Björn Dahlbäck

Björn Dahlbäck (born 1949) is a Swedish physician, medical researcher, and professor of clinical chemistry, specializing in hematology and the molecular mechanisms of blood coagulation. He determined that activated protein C (APC) resistance is the most common inherited risk factor of venous thrombosis.

Education and career Dahlbäck graduated with an M.D. from Lund University and then completed his medical internship and residency at Malmö's University Hospital, which is now merged into Skåne University Hospital. In 1981 he received from Lund University his doctorate with dissertation The activation of prothrombin on the platelet surface under the supervision of Johan Stenflo. Dahlbäck was a postdoc at La Jolla's Scripps Research, where his supervisor was Hans J. Müller-Eberhard, and later was a visiting scholar at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF). In 1989 at Lund University, Dahlbäck was appointed a full professor of clinical chemistry, specializing in hematology and cardiac and cardiovascular systems.

His research was important in showing that APC resistance is caused by a harmful mutation in the F5 gene corresponding to the protein Factor V; the specific mutation was subsequently identified by several groups of researchers and is now called Factor V Leiden. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

In 2000, Academic Press published Hematology: Landmark Papers of the Twentieth Century , which included the 1994 paper Resistance to activated protein C as a basis for venous thrombosis by Peter J. Svensson and Björn Dahlbäck.

Selected publications