|
MIMS mini-symposium: Welcome the new MIMS Clinical Research Fellows in Umeå on 28 May! |
 |
 |
|
MIMS mini-symposium
The MIMS Clinical Research Fellows, who were recently recruited from all over Sweden, will visit MIMS and Umeå University on 27-28 May 2013.
MIMS is organizing a mini-symposium to introduce the Clinical Research Fellows to the MIMS/UCMR environment.
Interested people and guests are warmly welcome!
Place: Betula salen, building 6M, Norrland University Hospital Area
Preliminary Programme
| 8:30 |
New Senior Group Leaders at MIMS: |
|
Maria Fällman, professor, Department of Molecular Biology:
title: tbc
Sun Nyunt Wai, professor, Department of Molecular Biology:
Secretion of proteins via the type zero and type six routes of Vibrio cholerae |
|
|
| 9:15 |
Research Projects of the MIMS Clinical Research Fellows |
|
(titles tbc) 10 min talk + 5 min questions each |
|
Peter Bergman
Clinical Microbiology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm
Vitamin D and human immunity - experimental and clinical studies
Arvid Edén
Department of Infectious Diseases, Institute of Biomedicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg
Central nervous system viral "escape" and neuronal damage in HIV-1 infection
Alicia Edin
Department of Clinical Microbiology and Norrland's University Hospital, Umeå University:
Rapid diagnosis of community aquired pneumonia
(Participation not confirmed due to clinical duties)
|
|
|
| 10:00 |
Coffee break |
|
|
| 10:30 |
Åsa Gylfe
Department of Clinical Microbiology and Norrland University Hospital, Umeå University
Strategies against antibiotic resistant bacterial infections: novel antibacterial compounds and rapid diagnosis with infection specific metabolites
Anders Johansson
Department of Clinical Microbiology and Norrland's University Hospital, Umeå University:
Molecular epidemiology and infection metabolomics
Josef Järhult
Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University Hospital
Antimicrobial resistance in a One Health perspective
Fredrik Kahn
Department of Clinical Sciences, Infection Medicine, University of Lund Defense systems and bacterial manipulation of these systems during sepsis
Johan Normark
Department of Clinical Microbiology and Norrland's University Hospital, Umeå University
Malaria and bacterial concomitant infection
Sofia Nyström
Molecular Virology, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University Hospital
Immunomodulatory effects exerted by HIV-1 on dendritic cells and the induction of regulatory suppressor T cells |
| 12:00 |
Lunch (snacks) |
|
|
Emmanuelle Charpentier receives Humboldt-Professorship; one of the most prestigious German scientific awards |
|
|
 The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation announced today, 18 April 2013, that Emmanuelle Charpentier is one of the four excellent scientists who will be awarded with a Humboldt-Professorship 2014. The prize of up to five million euros (ca. SEK 43 million), is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the most valuable award for researchers in Germany. With the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, the Foundation awards worldwide leading scientists of all disciplines who are working abroad, but will carry out pioneering research at German universities.
"Emmanuelle Charpentier is one of the most innovative researchers in the field of RNA regulation and molecular biological research of infections", the Humboldt Foundation wrote in their press release.
The four awarded Humboldt-professors are now starting their negotiations with the German universities that nominated them for the prize. Emmanuelle Charpentier was nominated by the University of Hannover, where she is teaching since she was recently recruited as head of the Department of Regulation in Infection Biology at the Helmholtz Centre of Infection Biology in Braunschweig, Germany. |
|
Revealing the weapons by which bacteria fight each other: NATURE paper by Sun Nyunt Wai and colleagues |
|
|
Revealing the weapons by which bacteria fight each other
[2013-04-04] A new study which was performed jointly at Umeå University and the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, discovered that bacteria can degrade the cell membrane of bacterial competitors with enzymes that do not harm their own membrane. This exciting finding opens the way for the development of new antibacterial drugs to fight bacteria using their own weapons. (NATURE, 2013, DOI 10.1038/nature12074).
During the infection of a host organism, pathogenic bacteria can excrete toxins that cause damage to host cells and tissue. Interestingly, bacteria also use similar mechanisms in competition with one another. Notably, they can use secretion systems with syringe-like structures to inject the toxins into other cells. Among the different secretion systems that are known in bacteria, the type VI secretion system is of particular importance to interbacterial competition, and is found in many different species of bacteria. The collaborating Swedish-American research teams now found that certain enzymes, phospholipases, are secreted by the type VI system and that they are only effective against the competitor but not the producer’s own cell membrane.
