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News

Maria Fällman and Johan Normark receive JPIAMR grants

[16-11-26] JPIAMR, the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance, published its decision on November 18th, at the European Antibiotic Awareness Day. Two of the nine Swedish praticipants who received a grant are from MIMS: Maria Fällman, group leader at MIMS, and Johan Normark, MIMS Clinical Research Fellow. Congratulations!

Maria Fällman and Johan Normark are part of the research consortium "A multi-scale approach to understanding the mechanisms of mobile DNA driven antimicrobial resistance transmission", with participating researcher from Canada, Germany (EMBL), Spain, France, and Switzerland. The MIMS researchers will receive together 6.6 million SEK for three years from the Swedish Research Council.

Sweden is one of the 22 member states participating in the transnational Jont Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance. The Swedish Research Council i managing the overall coordination and dissemination of this endeavour.

Webpage of the Swedish Research Council about the JPIAMR grants decision: Tranmission Dynamics

Regulated release of membrane vesicles from the human pathogen Group A streptococcus

[2016-11-14] Release of vesicles from the outer membrane are known to play an important role in the biology of Gram-negative bacteria. They are relevant for pathogenesis and interaction of the bacteria with their environment. Only recently was it observed that membrane vesicles (MVs) also can be released from Gram-positive bacteria which lack an outer membrane and have a thick cell wall. The composition and mechanisms which govern the MV formation in Gram-positive bacteria was still unclear. Now, a new study, published in mBio, a high impact journal of the American Society for Microbiology, shows new findings on the composition and the regulation of MVs production in the Gram-positive, human pathogen, Group A streptococcus.

Call for UCMR Linnaeus Program Gender Policy Support Grants.

The UCMR Linnaeus program actively attempts to reinforce and increase the role of women in science. The objective of this policy is to achieve a gender equal distribution within each of the principal investigator categories, i.e. for research professors/teachers with tenure and junior research group leaders.

Female scientists holding positions as assistant/associated professor (forskarassistent/universitetslektor) or group leader/researcher are invited to apply for research grants of 750 kSEK/year during two years, 2017-2018. Entitled to apply are female group leaders associated with UCMR (http://www.ucmr.umu.se/ ) at Umeå University and who have established themselves as independent principal investigators with research of relevance for infection biology. In addition to the applicants´ research accomplishments the situation with respect to funding and obligations in e.g. teaching will be considered in the selection. Priority will be given to applicants who have not earlier been recipients of grants from the UCMR Linnaeus Gender Support program.

One more reason to swear off tobacco: The inflammatory trap induced by nicotine

[2016-09-02] An Umeå-based team in collaboration with US researchers reveals a new link between nicotine and inflammation. They report that nicotine strongly activates immune cells to release DNA fibres decorated with pro-inflammatory molecules, so called neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). The continuous exposure to these NETs can harm the tissue and could explain the hazardous consequences of tobacco consumption for human health.

Reactive oxygen species – fuelling or putting the brakes on inflammation?

[2016-07-12] Reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as peroxides and superoxides are important signalling molecules in an organism’s regulation of metabolism and inflammation. Accumulation of ROS have been linked to neurodegeneration and cancer. Researchers at Umeå University and Hospital of Halland in Sweden now reveal an unexpected function of ROS. They dampen a key inflammatory process and weakens the immune system´s ability to combat pathogens such as those that cause pneumonia. The findings are published in the July 2016 issue of the Cell Press Journal Immunity.

How the bacterial protective shell is adapted to challenging environments

[2016-07-07] Researchers at Umeå University in Sweden have published new findings on the adaptation of the bacterial cell wall in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The study reveals novel bacterial defence mechanisms against the immune system and how they can become resistant to antibiotics.

Bacteria are surrounded by a mesh-like structure which, similar to an external skeleton, defines the cell shape and provides protection against external attacks. This remarkable polymer cell wall called peptidoglycan, given its basic composition of sugars and amino acids, is well known for being a major target of beta-lactam antibiotics such as Penicillin.

