Tove Fall one of this year’s Göran Gustafsson Prize winners

This year’s five Göran Gustafsson Prize winners will each receive SEK 7.5 million, SEK 300,000 as a personal prize and SEK 7.2 million in research funding over a period of three years. These highly coveted prizes have been awarded over the years to researchers including recent Nobel Prize winners in chemistry and physics Emmanuelle Charpentier and Anne L’Huillier.

Exploring gut flora and cardiovascular disease

Tove Fall, Professor of Molecular Epidemiology at Uppsala University, receives the prize in medicine “for epidemiological studies of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases”.

Epidemiological research involves using observational studies to draw conclusions about why people get certain diseases. Tove Fall’s studies have included exploring the connection between bacteria in the gut flora and cardiovascular disease. Now she is eager to launch a new project in the field.

“In recent years, DNA technology has enabled us to chart the gut flora. Thanks to the excellent biobanks in Sweden, we can now start following people over time, as if with a time machine. If a person included in our studies is admitted to hospital with a heart attack, we can see what their gut flora looked like eight years ago when the samples were taken and compare it with those who have not become ill.”

Will also map oral flora

The project is based on two pillars. Firstly, the research group now also aims to map the oral flora of the participants in the study. Secondly, they are studying the extent of arteriosclerosis in blood vessels using repeated computed tomography scans and health record data.

“It has long been theorised that the oral and intestinal flora have an impact on cardiovascular disease. The main interpretation today is that different factors interact over a long time, both environmental and genetic. But there are also people where we don’t understand the cause of the disease at all, and we think that bacteria may have played a role in these cases.”

Building up the research team

Receiving the Göran Gustafsson Prize means an enormous amount, not only for Tove Fall, but for her entire research group.

“This confirms that what we are doing is good and important. Moreover, it is such a large sum of money that I can add to the excellent research team that I have around me.”

Annica Hulth