MIMS Spotlight Series: Meet Anne-Marie Fors Connolly

Text written by Nóra Lehotai and Anne Marie Fors Connolly. 

I had a chat with Anne-Marie Fors Connolly who joined MIMS as a Clinical Research Fellow in 2020. She is a true cosmopolitan, with Swedish and Danish nationalities and some Irish blood in her veins as well. She has lived in Denmark and Ireland before moving to Sweden, and now she is living with her husband, and they are hoping to soon welcome a dog in their lives.

Portrait picture of Anne-Marie Fors Connolly working in the lab. Credit: Mattias Petterson.

Can you tell us about your role at MIMS, what are you working on now?

I am a MIMS clinical research fellow. I finished my medical internship last year and I am currently specializing in Clinical Microbiology. Right now, I have several large projects ongoing in parallel ranging from in vitro studies in the laboratory, to clinical determinants of infectious disease outcome to large scale multi-register population studies. My research interests are focused on translational projects that are clinically relevant, since I like to feel I am contributing to society with the knowledge that is generated. My MIMS postdoc, Dr. Chloé Jacquet, is focusing on determining the cleaving factors of the endothelial glycocalyx during HFRS and COVID-19. My clinical project student, Hanna Jerndal, is visualizing the real-time thickness of the endothelial glycocalyx in COVID-19 patients. The principal research engineer Osvaldo Fonseca-Rodriguez is quantifying the risk of acute cardiovascular complications in all COVID-19 patients, together with Ioannis Katsoularis a medical doctor and PhD student. We have the help of a statistician, Erling Lundevaller, who works part-time in my group.

Read more: MIMS Spotlight Series: Meet Anne-Marie Fors Connolly

We are looking for a Research Engineer for in vivo malaria model

Join a young and dynamic team at MIMS under the lead of an internationally recognized, excellent malaria researcher!

We study the mosquito transmission of malaria parasites in a rodent model. The project forms part of a major effort funded by the European Research Council to systematically identify parasite gene functions in malaria transmission. You will work with different members of the team to provide specialized support for work with our rodent malaria transmission model, including the breeding and dissection of mosquitoes, infection of cultured cells and maintaining parasites in mice and rats. You will also provide general laboratory management. The work will be made under supervision of the group leader.

Read the full job description and apply here before 26 May 2021: https://umu.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID:398005/type:job/where:4/apply:1

Read more: We are looking for a Research Engineer for in vivo malaria model

Two postdoc positions available in malaria research at MIMS

Two research groups at MIMS are looking for postdocs at the field of malaria research. MIMS is hosted at Umeå University and is the Swedish node of the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine, offering a unique research environment and excellent infrastructure and networking opportunities.

Position 1: Postdoc 2 years, high-throughput method development for malaria parasites
You will be based in the lab of Ellen Bushell (www.bushelllab.com), and will be co-supervised by Johan Henriksson (www.henlab.org). Read the full description and apply here before 10 May 2021: https://umu.varbi.com/en/?jobtoken=1e3cc81ae7dc09040cfdb47da6aa7ac98e91e1ae8

Position 2: Postdoctoral position (2 years) in molecular parasitology
You will be based in the lab of Ellen Bushell (www.bushelllab.com). Read the full description and apply here before 10 May 2021: https://umu.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID:391923/type:job/where:4/apply:1

Read more: Two postdoc positions available in malaria research at MIMS

1st Umeå Interdisciplinary Symposium on Hypoxic Biology - 25 May 2021

The concentration of oxygen is one of the most important variables in many physiological and pathological processes. Do you care about oxygen levels in your experiments? Probably you should, and now you can at UHRF.

UHRF (Umeå Hypoxia Research Facility) is a new facility created to support research projects that require controlled oxygen conditions. We are co-financed by the Kempe Foundation and the Umeå Center for Microbial Research (UCMR) and you can find us at the Department of Molecular Biology.

1st Umeå Interdisciplinary Symposium on Hypoxic Biology - 25 May 8:45-16:45, online via Zoom

To introduce UHRF, we have organized an exciting virtual symposium to highlight the fundamental role of hypoxia in microbial ecology and infection, fungal biology, plant science, cancer, neurobiology and virology research. This first interdisciplinary symposium on hypoxic biology in Umeå is a joint initiative of UHRF (https://www.umu.se/en/uhrf) and UCMR (https://www.ucmr.umu.se/).

Read more to find out about the full program and registration.

Read more: 1st Umeå Interdisciplinary Symposium on Hypoxic Biology - 25 May 2021

Malaria researchers at MIMS, Ellen Bushell and Oliver Billker, reflect on World Malaria Day (25 April)

Written by Nóra Lehotai, MIMS

During the World Health Assembly in 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) Member States established 25th April as World Malaria Day. Fourteen years have passed, and malaria is still a global threat, claiming over 400, 000 lives every year, mostly killing children under 5 according to the WHO.

Malaria, an infectious disease, is caused by the unicellular protozoan Plasmodium parasites. These parasites infect the Anopheles mosquitos which become carriers of the parasites and transmit them to humans when the infected female Anopheles mosquito bites us. The parasites are injected from the mosquito’s salivary glands to the blood in the form of sporozoites, which travel to the liver (liver stage) where they multiply and transform into merozoites. The merozoite form invades our red blood cells (RBCs; blood stage), grows, and transforms into trophozoite, schizont and finally, into gametocyte form, which induces the malaria symptoms. The typical incubation period, from the bite until the first symptoms, is 11 days.

Read more: Malaria researchers at MIMS, Ellen Bushell and Oliver Billker, reflect on World Malaria Day (25...