Johan Kolmert

My research focus is to identify inflammatory disease mechanisms involving the biosynthesis of lipid mediators in eosinophils, mast cells and epithelial cells, . This work is applied to respiratory diseases such as asthma, with the overall aim to monitor inflammatory profiles to select the right patient for the right treatment, but also to identify new drug targets related to lipid biosynthesis and metabolism.

As assistant professor my research experience starts from the use of chromatography and mass spectrometry-based techniques to quantify arachidonic acid dervied metabolites, so called eicosanoids, but has expanded to include essentially all omega-6, omega-3 and omega-9 derived metabolites from the related enzymes.

I find contextualisation of biochemical results in a clinical and cellular context to be my passion. I started my carreer at AstraZeneca R&D, whereafter have conducted research at the Karolinska Institute for last 12 years. However, I have taken on the role as bioanalytical expert for smaller drug companies since 2019 which allowes me to contribute and evaluate how bioanalytical data is being used to progress novel drugs through clinical development.

I currentl study inflammatory processes driven by established lipid mediators, such prostaglandin, leukotriene and thromboxanes. Those are of particular importance in moderate to severe asthma. Central to my findings is the involvement of key effector cells, such as mast cells and eosinophils. After my experience of applying untargeted metabolomics within systems biology at AstraZeneca I have shifted my bioanalytical focus towards targeted LC-MS/MS based absolute quantification.  Currently ongoing efforts are from larger European joint research studies (IMI funded U-BIOPRED Alliance project, RASP U.K, COPSAC, VDAART, withing the 3TR consortia (BioCross and SoMOSA).