About

He has also served on many national and international boards, e.g. on the Board of Directors of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Sweden), the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), and he is a member of several international vaccine-related technical task forces or steering committees. After completing his PhD thesis on urinary tract infection immunology in 1969, a large part of JH´s research has been focused on the mechanisms of disease and immunity in cholera and other mucosal infections and on the development of mucosal vaccines. In his early work on cholera, JH discovered, for instance, both the AB subunit structure and function of cholera toxin and the GM1 ganglioside as the cholera toxin receptor. JH and his coworkers have also made many important contributions in mucosal immunology and in the development of mucosal vaccines and adjuvants. They have developed and taken the oral B subunit-whole cell cholera vaccine all the way from basic concept to an internationally widely registered product, they have developed and taken an oral ETEC vaccine from concept to phase 3 trials, and they have pioneered the development of methods for assessment of mucosal vaccine immunogenicity in humans. In more basic aspects of mucosal vaccinology, JH´s laboratory has made important contributions in mucosal adjuvant construction, in defining basic mechanisms of mucosal immune regulation, and in developing promising mucosal immunomodulating/tolerogenic vaccine therapies against autoimmune and allergic diseases, the latter based on JH´s and Cecil Czerkinsky´s discovery of cholera toxin B subunit as a uniquely efficient combined carrier and immunomodulator for inducing peripheral T cell tolerance to chemically or genetically conjugated tissue antigens or allergens. JH has received numerous major scientific prizes and other distinctions for his research contributions, e g The Royal Swedish Academy of Science Prize in Medicine for 1977 (“Hilda and Alfred Erikssons pris”); The Anders Jahre Prize II (young scientists) in Medicine for 1982 (Norway); “Söderbergska Priset” (biggest Prize of The Swedish Medical Society) for 1994 ; The Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine for 1994 (Switzerland); The Eric K. Fernström Big Nordic Prize in Medicine 2004 (Lund University, Sweden); and The International Society for Mucosal Immunology “Distinguished Science Achievement Award 2007 “ . JH and his laboratory are extensively involved in collaborations with many international research institutions and programs, e.g. IVI, WHO, GAVI, and ICDDR,B (Bangladesh) and EU´s MUVAPRED program for mucosal vaccines.