Tests provide new picture of the spread of the virus

To maximise absorption of nutrients from the diet, the intestinal mucous membrane has a large surface area. However, this also makes it vulnerable to attack from aggressive gut microbes. A new study by Uppsala University researchers now shows that the surface layer of the mucosa, known as the epithelium, can rapidly contract when it recognises a bacterial attack. The results are published in the journal PNAS.

Nils Landegren får Göran Gustafssonpriset i medicinsk vetenskap vid Uppsala universitet. Han är född 1986 i Kalifornien, men är uppvuxen i Uppsala. Han fick sin läkarexamen vid Uppsala universitet 2011, och påbörjade där sedan sin forskning om autoimmuna sjukdomar. Efter disputation 2015 har han kombinerat postdoktoral forskning vid Karolinska Institutet med klinisk tjänstgöring, och han erhöll läkarlegitimation 2018. Sedan början av 2021 är han verksam vid IMBIM, Uppsala universitet som forskargruppledare.

Finns det kaniner som inte kan skutta utan tar sig fram gåendes enbart på frambenen? Det gör det faktiskt och genom att studera sådana djur har forskare från bland annat Uppsala universitet lyckats identifiera en gen som är helt nödvändig för att kaniner ska kunna hoppa. Studien är publicerad i PLOS Genetics.

Vid astma blir luftvägarna överkänsliga. Forskare vid Uppsala universitet har nu hittat en ny bidragande underliggande cellulär och molekylär mekanism som förklarar luftvägsöverkänslighet. Resultaten publiceras i den vetenskapliga tidskriften Allergy.

An important and still unanswered question is how new genes that cause antibiotic resistance arise. In a new study, Swedish and American researchers have shown how new genes that produce resistance can arise from completely random DNA sequences. The results have been published in the journal PLOS Genetics.

An international team of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Irish scientists has used whole genome sequencing to characterise 53 herring populations from the Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic Sea. They have developed genetic markers that make it possible to better monitor herring populations and avoid overfishing. The study is published in the journal eLife.

In cases of severe infection, identifying the correct antibiotic – and doing so quickly – can be a matter of life and death. At Uppsala University a very fast test for antibiotic resistance is being developed. The goal is to reduce the time from taking a sample to getting a result from one day to under four hours.

A large international consortium led by scientists at Uppsala University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has sequenced the genome of 130 mammals and analysed the data together with 110 existing genomes to allow scientist to identify which are the important positions in the DNA. This new information can help both research on disease mutations in humans and how best to preserve endangered species. The study is published in Nature.

Vetenskapsrådet har fattat beslut om vilka ansökningar som beviljats bidrag inom Naturvetenskap och teknikvetenskap 2020. Uppsala universitet får 225 miljoner till 65 forskningsprojekt som spänner över ett brett fält av områden

Researchers at Uppsala University have developed a new method to determine – rapidly, easily and cheaply – how effective two antibiotics combined can be in stopping bacterial growth. The new method is simple for laboratories to use and can provide greater scope for customising treatment of bacterial infections. The study is published in PLOS Biology.

För att i framtiden snabbt kunna hejda utbrott av covid-19 som orsakas av viruset SARS-CoV-2 och för att redan nu kunna skydda utrotningshotade arter som riskerar att drabbas, behövs kunskap om vilka djur som är tänkbara smittbärare av viruset. Professor Kerstin Lindblad-Toh vid Uppsala universitet och hennes kollegor har identifierat ett stort antal däggdjur som potentiellt kan smittas.

European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth has invited six high-level scientists to identify future members of the ERC Scientific Council. One of the six is Carl-Henrik Heldin, senior prefessor at IMBIM.

The entire world is currently waiting for a vaccine against COVID-19. Intensive research is ongoing to develop useful drugs against the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. At Uppsala Biomedical Centre (BMC), substances are being tested that attack the same type of enzyme as drugs against HIV and hepatitis C.

Two recent studies testing for antibodies against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 provide a new picture of the spread of virus in Sweden. “To gain a more realistic picture of the spread of the virus in Sweden, we need to perform more tests,” says Åke Lundkvist, professor of virology at Uppsala University.

Despite the traditional view that species do not exchange genes by hybridisation, recent studies show that gene flow between closely related species is more common than previously thought. A team of scientists from Uppsala University and Princeton University now reports how gene flow between two species of Darwin’s finches has affected their beak morphology. The study is published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, Professor of Comparative Genomics at Uppsala University, has been elected as one of 146 new members of the National Academy of Sciences, founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1863.

Scientists at Uppsala University have proposed an addition to the theory of evolution that can explain how and why genes move on chromosomes. The hypothesis, called the SNAP Hypothesis, is presented in the scientific journal PLOS Genetics.

Antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis is a common and serious problem globally. In a new article, researchers from Uppsala University describe how tuberculosis bacteria that carries a mutation that in theory should kill them manages to stay alive. The researchers discovered that the same trick that kept the bacteria alive also made them resistant to a very important type of antibiotic.

Maria Letizia Di Martino has been awarded 20,000 € by ESCMID (European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases). The project - Revealing the Shigella flexneri epithelial invasome in a human enteroid infection model - will provide a global map of the Shigella virulence factors required for infection of the human “mini-intestine” model. This will form a solid basis for future molecular studies of human shigellosis, a research field thus far hampered by the lack of physiological infection models.

Cancerfonden has decided to give an additional SEK 670 million to Swedish cancer research. This means that the Swedish Cancer Society decided this year on a record dividend of SEK 770 million. It is the largest amount in the history of the Swedish Cancer Society.

Medicinska studierådet har tilldelat Linus Sandegren, Universitetslektor vid Institutionen för medicinsk biokemi och mikrobiologi, Uppsala universitet, det pedagogiska priset Inspiriet. Kursledare, Medicinsk mikrobiologi, 8.0 hp, Läkarprogrammet.

Dengue virus infection is transmitted by mosquitoes and is increasing rapidly in the world due to global warming and travel abroad. The infection causes suffering, consumes medical care resources, and can sometimes develop into a deadly disease that, among other things. manifests itself in a greatly increased leakage in the blood vessels that leads to fluid loss. There is no effective dengue virus vaccine and no specific treatment for patients with dengue fever.

Antibiotic therapy of bacterial infections may fail either because the microbe becomes genetically resistant to the administered drug, or because it enters a slow growing antibiotic-tolerant state – a phenomenon known as ”persistence”.

The scholarships are awarded by SSMF with SEK 850,000 for two years of full-time research and SEK 658,000 for two years at half-time. In total, SSMF will support young medical researchers in 2019 with over SEK 70 million. The 26 fellows come from four different universities.

Kerstin Lindblad-Toh har utsetts till veterinärmedicine hedersdoktor vid Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitets (SLU:s) fakultet för veterinärmedicin och husdjursvetenskap. Totalt har sju nya hedersdoktorer utsetts, som promoveras den 5 oktober i Uppsala.

One key question in evolutionary biology is how novel genes arise and develop. Swedish researchers now show how new genes and functions that are advantageous to bacteria can be selected from random DNA sequences. The results are presented in the scientific journal mBio.

I de flesta fall när en bakterie behandlas med antibiotika som den är känslig emot så fungerar behandlingen. Men ibland fungerar inte det valda antibiotikat och en av förklaringarna till detta är heteroresistens, ett fenomen som forskare vid Uppsala universitet tillsammans med kollegor vid Emory University i USA klarlagt i detalj i en ny studie.