His current research interests include antimicrobial nanomaterials and nanomaterials for drug delivery, amphiphilic peptide therapeutics, and cutaneous drug delivery. In addition to his academic work, Malmsten is active within research translation, being co-inventor on 16 patent and patent application families, as well as co-founder for three start-ups. Malmsten has received numerous research awards, including the ACS Langmuir Lecture Award and the Nordblad-Ekstrand Medal. He is elected Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Nobel Prize awarding academy), the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (where he was Chairman of Chemical Engineering 2018-20), and the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences. In addition, Malmsten is Fellow of the Royal Physiographic Society, Fellow of the Royal Chemical Society, and guest professor at Lund University. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, one of the leading journals within colloid and interface science, with an impact factor of 9.96 and over 10,000 manuscript submissions per year.