GRANT. Mats Brännström, chief physicians and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, is one out of four Wallenberg Clinical Scholars 2018.
Mats Brännström leads a revolutionary project for uterus transplantation, through which a total of eight children have been born. He is now working to minimize the duration of the surgical procedure, counteract rejection of the uterus and to conduct long-term follow-ups of all those involved.
As a Wallenberg Clinical Scholar, Mats Brännström will conduct longitudinal medical and psychological follow-ups of children, women and donors to ensure that they are not affected by any unwanted side-effects. One of his long-term aims is to try to create a uterus from stem cells.
The other three Wallenberg Clinical Scholars 2018, also chief physicians and active researchers, are Thoas Fioretos och Oskar Hansson, Lund University, and Eva Hellström-Lindberg, Karolinska Institutet.
Science and health care
“The Foundation primarily supports basic research, but through this program we also aim to provide a long-term boost to Swedish clinical, patient-based research. Through their contacts with patients, doctors who conduct research are often able to capitalize more rapidly on the patients’ experiences, and their own, in their research. Clinical researchers also help new research results to influence on care more quickly,” says Peter Wallenberg Jr, Chairman of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation run the Wallenberg Clinical Scholars program in partnership. The aim is to boost Swedish clinical research by identifying the best clinical researchers, providing them with good conditions in which to conduct their activities and to disseminate their research results, both within the scientific community and in healthcare.
“Sweden has exceptionally good conditions for world-leading clinical research, but it has become increasingly difficult to combine research with the current pressured healthcare system. It is therefore very pleasing that the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation is making such a significant investment and providing some of our most outstanding clinical researchers with such excellent resources. This is a great benefit, both for medical research and for Swedish healthcare,” says Göran K. Hansson, Secretary General of the Academy of Sciences.
About the program
During the program period, 2015-2025, twenty-five grants will be awarded to Sweden’s foremost clinical researchers. This amounts to SEK 600 million, with each researcher receiving SEK 15 million for a five-year period, with the potential for a five-year extension.
Wallenberg Clinical Scholars is part of the SEK 2.5 billion that the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation is investing to boost medical research and the life sciences, Life Science, over a ten-year period.
Universities with medical faculties are invited to nominate researchers for these research grants. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is responsible for the scientific evaluation.
More reading: Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; https://kaw.wallenberg.org/ and Uterus Transplant; https://sahlgrenska.gu.se/forskning/uterus
TEXT: KNUT OCH ALICE WALLENBERGS STIFTELSE
PHOTO: PORTRAIT – MARKUS MARCETIC, SURGERY – JOHAN WINGBORG/GU
