Prof Björkman is Head of the Anders BjörkmanMalaria Group at the University of Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology.

Prof Björkman has worked as medical doctor in the field of infectious diseases since the 1970s. He has conducted numerous international consulting assignments mainly for the WHO on the control of global infectious diseases such as smallpox, malaria and HIV/ AIDS .

His research interests encompass: clinical and molecular epidemiology, diagnosis, chemotherapy and drug resistance, anaemia, protective immunity and co-infections in infectious diseases but mainly malaria. He has supervised over thirty doctoral students, mostly in the field of malaria, and has led research projects mostly in Africa but also in Asia and South America. He has published over 300 scientific papers in leading international journals.