Carl Sellgren Majkowitz

Carl Sellgren Majkowitz is an Associate Professor and Group Leader at the Karolinska Institutet, where he leads the Applied Developmental Neurobiology Research Group within the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology. His work bridges preclinical and clinical research, focusing on molecular mechanisms of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. By combining human brain organoids, cellular reprogramming, and clinical data from large-scale studies (e.g., the Karolinska Schizophrenia Project), he investigates how neuron-glia interactions and genetic risk variants drive disease pathology.

• Key research themes include synaptic pruning, neuroinflammation, and kynurenine pathway dysregulation in mental illness.
• His team has uncovered novel mechanisms, such as excess synaptic elimination in schizophrenia models linked to C4A gene overexpression, with follow-up studies confirming elevated C4A protein in cerebrospinal fluid of first-episode patients.

His 15 most recent articles (2025-2023) span schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, COVID-19 neurodegeneration, and complement system roles in synaptic pruning. Collaborations with institutions in Denmark, Switzerland, and USA have secured major grants, including DKK 30 million from the Lundbeck Foundation (2025) and Swedish Foundations’ Starting Grant (2021). He has received accolades like the One Mind – Kaiser Permanente Rising Star Research Award (2019) and the Sven och Ebba-Christina Hagberg Prize (2022).

His lab trains PhD students and postdoctoral fellows in human disease modeling, genetic engineering, and multi-omics analysis. Current projects involve large-scale genetic risk variant studies and neuroimmune interactions in brain organoids to harmonize preclinical findings with clinical biomarkers (e.g., PET imaging, cerebrospinal fluid proteomics).