Stefan Thor

Stefan Thor (born 1964) is a Swedish professor of biology at Linköping University.

Stefan Thor was born in Uppsala, Sweden. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in 1988 and a doctorate degree in molecular biology in 1994 at Umeå University, Sweden. Between 1994 and 1999 he was a visiting research fellow at Salk Institute, La Jolla, United States, followed by five years as assistant professor and head of a research group at the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, Boston. In 2004 he was appointed professor of biology at Linköping University, focusing on evolutionary biology and molecular genetics.[1]

Thor’s research team investigates the formation of the nervous system during embryonic development, i.e. its early development from a fertilized egg cell. Using the fruit fly Drosophila as a system model, Thor’s research could be significant in the future in the fight against human neurological diseases. [2]

Thor was the 2008 recipient of the prestigious Swedish award, the Göran Gustafsson Prize in molecular biology, and the annual Eric K Fernström Prize, which heralds young, and successful researchers at six Swedish medical faculties.[3]