The Faculty of Medicine

The goal of our research is to understand how the brain’s glial cells contribute to disease development and the spread of the pathology in Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Through this new approach, we hope to be able to identify future treatment strategies.

In Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, there is an accumulation of harmful proteins. Amyloid-beta and tau form large lumps in the Alzheimer’s brain, while aggregates of alpha-synuclein accumulate in the Parkinson’s brain. In addition, there is extensive inflammation, which progresses during the course of the disease. Although these changes have long been known, many questions remain about the mechanisms that lead to a worsening of the disease and its spread to new regions of the brain.

Astrocytes are by far the most common type of glial cells and have a very large impact on brain health. Our research shows that astrocytes take up large quantities of aggregated forms of amyloid-beta, tau, and alpha-synuclein proteins, but that they are very bad at breaking down this material, which instead accumulates inside these cells. This causes severe cellular stress and leads to these proteins being offloaded to nearby cells using different mechanisms. For example, astrocytes contact their neighbours with thin thread-like protrusions (nanotubes), and let loose vesicles of partially broken down material, which damages surrounding nerve cells. Our results indicate that astrocytes could be a relevant target to slow the progression of the disease.

Heart attacks with subsequent heart failure are still one of the dominant causes of death in the Western world, despite the fact that the majority of heart attacks are treated in accordance with the applicable guidelines. This includes balloon angioplasty and stent insertion, blood-thinning drugs and various types of drugs to reduce stress on the heart. One of the reasons why we do not see any improvement in the survival rate is that today’s treatments do not target the inflammation that is initiated when the flow of blood is restored to the heart muscles. Instead, this inflammatory process leads to scar tissue and decreased myocardial contractility, or in other words, heart failure.

In my research, I have explored a number of translational strategies to counteract the development of heart failure after myocardial infarction (a heart attack). In various experimental models, I have evaluated everything from heart stem cells to immunosuppressive enteric glial cells and currently small vesicles produced from immunosuppressive enteric glial cells from bone marrow. I focus mainly on suppressing the initial inflammatory process that occurs in the treatment of heart attacks, while developing various methods to follow the effect of the immune-suppressing vesicles. My research thus consists of experimental models but also clinical treatment studies, which in turn require the development of advanced protein analysis methods and image processing systems in order to monitor the effect of a given treatment. The goal is to develop new biological drugs that prevent heart failure.

Good health is a valuable asset for the individual as well as for the community at large, and forms an important part of our human capital. All individuals are born with an initial health capital that decreases with age and unhealthy lifestyle. But health can be improved through investments in such things as health care, diet and exercise. With limited resources, the cost of medical treatments and preventive interventions must always be carefully weighed against the values generated. Health economics is a broad interdisciplinary subject area that studies the effectiveness, values and behaviours associated with the production and consumption of health care.

My research is about what determines individuals’ health and human capital and why socio-economic differences occur, the importance of health for success in life, and how incentives affect individuals’ access to care and their preventive behaviours.

In my research, I often use observational data to study causal relationships by utilising random variation in exposure to interventions that happen naturally through, for example, the implementation of policy, decision-making rules, or by themselves. Swedish register data is a unique resource for health economics research due to its richness, especially when health data registers can be combined with socio-economic register data. I plan to continue conducting research on how health and health inequalities are determined and what cost-effective interventions can reduce these differences.

Geriatrics involves care, research and education for the health of older people. Geriatrics deals with the diseases of the older, frailer individual and takes into account the interaction between medical, psychological and social factors that affect morbidity and well-being.

Geriatrics research aims to better understand, prevent, diagnose and cure the diseases of older age. Our research is mainly focused on neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, but we also study other complex diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke.

Projects in geriatrics are of great importance for promoting the health and well-being of older individuals through interdisciplinary approaches and longitudinal studies. By bridging knowledge gaps and shaping the future of the care of older people, we hope to create more sustainable and effective care for older populations.

Antibiotics are one of the greatest discoveries of modern medicine and since the development of penicillin in the 1940s, antibiotic treatment has saved the lives of many hundreds of millions of people. Bacteria are everywhere around us, not least on our bodies, and although most are usually beneficial to us, unfortunately we also sometimes suffer from infections when bacteria end up in the wrong place in the body or if our immune system is compromised. In bacterial infections, antibiotics are vital drugs and have been used extensively for the past 80 years. A natural effect of our large-scale use of antibiotics is that some bacteria have evolved so that they can tolerate treatment with antibiotics – they have become resistant to antibiotics. The increasing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria threatens our ability to cure bacterial infections and today is one of the biggest threats to modern medicine.

In my research, I mainly study the molecular mechanisms that allow bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics and how they can spread resistance genes between each other. We specialise in using experimental evolution in the laboratory to understand how bacteria react to different antibiotics and how both high and low concentrations of antibiotics affect the development of resistance.

A particular focus is how a form of circular DNA molecule, plasmids, can collect resistance genes and transmit them between different bacterial cells. Because plasmids can code for multiple resistance genes all at once, when they transmit these to new bacteria, those bacteria become resistant to multiple antibiotics – which increases the rate at which our antibiotics become ineffective. In collaboration with clinical researchers, we are working to test how antibiotics and drugs that block the bacteria’s resistance can be combined in new ways to make it difficult for bacteria to develop further resistance and to create effective antibiotic treatments for the future.

Bacterial infections pose a health threat that is increasing year on year due to the rapid spread of antibiotic resistance. My colleagues and I in the research group are using advances in stem cell biology to study how bacterial infections develop in an infected patient.

Our research focuses particularly on the intestinal mucosa, which is a common entry port for aggressive bacteria. From intestinal tissue samples, we can grow stem cells and get them to form small miniature intestines – organoids – outside the body. These organoids can be infected with aggressive bacteria such as Salmonella and Shigella under controlled conditions in the laboratory. With advanced light microscopy, we can then follow the course of the infection in real time and in high resolution. Using methods that allow us to knock out genes in the bacteria, we are able to map out the arsenal of weapons they use to invade the intestinal mucosa and manipulate the body’s immune system functions. In these organoids, we also study how antibiotics act on bacteria when they are inside human tissue. This is allowing us to explore new ways to make future antibiotic treatments better at slowing down an ongoing infection.

Caring sciences research investigates questions related to human health, well-being and suffering. My research concerns the link between physical and mental health – and more specifically how people are affected emotionally by being diagnosed with cancer and what they experience as their needs for support in relation to their mental health.

‘Cancer hangover’ is a term coined by Ung Cancer (an association for young people with cancer) which describes the physical, mental and social challenges that people can face following cancer treatment, and that should be considered as part of cancer rehabilitation.

In my research, I am particularly interested in deepening our knowledge about the psychological challenges that can follow in the wake of a cancer diagnosis, and how we can best understand and treat the negative consequences of cancer on mental health. Therefore, my current research is focused on developing, testing and implementing psychological support interventions as part of future cancer rehabilitation.

My research focus is children’s, young people’s and adults’ vulnerability to neglect, violence and sexual abuse in domestic relationships. In recent years, I have focused especially on the violence that occurs in young people’s domestic relationships.

Of particular interest are qualitative studies that examine dynamics and areas of tension around the theme of domestic violence, and to generate knowledge that can contribute to preventing this violence.

I am also interested in research ethics and research methods. This research has a rights perspective, in addition to a harm perspective. In other words, people have the right to a life free from violence, and they need this because violence has a broad potential to cause harm. In addition to the negative consequences of violence, I am interested in how people exposed to violence put up resistance to it, and develop strategies to deal with it. My research is based on this violence being gendered, and a gender equality problem.