GRANTS. Madeleine Rådinger and Margarita Trobos both had their applications to SSF approved for the financing of an industry-employed doctoral student position. They are collaborating with AstraZeneca and Mölnlycke Health Care, respectively, in their doctoral projects.
“The collaboration between industry and the academic community is an important factor to develop and maintain knowledge exchange. On the long term, it will improve the level of expertise in both of them,” says Madeleine Rådinger, whose project is about signatures of chronic respiratory diseases in the bronchial epithelium, and is being conducted in cooperation with AstraZeneca:
“The fact that SSF is investing in our project is a recognition of both AstraZeneca and my research team.”
AstraZeneca in Mölndal has extensive experience and great interest in inflammation and respiratory research. In asthma research, Madeleine Rådinger and her colleagues at Krefting Research Centre have had a well-functioning collaboration with AstraZeneca for many years. “When Henric Olsson from AstraZeneca contacted me this summer and asked if we should apply for funding together from SSF for an industry-employed doctoral student position, I didn’t hesitate,” says Madeleine Rådinger.
The project is focused on finding new tools and methods for patient segmentation based on biological disease mechanisms, and on developing new pharmaceuticals that address the basic causes of asthma and COPD.
“These are complex diseases where the symptoms in two patients with the same diagnosis can be driven by entirely different underlying mechanisms, which means that these patients need to receive different treatments,” says Madeleine Rådinger.
The project will investigate gene expression and protein profiles in respiratory epithelium treated with a panel of disease-relevant stimuli. The epithelial cell signatures will then be validated in available databases and patient samples to ultimately be used to segment asthma and COPD patients with regard to underlying disease mechanisms.
A new treatment concept for slow-healing wounds
Margarita Trobos’ project focuses on virulence inhibitors for the treatment of soft tissue infections. The industrial partner is Mölnlycke Health Care.
“We are exploring new concepts for the treatment of chronic biofilm infections in soft tissues. The support from SSF is a good contribution to our research in infection control and regenerative medicine,” says Margarita Trobos.
Mölnlycke Health Care is the global leader in wound care, and this is the second time the Department of Biomaterials is collaborating with the company in a doctoral project, the first of which was with funding from Vinnova. The doctoral student in the project will be Erik Gerner, and the assistant supervisor for this doctoral project will be Sofia Almqvist, who is the Manager for Antimicrobial Materials and Concepts at Mölnlycke Health Care.
The project will evaluate pharmaceuticals with the ability to inhibit quorum-sensing (QS) signaling, which is an alternative to antibiotics for slow-healing wounds.
“This is a new strategy with pharmaceuticals that inhibit bacteria signaling, which controls their toxicity and their resistance to immune cells. This treatment strategy should either negate the bacteria’s ability to create a chronic biofilm infection, or disarm an infection already under way at the same time that the risk of the development of resistance is low,” says Margarita Trobos.
The research is experimental, and will be conducted both in cell cultivation and with animal models.
Promoting exchange between academia and business
In total, SSF has appointed 12 grant recipients for the Industry-employed doctoral student program and another 12 for the Strategic mobility program. Both of the programs aim to increase mobility and promote the exchange of knowledge between the academic community and the business community. The 24 recipients are sharing a total of SEK 45 million.
