Björn Nordlund

Björn Nordlund

Adjunct Senior Lecturer | Docent
Telephone: +46852482834
Visiting address: ALB, Q2:04, 17176 Stockholm
Postal address: K6 Kvinnors och barns hälsa, K6 Klinisk pediatrik Nordlund, 171 77 Stockholm
Part of:

About me

    • Affiliated Senior Lecturer
    • Associate Professor in Pediatric Allergology
    • Research Group Leader
    • Vice Study Director for Doctoral Education, Women's and Children's Health
    • Founder of Home Spirometry System "AsthmaTuner"
    • Supervision of Graduate Student and Post doc
    • External Reviewer of Thesis and Grant Application Evaluation
    • Referee of Scientific Journals

Research

  • The high prevalence of asthma and allergies highlights the urgent need for a better understanding of prevention strategies to reduce the burden and improve management. Our research focuses on early-life and digital intervention strategies across various projects:

    • PreventADALL – Prevention of Allergy and Atopic Dermatitis in Children: This Nordic interventional birth cohort study aims to determine if early interventions with skin emollients and food introduction by taste in infancy can prevent atopic dermatitis and allergy in children.
    • ADVERT – Asthma Diagnosis Determined by Lung Function and Clinical Decision Support System: This collaboration seeks to reduce asthma misdiagnosis in primary care using a home spirometry system.
    • Automated Prevention of Asthma Using Artificial Intelligence (AI): The primary goal is to predict diagnoses and prevent asthma exacerbations with an AI-assisted home spirometry system. The core hypothesis is that by leveraging comprehensive datasets, including register data, we can create personalised asthma care models. These models, enhanced by AI, aim to revolutionize the accuracy of asthma diagnoses and the effectiveness of treatments, ultimately making asthma care more cost-effective. The expected improvements in asthma care will be rigorously tested through randomized controlled trials.
    • APPETITE – App-Based Medical Device for Education and Training of Inhalation Technique with Home Spirometry System: The main objective is to assess the impact of an app-based education and training device on inhalation technique in patients treated for asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Teaching

  • Teaching activity:

    • Clinical Immunology and Allergic Diseases in the medical program
    • Clinical training of nurses on various academic levels
    • Digital health care of respiratory diseases
    • Supervising students on master and PhD level

Articles

All other publications

Grants

  • Southern and Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority
    1 January 2022
    When food becomes foe
    Food Intolerance in children<br/><br/>noResearch stay abroadTo reduce the burden of food intolerance in children, we will 1) investigate whether solid foods from 3 months of age reduce food intolerance/dieting at 7 years of age, 2) document food reactions, including home-based food provocation to reduce the need for diets, 3) identify prevention mechanisms and risk factors for food intolerance/dieting at school age.PreventADALL is a prospective randomized birth cohort study with a factorial design for the prevention of allergic diseases, and a long-term observational study with the aim of identifying factors early in life involved in the development of allergic and other non-communicable diseases. The project follows around 2400 mother-child pairs recruited between 2014 and 2016 at Oslo University Hospital, Østfold Hospital and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.<br/>When food becomes foe addresses the effect of early introduction of solid foods (peanut, milk, wheat and egg) to reduce the risk of food intolerance, food allergy (total food intolerance) and diets in early school age, and to identify risk factors for, and mechanisms of reduced risk of food intolerance. The follow-up studies (2022-24) at 7 years were completed in 2024.<br/><br/>The project consists of 5 work packages (WP)
    diagnostics of food intolerance (WP1), effect of early introduction of food on food intolerance and diets (WP2), prevalence of food intolerance, estimated reduced burden of preventing food intolerance and general risk factors for food intolerance (WP3). In WP 4, the effect of early nutrition is investigated and in WP5, new risk factors for food intolerance are investigated.<br/><br/>PhD fellow Vibeke Landaas (WP1, 2 and 3) participates in the 6-7 year follow-up studies in Oslo with a focus on mapping food intolerance/use of diets, documentation of food reactions and investigating whether early food introduction reduces the risk of these outcomes in early school age. The first work (published 2023) deals with patient data from OUS investigated for suspected non-IgE mediated intolerance to wheat or cow's milk. Among the 73 children, a newly developed, home-based, blinded provocation test with wheat or cow's milk showed that only one in four reacted to the food, and 80% of children with a negative test re-introduced the food in question. This provocation test will be central to the documentation of food reactions in PreventADALL for non-IgE food intolerance, while IgE-mediated food reactions are investigated with food provocations in hospitals, when possible, and celiac disease and other intolerance reactions are investigated according to clinical routines (WP1).<br/>The incidence and preventive effect of early food introduction on food intolerance will be analyzed in PreventADALL when all 7 years of data are available (WP2 and WP3), and follow similar analytical methods as at 3 years of age. In parallel with PreventADALL, the candidate has started analyses of data from the Mother-Child and Father Study (MoBA Study) for the national incidence of and risk factors for food allergy at 7 years of age. The results will be included in the PhD candidate's thesis.<br/><br/>Factors early in life that may influence the risk of food intolerance include the timing and effects of the introduction of solid foods, directly, and/or through the influence of intestinal flora in the first year of life. WP4 includes results from PhD candidate Carina Saunders (PhD submitted 2023) where early introduction of solid foods did not reduce duration of breastfeeding, and children randomized to early introduction had more food types (greater variation) in their diet from 9 months of age than children randomized to usual advice. Work is ongoing to investigate the effect of timing of food introduction on fatty acids and intestinal flora in the first year of life, against the risk of food intolerance at school age.<br/><br/>In addition, WP5 will establish virus panels to investigate whether viral infections in the first years of life and/or previously unknown genetic markers are associated with the risk of food allergy/intolerance, with analyses in 2024 and results expected in 2025.<br/>
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 December 2021 - 30 November 2025
    Since the inception of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the focus of authorities and healthcare providers has been on reducing the mortality acute, severe form of COVID-19. While the mortality rate of individuals affected by severe COVID-19 has been relatively high, they have made up a small proportion of those infected. A much larger group of severely affected individuals has instead emerged: those with persistent disease. It is important to highlight that the majority of long-COVID patients do not consist of individuals with prolonged recovery after hospitalization, but instead constitute a completely different phenotype of the disease, in a different demographic group. While those requiring hospital care are largely elderly or multi-morbid individuals, the majority of long-COVID patients are formerly young, mentally and physically strong individuals who due to mild initial symptoms generally did not seek hospital care. Here we will develop a home monitoring system to facilitate continuous follow-up of long-COVID patients. Identification of daily fluctuations, activity and physiological parameters will help identify sub-groups of the disease, with specific emphasis on those with lung involvement. Associated molecular biomarkers will be evaluated using our systems medicine workflow both in lung samples collected with bronchoscopy, and in a non-invasive fashion using PExA. The fully developed system will also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of various forms of treatment.
  • Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation
    1 January 2020 - 31 December 2022
  • Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
    1 January 2018 - 31 December 2020
  • Southern and Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority
    1 January 2017 - 31 December 2024
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2014 - 31 December 2017

Employments

  • Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, 2022-2025

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2020
  • Degree Of Doctor Of Philosophy, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, 2013

Supervision

  • 0

    • 1

      • 2

        • 3

          • 4

            • 5

              • 6

                News from KI

                Events from KI