Daniel Agardh, MD, PhD

Daniel Agardh, MD, PhD, is a pediatric gastroenterologist at Lund University, Sweden, with a long-standing research focus on the etiology of celiac disease. His work centers on the interplay between HLA-defined genetic risk and early-life environmental exposures, including infant feeding practices, infections, growth patterns, and other exposomic factors, in the development of celiac disease–related autoimmunity and overt disease. He combines clinical pediatric gastroenterology with population-based epidemiology and prospective cohort methodology to address mechanisms of immune tolerance and loss thereof during childhood.

Dr. Agardh is a senior investigator in major international longitudinal studies, including The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study, where he has played a key role in elucidating environmental triggers of celiac disease autoimmunity in genetically at-risk children. He has published in >100 peer-reviewed gastroenterology, pediatrics, and immunology journals, contributing data that have informed risk stratification, disease prediction, and prevention-oriented research frameworks in celiac disease. He is an active member of the ESPGHAN Special Interest Group on Celiac Disease, contributing to collaborative efforts that link high-quality epidemiologic evidence with clinical practice and guideline development for celiac disease across the lifespan. His long-term research goal is to identify and predict factors that trigger celiac disease, with the aim of enabling novel preventive strategies and interventions that could avert the need for lifelong treatment.