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Sten Linnarsson
Photo: Ulf Sirborn
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As we’re approaching the holidays, I’m happy to see several initiatives making significant progress. Our teaching unit has made great progress over the last several years, and it was great to see the presentations from the two Frontier Teaching Grant awardees recently.
I’m also very excited about this year’s MBB Frontier Grant faculty search, where we are now in the final round of in-person interviews. Mark Jan 8-12 and 22 in your calendar for the public talks by our six finalists. They are all great candidates with exciting research proposals that will be excellent additions to our department.
A small but important first step was taken recently to form a students and postdocs association at MBB. I expect this group to further strengthen interactions across units, and provide a forum for discussing the challenges of early career scientists. If you missed the first meeting but want to contribute, let me know!
I wish you a merry christmas and hope you will have some time to rest and relax. Hopefully the weather will be dark and cold and suitable for reading by the fireplace. I am already prepared, and will be reading Ingrid Carlberg’s biography of Alfred Nobel and Annie Jacobsen’s history of DARPA.
Sincerely,
Sten
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Approaching the end of the fall term of 2023, we wish to express sincere gratitude for your outstanding contributions to MBB teaching activities throughout the year. Following a few years of some turbulence due to the pandemic and parallel programme revisions, we are now in a position to redefine and adjust our aims. Therefore, we are initiating a year-long process in 2024, to update the strategy for MBB undergraduate teaching over the next 5-10 years.
We aim to involve the entire department at various stages, and more details will follow after the new year.The past 4-5 years have brought significant changes to our teaching methods, including increased reliance on online activities, pre-recorded lectures, and the implementation of team-based learning.
During this transition, fiscal responsibility has been paramount. In hindsight, we recognize that we may have been somewhat too conservative in the reimbursement, why an additional payment to divisions will be carried out to address this in December.
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Taken together, there is a need to review the MBB teaching reimbursement model and reimbursement routines. Our objective is to implement a revised system by 2024.
Frontier Teaching Awards
In conclusion, we will continue to invest in the Frontier Teaching Awards (FTAs), introduced in 2023 to promote teaching development and to strengthen the teacher pool at MBB. Like in 2023, the FTAs include 400 000 SEK for salary, and applications are open for anyone with a contract with MBB. We aim to award 1-2 new FTAs starting in 2024.
One focus area for the FTAs is exploring the use of AI and other new tools to enhance teaching. However, we are open to other initiatives, so please share your ideas on how to develop MBB teaching, and how you can contribute to this effort. Submit your application to Håkan Andersson by January 8. Full information about MBB FTAs is found in the following link:
Read more about the announcment and application process here
Håkan Andersson and Bernhard Lohkamp
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Important information and dates before the holidays
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We are approaching Christmas vacation and the closing of the books for the year and would like to take the opportunity to remind you of some important information regarding finances and HR.
Please read the information here
Kind regards and happy holidays,
Natalia, Anna, Marjan, Emina, Lina, Linnea, Anneli and Carina
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Reminder: Your profile page will be replaced on December 14
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All employees (administrators, researchers, PhD students) and affiliates have a personal profile page on ki.se. On the evening of December 14, your current page will be replaced by a new one that retrieves all the information from KI RIMS. If you have made changes to the text on your current page after September 7, you need to redo them in KI RIMS.
Read more and see how the profile page will look like
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Webinar for KI researchers: How to recruit study participants via campaigns in social media in a cost-efficient way
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Are you a researcher at KI and need help in recruiting participants for your project in a fast and cost-efficient way? Join our webinar on December 15, where we share insights on how advertising in social media works and how we at KI's Communications and Public Relations Office can support you in this.
Read more and register here
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Three new members appointed to KI´s faculty council
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The new members are Fredrik Piehl, Professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Gerald McInerney, professor at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor- and Cellbiology and Juleen Zierath, professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery.
The faculty council's task is to support the President's long-term strategic work regarding Karolinska Institutet's (KI) scientific activities. The mandate period runs from January 1, 2024 until December 31, 2026.
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Nominate 2024 year’s doctors honoris causa in medicine and odontology at Karolinska Institutet
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New appointments, publications, grants and awards
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ASPIRE II award to researchers at MBB
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The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research has awarded an 8 million SEK ASPIRE II Award to the Bennie Lemmens Research Group at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics (MBB) at Karolinska Institutet.
Supported by a previous ASPIRE I award, the team of Bennie Lemmens established state-of-the-art microscopy and DNA labeling techniques to study how human cells copy their DNA and respond to anticancer therapies, with unprecedented precision in time and space.
