his PhD in animal physiology in 2000 in Gothenburg. After two years of guest research in Canada and the USA, he came back to Sweden to combine his interest for the environment with medicine. He became associate professor in human physiology in 2007 and full professor in 2013. From 2016 he has been director for the multidisciplinary Centre for Antibiotic Resistance Research (CARe) in Gothenburg hosting just over 150 scientists from 18 departments. His own research group focus primarily on the environmental dimensions of antibiotic resistance, particularly on evolution, wastewater-based surveillance and policy aspects.

He has authored more than 200 scientific papers, and he has been on Clarivate’s list of highly cited researchers since 2018. His work on antibiotic pollution from drug manufacturing and research on selective concentrations of antibiotics has contributed to various management initiatives across the world, including a UN-guidance on antibiotic pollution control.

He acts as scientific advisor in the area of antibiotic resistance to, for example, the Swedish Minister for Health and Social Affairs and the Access to Medicines Foundation. He is a scientific advisory board member of the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance, and also works as a consultant to the World Health Organization since 2023. In 2023 he received the first national (Swedish) prize in research communication.

Photo: Johan Wingborg, Gothenburg University