RESEARCH SUPPORT. As a legal officer at Sahlgrenska Academy, Katarina Nyström aims to make tricky matters a little easier for Sahlgrenska Academy’s researchers. She can help with issues such as agreements, GDPR, and research ethics.
Legal officers are part of the Research Support Office within the Sahlgrenska Academy Office, and have been recruited at the initiative of Sahlgrenska Academy’s management. Katarina Nyström explains that she is driven by a desire to be useful:
“Legal matters can be complicated. I hope that I can make researchers’ work a little easier. I want to reach out to those who need help with establishing what applies in concrete cases.”
A complement to the university’s lawyers
She sees her role as a complement to the legal officers working at university-wide level. Some cases will still be best dealt with by the Vice-Chancellor’s Office’s Section of Administrative Law. Katarina works with the Section by attending their weekly meetings.
“Research ethics and law go hand in hand, and many of the issues I have dealt with so far have involved ethical review. Researchers can get in touch with me at any point during the research process if they need legal advice, but the earlier the better. If you think that an issue involves a legal dimension, it’s best to clarify this from the outset.”
Many years of experience from the region
Katarina has extensive experience as a lawyer specializing in clinical research. Her most recent role was at Gothia Forum, a unit at Sahlgrenska University Hospital that provides support for clinical research. For the last few years, she has been on secondment to Genomic Medicine Sweden (GMS), a national initiative that aims to strengthen Swedish healthcare, research, and collaboration with industry within precision medicine. Recently, she has also headed up a government inquiry that presented a proposal to the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in November on how, in certain cases, the secondary use of health data can be simplified within precision medicine in healthcare and in clinical research. The proposal will be circulated for comment in January.
“I have many years of experience in clinical research law from the region’s perspective. Making the move to academia is both exciting and interesting.”
The best way to contact Katarina is by email: katarina.nystrom@gu.se.
BY: ELIN LINDSTRÖM