Sun Nyunt Wai, professor at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS) and the department of Molecular Biology in Umeå, Sweden, and Joseph D. Mougous, professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, studied together with their students and post-docs the genes and proteins that are behind this selective defence mechanism. They studied the type VI secretion systems in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, soil bacteria causing severe infections of intestines, blood and lungs, and in Vibrio cholerae, a pathogen causing the life-threatening cholera diarrhea.
– Bacteria have evolved many strategies for defence against predators and competitors in the environment. In this study we found that the bacteria possess phospholipases, that degrade a major phospholipid component in the cell membranes, Sun Nyunt Wai, said. And we found that the bacteria producing the antibacterial effector at the same time produced an immunity protein that protects them against their own toxin. Her student Krisztina Hathazi and postdoctoral fellow Takahiko Ishikawa participated in the studies and are co-authors of the report in Nature.
When the team tested their hypothesis with mutants lacking the genes for immunity, they found that membrane integrity was greatly impaired, as the bacterial cells were now harmed by self-intoxication.
– The finding that bacterial phospholipases, classically considered potent mediators of virulence, can also serve as offensive weapons against competing bacteria was really quite surprising and challenges basic assumptions made concerning these enzymes, commented PhD student Alistair B. Russell, the first author of the report. Both Alistair and the second author, Michele LeRoux, are graduate students in the laboratory of Joseph D. Mougous, the corresponding author of this study. Joseph and his students are members of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular and Cellular Biology Program at the University of Washington in Seattle, and an additional author of the study, professor Paul A. Wiggins, is a member of the Departments of Physics and Bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle.
More information:
Sun Nyunt Wai, professor
Department of Molecular Biology and
The Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS)
Umeå University
Email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Phone: +46 90 785 6704
More information about Sun Nyunt Wai's research group
Publication:
Alistair B. Russell, Michele LeRoux, Krisztina Hathazi, Danielle M. Agnello, Takahiko Ishikawa, Paul A. Wiggins, Sun Nyunt Wai, & Joseph D. Mougous: Diverse type VI secretion phospholipases are functionally plastic antibacterial effectors. Nature, 2013. DOI 10.1038/nature12074.
Fulltext article in Nature
picture: Biofilm with Vibrio cholerae bacteria, copyright: Sun Nyunt Wai, MIMS
(Text: Eva-Maria Diehl)
|
|
Job opportunities in Electron Microscopy |
|
|
The Umeå Core Facility for Electron Microscopy (UCEM) is an important part of the research infrastructure in Umeå. It is located within the Chemical Biological Centre (KBC) and is utilized by researchers from many departments at Umeå University and at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå. The activities are extensive with service as well as education. UCEM is also supported by The Swedish Research Council with funding for equipment available as national infrastructure and therefore offers service on a national basis.
UCEM is announcing two research engineer positions
Read the complete announcements here |
|
MIMS welcomes DANDRITE as new partner in the Nordic EMBL Partnership |
|
|
|
DANDRITE, The Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience, is the fourth Nordic partner in The Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine. On March 5th a delegation from MIMS and Umeå University participated in the ceremony at Aarhus University to celebrate the official opening of DANTRITE together with representatives from EMBL and from the nodes and universities in Finland and Norway, FIMM at Helsinki University and NCMM at University of Oslo.
 Signed the new agreement of the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine in Aarhus (from left to right):
Prof Poul Nissen, director for DANDRITE and Aarhus University, prof Thomas Wilhelmsson, Rector University of Helsinki, prof Lena Gustafsson, Vice-Chancellor Umeå University, Director General prof Iain Mattaj, EMBL, prof Lauritz B. Holm-Nielsen, Aarhus University, prof Ole Petter Ottersen, University of Oslo, and the directors for the three other Nordic partner nodes prof Olli Kallioniemi, (FIMM), prof Bernt Eric Uhlin (MIMS) and prof Kjetil Taskén (NCMM).
- We congratulate our colleagues at DANDRITE and are looking forward to stimulating collaboration in our joint efforts to promote research excellence in molecular medicine by international recruitment of young research group leaders that are given strong support for their research and can take part in the scientific exchange among the nodes, says Bernt Eric Uhlin after returning from Danmark. We wish Poul Nissen, Anders Nykjær and Poul Henning Jensen good luck and success with the new challenge as they now establish DANDRITE.
