Professor Gunnar Kahlmeter

A clinical microbiologist (MD, PhD), Dr Kahlmeter has worked in clinical microbiology since 1971 and in the field of antimicrobial resistance since 1972. He has more than 35 years of experience in leading people in practical microbiology and in science.

Having achieved an MD at the medical faculty of Lund University, Sweden, in 1979, and a doctoral thesis on pharmacokinetics and toxicity of aminoglycosides also in 1979, Dr Kahlmeter spent 15 years in the University of Lund, Sweden. He was Assistant Professor, medical faculty, Lund University from 1984 and Associate Professor, medical faculty, Uppsala University from 2004.

Between 1985 – 2016, he headed up three clinical microbiology laboratories and for 20 years has been the head of the Swedish national reference laboratory on phenotypic susceptibility testing of bacteria.

In 2001, Dr Kahlmeter was asked to develop EUCAST (the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing) and between 2002 – 2012 served as its chairperson and since then as the EUCAST Technical Data Coordinator. He is also the head of the EUCAST Development Laboratory and set up the EUCAST website in 2004 which he has managed since then.

Over the last 30 years, Dr Kahlmeter has served on many committees in various ways involved in antimicrobial resistance and has published in excess of 200 scientific publications.