SRC grants SEK 7.6 million to Ulf Göransson and Mikael Hedeland

2023-11-07

The Faculty of Pharmacy congratulates Ulf Göransson, Professor of Pharmacognosy, and Mikael Hedeland, Professor of Analytical pharmaceutical chemistry, on receiving approximately SEK 7.6 million from the Swedish Research Council's to research on peptide design and method development.

(Image removed) Ulf Göransson and Mikael Hedeland receive SEK 7.6 million from SRC

The Swedish Research Council allocates two new million grants to researchers at Uppsala University's Faculty of Pharmacy: Ulf Göransson, Professor of Pharmacognosy, receives SEK 3.8 million for peptide design and Mikael Hedeland, Professor of Analytical pharmaceutical chemistry, receives SEK 3.75 million for the development of methods to analyse lipids.

“The grant allows us to take the next important step in an ongoing project with a focus on more effective treatment of primary liver cancer. We will shortly begin the recruitment of a PhD student with the aim to develop methods for more precise lipid analyses, tools that we will benefit greatly from in our interdisciplinary collaboration with, above all, medical research,” says Mikael Hedeland, principal applicant in the project Improvements in structural and quantitative lipidomics with applications in liver cancer.

(Image removed) Research group Analytical pharmaceutical chemistry

Among the co-applicants are Mikael Engskog in the same research group, Hans Lennernäs, Professor of Biopharmacy, Femke Heindryckx at Uppsala University's Faculty of Medicine and David Balgoma at Universidad de Valladolid. With combined expertise, they have already laid the foundation for their ambition to identify predictors that will enable earlier diagnosis, individualized treatment and, above all, significantly improved survival rates regarding primary liver cancer, currently the second deadliest form of tumors.

“The Swedish Research Council's support is extremely important for our future work. Analytical chemistry is rarely prioritised in the major calls, even though our field generates relevant knowledge in our own studies as well as part of interdisciplinary collaborations, something this project is an obvious example of. Right now we have two more joint applications out there, and hope for continued success as primary liver cancer is a disease where important progress is within reach,” states Mikael Hedeland.

In the same call, the Swedish Research Council grants SEK 3.8 million to Ulf Göransson, Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, and the project New molecules for drug development - Peptides designed for new targets. Already in 2022, Ulf Göransson's research group presented a synthetic peptide that enabled researchers at KI to identify an alternative method to prevent and treat infection during care with urinary catheters.

(Image removed) Ulf Göransson, Professor of Pharmacognosy

“Many of our advances are made in interdisciplinary collaboration, not least with Natalia Ferraz's research team of material chemists here at Uppsala University. Now we identify possibilities to contribute to additional benefits for both healthcare and patients, and the Swedish Research Council's support is an important addition for us to take our work further,” says Ulf Göransson.

FACTS

The Swedish Research Council is awarding a total amount of close to SEK 1,4 billion within Natural and engineering sciences throughout 2023-2027.

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CONTACT

(Image removed) Ulf Göransson, Professor
Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences
Ulf.Goransson@farmbio.uu.se

(Image removed) Mikael Hedeland, Professor
Department of Medicinal Chemistry
Mikael.Hedeland@ilk.uu.se

text: Magnus Alsne, photo: Mikael Wallerstedt