At this occasion the partners also renewed the partnership agreement and it is now extended for a period of 10 years. Vice-Chancellor Lena Gustafsson and MIMS Director Bernt Eric Uhlin signed the new agreement together with the EMBL Director General Iain Mattaj and the university Rectors and Directors of the other Nordic EMBL nodes.
Åke Forsberg, scientific secretary of MIMS, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Marianne Sommarin also attended the ceremony and participated in a first planning meeting among the four nodes.
The Danish Lundbeck Foundation is funding the Nordic partner institute for translational neuroscience with DKK 60 million over five years wiith option for extension with additional DKK 60 million.
More information on DANDRITE
Press release from EMBL, The European Molecular Biology Laboratory
Press release from Aarhus University (in Danish only)
Press release from Umeå University (in Swedish only)
picture: Lars Kruse, AU Kommunikation
|
|
Inauguration of the Swedish Metabolomics Centre 11-12 March 2013 |
|
|
 Welcome to the Inauguration of the Swedish Metabolomics Centre Umeå!
The former metabolomics platform at KBC has expanded. All interested people, experts and non-experts,
who want to learn more about the new established centre and its service and research are welcome to an inspiring symposium which is organized during two half days at KBC.
The symposium will take place on
11-12 March 2013, at Chemical Biological Centre (KBC), Umeå University, Large Lecture Hall, Stora Hörsalen KB3B1.
Marianne Sommarin, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research at Umeå University, and Johan Schnürer, Deputy Vice-chancellor for Cooperation at SLU, will invite the new centre on 12 March at 10:40 am, Large Lecture hall "Stora hörsalen", KB3B1, KBC.
More information and registration here
|
|
Postdoctoral fellow in infectious disease modeling and climate change |
|
|
Anders Sjöstedt and his colleagues were recently awarded a grant from Formas, the Swedish Research Council for sustainable development, related to modeling of the occurrence of infectious diseases with a focus on tularemia. The research group has carried out modeling on retrospective data and thereby is able to build a model that closely mimicked the historical data. Now the group intends to use the model to predict future occurrences of certain zoonotic diseases, in particular tularemia, and incorporate scenarios for future climate change in this modeling.
The research group is now recruiting a post doc. Deadline for application 15 March 2013.
More information here |
|
Impressions from the UCMR DAY 10 January 2013! |
|
|
UCMR has now published pictures and résumé of the UCMR DAY, which was organized on 10 January 2013.
More than 120 scientists participated.
More information and pictures on
www.ucmr.umu.se. |
|
Nobel Laureate Brian Kobilka will visit Umeå University 12 December |
|
|
Nobel Laureate Brian Kobilka will give a talk at Umeå University on 12 December, 11.00. In the afternoon he will also visit KBC and meet with young group leaders, PhD students, and highschool students. The professor of molecular and cellular physiology at Stanford University School of Medicine, shares the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2012 with Robert Lefkowitz, Duke University. Both are being honored for their discoveries about the structure and function of a common signal interceptor, the G protein-coupled receptors on the membranes of living cells.
 |
|
Welcome to the UCMR DAY 10 January 2013! |
|
|
|
Welcome to the UCMR DAY 10 January 2013!
Lecture hall Stora hörsalen, KB3B1, KBC
All scientists and staff members within UCMR (Umeå Centre for Microbial Research) research groups, collaboration partners and researchers with an interest in microbial research and/or infection biology are invited to a day of inspiring research presentations and an excellent opportunity for networking and initiation of multidisciplinary collaborations. Register below and get an update on research within UCMR and core facilities/National infrastructures co-funded by UCMR programs!
This year the new National facility for High Resolution Scanning Electron Microscopy will be presented. The program includes presentations from UCMR research groups from all participating departments as well as a poster session. Prices will be awarded to the best posters.
 Registration form UCMR Day 2013 (Deadline for registration and posters: 9 December 2012)
Preliminary programme
New to this year is the UCMR Speakers Trophy (UST) open to all UCMR researchers where the winner will be decided by an expert jury together with the audience.
UPDATE! Presenter and jury are now confirmed! The deadline for registration has been extended to 2nd of December.
For more information and registration: www.ucmr.umu.se
|
|
|
News/Events