World Antimicrobial Awareness Week-MIMS Spotlight Series: Meet Magnus Ölander

Text written by Nóra Lehotai and Magnus Ölander. Picture credits go to Magnus Ölander.

This episode of the MIMS Spotlight Series is part of "MIMS highlights World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021" article series. Magnus has Swedish nationality, lives with his wife and two sons in Umeå, has lived only in Sweden so far and he joined MIMS in October 2019 to work with MIMS group leader Barbara Sixt.

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

I have been a postdoc in the Sixt lab for a couple of years now. I am working on a drug discovery project to find new compounds that can combat infection by Chlamydia trachomatis. Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular bacterium affecting a lot of people, resulting in more than 100 million cases per year globally. It is very common in Sweden as well, especially among young people since it causes a sexually transmitted disease (STD). It can be quite easily treated, but usually with broad-spectrum antibiotics. These antibiotics kill everything in an uncontrollable way, meaning that they wipe out the normal microbiota in our intestine. The microbiota recovers after a while, but it doesn't necessarily grow back in the same way it was before. We also don't really know the downstream effects of harming the microbiota. Another problem is that antibiotic treatment against C. trachomatis can increase the pressure for resistance development in other pathogenic bacteria that happen to be present.

Read more: World Antimicrobial Awareness Week-MIMS Spotlight Series: Meet Magnus Ölander

MIMS highlights World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021

Text written by Nóra Lehotai.

This year, the motto of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, celebrated each year between 18-24 November, is “Spread Awareness, Stop Resistance”.

Antimicrobials do wonders. We have antiviral, antibiotic and antifungal drugs and vaccines available. They protect against or cure infections which otherwise might prove to be deadly for humans, animals and plants. Penicillins and tetracyclines, some of the most commonly used antibiotics, save millions of lives every year. The discovery of antimicrobials revolutionized not only medicine but our food supply as well. However, with their use, especially misuse, we awoke the defense machinery of these microbes and they learned how to adapt to these agents. Another important problem is that we only have antiviral drugs against a few of all viruses that cause diseases in humans. We lack antiviral drugs against many hundreds of viruses that cause diseases in humans.

Read more: MIMS highlights World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021

Nordic collaboration received project grant for Research within post-COVID syndrome 2021 from the Swedish Research Council

Text written by Nóra Lehotai

The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) has awarded 14 projects for Research within post-COVID syndrome 2021, with a total amount of 50 mio SEK. One of the funded projects was submitted by Dr. Anne-Marie Fors Connolly, MIMS clinical research fellow, researcher at the Department of Clinical Microbiology (Umeå University) and clinician at the University Hospital of Umeå.

“This project is a collaboration with Dr. Andrea Ganna (FIMM-EMBL), Dr. Hanna Ollila (FIMM-EMBL), Prof. Naja Hulvej Rod (Copenhagen University) and Dr. Elin Thysell (Umeå University)”, says Anne-Marie.

Picture: Corona virus under electron microscope. Credit: Linda Sandblad, UCEM.

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MIMS Spotlight Series: Meet the MIMS Management Team

Written by Nóra Lehotai and Dominik Fischer. Picture credits are mentioned by each picture individually. 

In this MIMS Spotlight Series interview, you get to know Dominik Fischer, science manager at MIMS, and Nóra Lehotai, project coordinator at MIMS, also the host of the MIMS Spotlight Series, who make the MIMS Management Team, in close proximity with the MIMS Leadership. The Team ensures efficient management of tasks inhouse, nationally and internationally as MIMS is the Swedish node of the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine.

Picture: Nóra Lehotai, credit: Niklas Mähler, and Dominik Fischer, credit: Lena Lee. 

Read more: MIMS Spotlight Series: Meet the MIMS Management Team

MIMS researchers received funding from the Swedish Research Council for research period 2021-2026

The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskaprådet, VR) announced on 28th October the awardees of total ~1.1 billion SEK fund within Medicine and Health research for the period of 2021-2026. Among the 252 winning projects, there are several current and former MIMS researchers. 

Kemal Avican, member of Fällman group, received 6 mio SEK for his project, titled "Clarifying pathogen adaptation mechanisms with systems biology and artificial intelligence for new strategies to fight infections". With this financial support, Kemal is able to start his own research group at Umeå University.

Niklas Arnberg, affiliated professor at MIMS, received 2 mio SEK funding for "Evaluation of carbohydrate based antiviral compounds against pandemic viruses". 

Vasili Hauryliuk, former MIMS group leader who is now relocated to Lund University, got awarded 7.2 mio SEK for his project, titled "The ribosome in distress: rescue workers". 

Read more: MIMS researchers received funding from the Swedish Research Council for research period 2021-2026