Two MIMS postdocs awarded fellowships from the Swedish Society for Medical Research

Written by Marta Nieckarz, Atin Sharma and Nóra Lehotai. Pictures: Marta Nieckarz and Atin Sharma. Credit: Marta Nieckarz and Atin Sharma.

Marta Nieckarz and Atin Sharma received a three-year fellowship for postdoctoral studies in medical science from the Swedish Society for Medical Research (Svenska Sällskapet för Medicinsk Forskning, SSMF). Marta and Atin are both postdoctoral researchers at MIMS, Umeå University. Marta is a member of the Cava lab (group leader: Felipe Cava) and Atin is a member of the Puhar lab (group leader: Andrea Puhar).

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MIMS Spotlight Series: Meet Anna Överby Wernstedt

Text written by Nóra Lehotai and Anna Överby Wernstedt. Pictures: 1) Anna Överby Wernstedt, credit: Mattias Petterson, 2) Work in the Överby lab, credit: Mattias Petterson.

This is a MIMS Spotlight Series Extra article before the longer summer break. I chatted with Anna Överby Wernstedt, who is now a rather senior MIMS group leader. She was born and raised in Sweden and during her studies and career so far, she has lived in Scotland, Canada, the USA and Germany, to return to Sweden and join MIMS in 2011. Her life is full with activities, which she shares with her husband and their two children. 

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

I am a MIMS Group Leader,but as my 9 years-period is up, I am justfinishing the leftover funding for a postdoc in my group and will take up a new association within MIMS.My research field is virology, specialized in virus-host interactions. I am supervising a group of 9 people, and we are working with tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus and other mosquito- and tick-borne flaviviruses, and during the last year, it has been a lot of COVID and SARS research which means that a third of the lab switched to work on that topic and the rest of the group continued to do TBE research. 

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MIMS Spotlight Series: Meet Stefanie Willekens

Text written by Nóra Lehotai and Stefanie Willekens. Pictures owned by Stefanie Willekens. 

I had a chat with Stefanie, who joined the Överby lab in February 2021 as a postdoctoral fellow. However, she was no stranger to Umeå by that time. Stefanie has a Belgian nationality and has lived in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden throughout her career. She shares her life with her dog, motorbike and an impressive stiletto collection.

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

I am working in Anna Överby’s group, mainly on flaviviruses, but I am the only one in Anna’s group who is not a virologist. I have a
background in imaging. I did my PhD in nucleo imaging, so I am someone who is more specialized in image processing. I am developing new imaging strategies for visualizing viral spread in neurotropic viruses in the brain. In short: brain mapping of virus infection, what type of viruses and what do they cause in the brain and how to visualize that with imaging techniques, this is my main topic.

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PATHOgenex RNA atlas - one of the best 50 articles in the area of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases

Text written by Nóra Lehotai

Illustration of the PATHOgenex, a freely available online RNA atlas of 32 human bacterial pathogens exposed to 11 infection relevant stress. Illutsration by Kemal Avican.

The recently published scientific article of MIMS researcher Kemal Avican and MIMS group leader Maria Fällman and their co-authors, is now among the Nature Communication's Editor Highlight articles as one of the best 50 publications in the area of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. It is a great achievement to conquer in such a short time as the article got published just in the beginning of June 2021. 
Both Maria and Kemal, the corresponding authors of the study, predicted that their work on stress responses in cross-microbial species, resulting in the PATHOgenex RNA atlas (www.pathogenex.org), could give a new, interactive tool into the hands of scientists to better understand adaptation strategies of different bacterial pathogens and give rise to the development of AI-powered approaches to solve complex research questions. Receiving this editorial highlight, also shows that this work is of particular interest and potential. 

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PostDoc or PhD Position in the Henriksson Lab

Understanding CAR T cells through machine learning and advanced bioinformatics

Johan Henriksson, a MIMS group leader, is currently seeking a postdoctoral researcher or PhD student to dissect T cell regulation using single-cell methods and CRISPR screening. While the overall goal is to develop CAR T-cell technology, this position is geared towards sharpening our analysis methods. Of particular interest include better statistics for CRISPR-UMI pooled screens, gene regulation (ATAC-seq, HiC) and gene isoforms (RNA-seq).

Candidates who are strong in any of computer science, mathematics, statistics or machine learning are encouraged to apply. An interest in learning biology is essential and some basic insight will already help plenty. An overview of what we do, and contact information, can be found at http://henlab.org/

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