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“You can think of our DNA as a ball of entangled Christmas lights, which is hard to study, especially if you want to keep its three-dimensional structure intact. We basically create little strings of Christmas lights in living human cells, and because we know the exact order of the bulbs (e.g. first green, then orange and finally red) we can extract structural as well as kinetics information with nanometer precision”, says Bennie Lemmens, Assistant Professor.
Read the article here
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Isotopes more powerful than previously thought
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In a recently published study, Roman Zubarev research group have questioned the old paradigm surrounding isotopes of light elements—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. These isotopes have now emerged as more powerful than one thought.
Traditionally, scientists believed that isotopic effects in biochemical reactions were more or less proportional to the mass difference between isotopes. For instance, a 0.5% mass difference between normal and ultralight enzymes (molecules with depleted heavy isotopes 13C, 2H, 15N, and 18O) should yield a kinetic effect of no more than 1%. However, the study reveals that the effect can be 250-300%, which is two orders of magnitude larger than expected, depending on temperature.
"Isotopically pure compounds, such as enzymes, have superior properties compared to conventional compounds. This affects not only chemistry and biochemistry, but also biology and, possibly, medicine", says Roman Zubarev, professor and research group leader in Roman Zubarev Group at MBB.
Read the article here
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Over 26 million from the Swedish Research Council to researchers at MBB
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In the Swedish Research Council (VR) latest call for medicine and health and natural and engineering sciences 2023, research grants of 26 197 750 SEK were distributed to six researchers at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics for the years 2023-2028.
Read more about who recived the research grants here
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Gonçalo Castelo-Branco awarded distinguished professor grant
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Professor Gonçalo Castelo-Branco and Professor Jonas Frisén, Karolinska Institutet, are awarded distinguished professor grants from the Swedish Research Council, totalling just over SEK 62 million for the years 2024–2031.
Read the article here
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Onur Dagliyan receives funding from SSMF
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SSMF (Swedish Society for Medical Research) is aimed at researchers in all fields of medicine and supports basic research as well as applied research. SSMF's Starting Grant is a start-up grant for young researchers in medicine. This year it's awarded to Onur Dagliyan at MBB. The grant provides SEK 1.7 million per year for four years, including salary funding for researchers.
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Anna Wredenberg appointed Professor
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Qiang Pan Hammarström moved her lab to MBB from BioNut this summer. Pan is a professor of clinical immunology at the Division of Immunology.
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Welcome to MBB Pan! What have you been up to these past years?
During the pandemic, in an addition to our long-term interests in understanding the genetic/molecular basis of primary immunodeficiency and B cell malignances, we have been involved in several COVID-19 related projects.
These include studies on the longevity of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 specific immune response, development of antibody therapy and identification of immunological and genetic basis of severe forms of the COVID-19.
What has been most fun and rewarding?
The immediate impact of our scientific studies on public health and society.
What are your plans now starting at MBB?
To build a world-class immunology hub in MBB!
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Samuele Fisicaro has joined Oscar Fernández-Capetillo group as a research assistant.
Samuele completed his Master’s program in Molecular and Medical Biotechnology at the University of Verona (Italy). He carried out his Master’s project in the lab of Olle Sangfelt at Karolinska Institutet where he studied the signaling axis between the F-box protein FBXL12 and FANCD2 under conditions of replication stress.
In Capetillo’s lab Samuele will focus on identifying novel strategies to target senescent cells.
In his free time, he enjoys traveling, hiking, and baking.
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Yuk Kit Charles Lor joined the Castelo-Branco group in November 2022 as a Master’s Student and have now rejoined as a research assistant.
Charles is originally from Hong Kong, and obtained his BSc at Imperial College London before moving to Stockholm for his MSc at Karolinska Institutet.
In 2024 Charles will engage in his PhD studies where he will focus on characterizing the role of oligodendroglia in glioma pathology through spatial epigenomics and CRISPR tools.
Outside of the lab, he works as a bartender in central Stockholm to afford weekly snowboarding trips during winter.
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Hui Wan joined the Pan Hammarström Lab in 2019 as a PhD student. Before that, she worked in the industry as a bioinformatician for three years.
In Pan's group, Hui is studying tumorigenesis and recurrence in B-cell lymphoma, aiming to develop prognostic tools to assist patients.
Outside the lab, Hui enjoys playing badminton and travelling.
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Editor-in-chief:
Sten Linnarsson
Editor:
Sara Lidman
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If you have comments about the newsletter or relevant news, contact Communications Officer Sara Lidman
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