Gunnar Kahlmeter, M.D., now 73 years of age have served in clinical microbiology (CM) since 1971. He has now retired from being a lecturer at Lund and Uppsala medical faculties, senior consultant and head of clinical microbiology laboratories in Kronoberg, Blekinge and Kalmar counties but is still heading the EUCAST Development Laboratory, and the Swedish Reference Laboratory for phenotypic susceptibility testing of bacteria, Växjö, Sweden. His wife Annika is the head of dental services, County Kronoberg, and of his three children two are involved in research, one in social sciences and one as an MD and specialist in oncology.

Apart from research, with publications in the fields of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and susceptibility testing (AST), he has been involved in national and international committee and society work within the fields of CM, AMR and AST, methods development, quality control and external quality assessment. Most colleagues will think of him as the father of EUCAST (the European Committee of Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing) which he, with the help of ESCMID and colleagues in many European countries, brought from an anonymous existence of little consequence to dominate the European scene, being accepted by colleagues and EU agencies such as EMA and ECDC, and adopted by many countries also outside Europe, and for his many appearances in national meetings around the world to do battle on behalf of EUCAST. He served 10 years on the ESCMID executive committee and two years (2012 – 14) as its president. He is since the very start the webmaster of EUCAST (www.eucast.org) where you can reach him at all hours. He is still active on the EUCAST steering committee and in the EUCAST Development Laboratory and the Swedish reference laboratory and he is currently the chair of the WHO AMR STAG committee.