Ola Larsson
Studies how mRNA translation is altered in cancer and develops methods to measure genome-wide translation; helped show that metformin changes which mRNAs cancer cells translate, through the mTORC1/4E-BP pathway.
Principal Researcher (since 2022) and Head of the Department of Oncology-Pathology (since 2025), Karolinska Institutet · Wallenberg Academy Fellow · Docent (2016) · PhD, Karolinska Institutet (2005)
Translational Control of Cancer group, Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden) ↗ ORCID0000-0003-1412-1308 ↗
Portrait: Karolinska Institutet
Ola Larsson was first author of the 2012 PNAS study done with the groups of Nahum Sonenberg and Michael Pollak (LAR2012). The team compared genome-wide translation in cancer cells treated with metformin or with the mTOR inhibitors rapamycin and PP242. Metformin changed translation to a similar extent and selectively reduced translation of mRNAs for cell-cycle regulators through the mTORC1/4E-BP pathway. The work was done in cultured cells at in vitro drug concentrations.
Larsson took his PhD at Karolinska Institutet in 2005. He leads the Translational Control of Cancer group in the Department of Oncology-Pathology at Karolinska, which he has headed since 2025. His group studies how altered protein synthesis shapes the proteome of cancer cells and whether it can be targeted.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | M | Distinct perturbation of the translatome by the antidiabetic drug metformin LAR2012 First author: metformin reshapes the translatome of cancer cells to an extent comparable to mTOR inhibitors, selectively cutting translation of cell-cycle mRNAs via mTORC1/4E-BP. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 1
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Ola Larsson.
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- Nahum Sonenberg Co-discovered the mRNA cap-binding protein eIF4E and the 4E-BP proteins that restrain it, and showed how mTOR releases this brake to control protein synthesis
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