Despite this structure having been the focus of extensive investigations on the long-lasting battle against bacterial pathogens (i.e. bacteria that cause infectious diseases), there is currently little understanding of its natural variability and the consequences of such changes on the ability of bacteria to adapt and survive in a threatening environment.

Gene amplification – the fast track to infection

[2016-06-30] Researchers at Umeå University are first to discover that bacteria can multiply disease-inducing genes which are needed to rapidly cause infection. The results were published in Science on 30 June 2016.

More than 22 years ago, researchers at Umeå University were first to discover an infection strategy of human pathogenic Yersinia bacteria – a protein structure in bacterial cell-walls that resembled a syringe. The structure, named “Type III secretion system” or T3SS, makes it possible to transfer bacterial proteins into the host cell and destroy its metabolism.

After the discovery, researchers have found T3SS in several other bacteria species and T3SS has proven to be a common infection mechanism that pathogens, i.e. an infectious agent such as a virus or bacterium, use to destroy host cells. Now, Umeå researchers are again first to find a link between infection and rapid production of the essential proteins needed to form “the poisonous syringe”.

“Limited only by the Imagination” - Emmanuelle Charpentier awarded the Tang Prize 2016

[2016-06-20] The 2016’s Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science recognizes Emmanuelle Charpentier together with Jennifer Doudna and Feng Zhang “for the development of CRISPR/Cas9 as a breakthrough genome editing platform that promises to revolutionize biomedical research and disease treatment”.

Dr. Charpentier’s research focuses on mechanisms of regulation in infection and immunity. Her laboratory strives to understand how RNA and protein molecules work together to control gene expression and biological processes in bacterial pathogens. To identify new molecules and decipher their origins, functions and modes of action at the molecular and cellular level, Dr. Charpentier applies a combination of a wide range of methods, including -omics, genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology as well as cell infection approaches.

Cpf1: CRISPR-enzyme scissors cutting both RNA and DNA

[2016-04-20] Scientists delineate molecular details of a new bacterial CRISPR-Cpf1 system and open possible avenue for alternative gene editing uses like targeting several genes in parallel. (Nature 20 April 2016)

Only a few years after its discovery, it is difficult to conceive of genetics without the CRISPR-Cas9 enzyme scissors, which allow for a very simple, versatile and reliable modification of DNA of various organisms. Since its discovery, scientists throughout the world have been working on ways of further improving or adjusting the CRISPR-Cas9 system to their specific needs. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, the Umeå University in Sweden and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig have now discovered a feature of the CRISPR-associated protein Cpf1 that has previously not been observed in this family of enzymes: Cpf1 exhibits dual, RNA and DNA, cleavage activity. In contrast to CRISPR-Cas9, Cpf1 is able to process the pre-crRNA on its own, and then using the processed RNA to specifically target and cut DNA. Not requiring a host derived RNase and the tracrRNA makes this the most minimalistic CRISPR immune system known to date. The mechanism of combining two separate catalytic moieties in one allows for possible new avenues for sequence specific genome engineering, most importantly facilitation of targeting multiple sites at once, the so-called multiplexing.

Nelson Gekara awarded Fernström Prize 2016

Nelson Gekara photo by Mattias Pettersson lr [2016-06-08] The Fernström Committee at the Faculty of Medicine has awarded the Erik K. Fernström prize for 2016 to Nelson Gekara, Group Leader at MIMS and the Department of Molecular Biology. Gekara’s research focuses on the regulation of the innate immune system and the connection to infection and DNA damage.

Since 2010, Nelson Gekara has been Group leader at MIMS in Umeå. He has worked with several model organisms to study how microbes interact with their host and how innate immune responses are generated and regulated.

Nelson Gekara’s team recently demonstrated the importance of DNA damage in the innate immune system. Further they have identified new signalling molecules that control the innate immune system and are involved in the protection against responses from inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatism.