Jonas Mattsson

Dr. Jonas Mattsson is the Director of the Hans Messner Allogeneic Transplant Program and Clinician Investigator within the Malignant Hematology Program, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. Also, he is Full Professor within the Department of Medicine, University of Toronto.

Dr. Mattsson obtained his medical degree in 1995, from the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. He then received his PhD in 2001 and went on to complete a clinical immunology residency in Sweden, in 2007. From 2011-2017, Dr. Mattsson served as the Clinical Director of the Centre for Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation, Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge. Before moving to Toronto, Dr. Mattsson served as a Professor in Cell Therapy, Karolinska Institutet and Senior Consultant for the Department of Hematology, Oslo University Hospital and Clinical Immunology, Karolinska University Hospital.

Dr. Mattsson’s research is focused on immunology and cancer, specifically allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Patients with Leukemia and other malignant blood disorders often need to have their bone marrow, or immune cells, replaced with stem cells from a healthy donor creating an immunological attack called graft-versus-leukemia that would cure the majority of patients.
Much of Dr. Mattsson’s research deals with improving stem cell transplantation methods in order to avoid and treat severe complications that may occur after transplantation. For example, Jonas Mattsson has developed new ways of treating life-threatening viral infections that may develop after stem cell transplantation, using specific T-cells from a donor or a close relative. This treatment has shown very promising results and a significant number of patients have been cured.
Dr. Mattsson is principally interested in helping people with treatment resistant and recurrent cancers. He is researching targeted immunotherapy treatment, where the patient’s own T-cells are removed from their blood and then reprogrammed to specifically attack cancer cells, i.e. CAR T-cell therapy. This has the potential to cure cancer patients who would not survive on standard chemotherapy alone.
Dr. Mattsson has published more than 170 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has given many talks at international conferences and seminars.