Antivirals and the lack of them- interview with Niklas Arnberg, virologist
In the frame of MIMS highlights World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021
Text written by Nóra Lehotai and Niklas Arnberg.
Niklas Arnberg is Professor of virology at the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Umeå University, Senior PI at MIMS and Chairman of the Virus and Pandemic Foundation (Pandemifonden). He is enthusiastic about the unique research environment in Umeå, a special island within academia, created by researchers from MIMS, UCMR, all life science departments at Umeå University, Region Västerbotten and Biobank Norr. He would like to encourage everyone to talk to each other, collaborate and discover foremost new antivirals together.
Read more: Antivirals and the lack of them- interview with Niklas Arnberg, virologist
Irfan Ahmad is the project leader of a Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) funded research network. The aim of the project is to connect different academic researchers working on antimicrobial systems at Umeå University and at Karolinska Institute. The network is studying the signalling pathways of bacteria, which can contribute to their intrinsic and adaptive drug resistance. They would like to bridge the knowledge gap in adaptive drug resistance and fitness properties of Gram-negative bacteria. In his role, he works as a visiting associate professor at the Department of Molecular Biology at Umeå University, associated with Prof. Bernt Erik Uhlin, the founding director of MIMS.
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”.
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. 
New grants from the The Swedish Research Council will allow SciLifeLab platforms and units to double screening capacity, acquire high-end instruments and conduct large scale clinical trials. In this Q&A we check in with platform directors to get an idea of what is coming.
I interviewed Thanat Chookajorn, who joined the Billker lab at MIMS in March 2021. Thanat shares his life with his partner and their two dogs. Before this phase in his career, he studied or worked in several countries around the world: Thailand, his homecountry, the US, the UK, Spain, Israel (which he is very fond of), Russia and Cambodia.
The 9th National Infection Biology/Swedish Microbiology Meeting, 16-18 November 2021, will be a virtual meeting that aims to provide a broad vision on current state-of-the-art microbiology techniques and research in Sweden. Keynote speakers are Swedish researchers working within the sub-disciplines of bacteriology, virology, parasitology, host response, clinical infection biology, environmental microbiology, zoonotics, and new methods. To involve junior researchers, additional talks will be selected from the submitted poster abstracts. Poster presentations will be organized as digital poster walks that allow participants to present and discuss their work with other participants.
