MIMS - Welcome to MIMS

MIMS Annual Report 2019-2020 available

The digital version of the MIMS Annual Report 2019-2020 is now available online.

Take a look to learn about the past two years at MIMS:

MIMS Annual Report 2019 2020 cover
• How our scientists have studied phages, viruses, bacteria and parasites and how they interact with their hosts and vectors.
• How we have engaged with our international partners in the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine.
• How we used the EMBL group leader model to bring many new scientists to Sweden.
• How we celebrated the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• And much more.

Read more to see how you can dowload the MIMS Annual Report 2019-2020.

Björn Schröder receives Dr P Håkanssons Stiftelse grant

181019 GSO Portraits9505 562 Christopher Coe
MIMS group leader Björn O. Schröder received a research grant from Dr P Håkanssons Stiftelse (Dr Per Håkansson Foundation) for a project in which he and his team will investigate how specific diets affect the intestinal microbiota. For the project, Björn will collaborate with Anna Sjödin and Jonas Burén from the Department of Food, Nutrition and Culinary Science, Umeå University, to analyze how consumption of a popular low carbohydrate diet affects the gut microbiota in healthy people and what consequences this might have for their interaction with the body. The grant will be awarded during a ceremony on the Näringslivdag in Eslöv in the south of Sweden.

MIMS Spotlight Series: Meet Björn Ole Schröder

Text written by Nóra Lehotai and Björn O. Schröder. Pictures owned by Björn O. Schröder.

Björn joined MIMS in 2019 as a group leader. I had a chat with him to get to know how he ended up in Umeå and what does he like to do when he is not at work. Björn was born in Germany and has lived in France, in sunny California and of course, in Sweden and Germany. He shares his adventures with his wife.

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

I am a group leader at MIMS and together with my amazing team we are interested in the interaction between diet, gut microbiota and
the mucosal barrier in the intestine. Specifically, we focus on mucus and antimicrobial peptides, which are two important defense systems of the gut to prevent infections and microbial translocation of the gut bacteria into the body. In the group we use in vivo, ex vivo and in vitro studies to better understand how the mucosal barrier and the microbiota influence each other, since it seems that a specific microbial community is required to keep the defense systems active and functional.

Intestinal defense is impaired in inflammatory bowel diseases and metabolic diseases and appears to depend on the gut microbiota, so we try to identify how the microbiota can be used to strengthen the intestinal barrier to prevent or treat these diseases.

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.

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/).

uhrf symposium poster 3