Jan Staffan Normark, born 1945, is a Swedish physician, microbiologist and infectious disease researcher. He grew up in Umeå and was awarded his Ph.D. at Umeå University in 1971.[1] At the end of the 1970s, he was one of the first Swedish scientists to utilise the new genetic engineering tools in infection-related research.[2] In 1980, he was made a professor at Umeå University, then the university's youngest. 1989 he was recruited as professor of molecular microbiology to Washington University in St. Louis.[3] 1993 he returned to Sweden as professor of infectious disease control, in particular clinical bacteriology, at Karolinska Institutet.[4] From 1999 to 2005 he served as the Executive Director of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF). In 2008 he was active at Umeå University to build up a research group within bioinformatics and infection research. Much of his research in the 2000s have focussed on pneumococcus.
Normark was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1987[5] and took up the position as the Academy's permanent secretary on July 1, 2010, when he succeeded Gunnar Öquist.[3]
1992 he was awarded the Göran Gustafsson Prize in medicine and in 1999 he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.
Staffan Normark is married to Birgitta Henriques-Normark, also a professor and researcher within infectious disease at Karolinska Institutet.[6]