Peter Larsen

Peter Larsen is a molecular biologist who leads an interdisciplinary research team spanning several colleges and departments across the university. He is Co-Director of the Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach and has spearheaded an effort to develop new diagnostic tools for animal and human prion diseases. This work has resulted in the development of an exciting new class of portable tools that can detect biomarkers for several neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Larsen also specializes in studies of mammalian biodiversity and zoonotic disease surveillance. His latest work in this area brings cutting-edge genomic tools out of the lab and into the field for real-time species discovery and pathogen surveillance.