COMMENT. To help reduce the risk of infection, the University of Gothenburg is preparing to continue with distance teaching and having staff continue to temporarily work from home during the autumn semester 2020. Distance teaching will be the primary form of teaching at least through October 31. Staff will begin the autumn semester continuing to work from home. Dean Agneta Holmäng comments on the decision from the Vice-Chancellor. “The vice-chancellor…
Information to staff about the 2020 autumn semester
COVID-19. To help reduce the risk of infection, the University of Gothenburg is preparing to continue with distance teaching and having staff continue to temporarily work from home during the autumn semester 2020. Distance teaching will be the primary form of teaching at least through October 31. Staff will begin the autumn semester continuing to work from home. The autumn term begins with continued, but adapted, restrictions. Ordinary education at…
Netha Hussain wins the 2020 Women in Open Source Award
PRIZE. Netha Hussain, who will soon publicly defend her doctoral thesis at the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, is this year’s academic winner of the international Women in Open Source Award. She has been given the award for actively working for many years to improve Wikipedia’s content related to medicine. “Winning the Women in Open Source Award means a lot to me. I will be even more happy if people,…
The Doctoral Student Council highlights important questions for PhD students
DOCTORAL EDUCATION. The Doctoral Student Council meets a few times a month to discuss relevant questions for doctoral education. The meetings also serve as an open forum for PhD students who would like contact with others. All PhD students at Sahlgrenska Academy are welcome to attend. The Doctoral Student Council (DoR) is an educational council within Sahlgrenska Academy’s student union that works to maintain the quality of doctoral education and…
US financiers directing calls against covid-19
GRANTS. Akademiliv lists a number of US calls that are now open for application. A call from David Clark Cause and IBM for open source solutions Call: 2020 Call for code Global Challenge: https://developer.ibm.com/callforcode/get-started/covid-19/ National Institutes of Health (NIH) NIH Partnerships for Countermeasures against Select Pathogens: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-AI-20-028.html NIH Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): AWS AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative…
Zoom cyber attacks – management of thesis defenses at Sahlgrenska Academy
SECURITY. Zoom cyber attacks are a security vulnerability during a thesis defense since it is a public event. Read more about how to manage this vulnerability and what applies for a thesis defense at Sahlgrenska Academy. The University of Gothenburg (Sahlgrenska Academy) and several other universities, including Chalmers and Lund University, have been subjected to Zoom cyber attacks, including during thesis defenses. The attacks come in the form of “Zoombombing”,…
Nursing students’ clinical training working largely as planned
EDUCATION. Many nursing students have received other placements for their clinical training than what was planned from the beginning, but the solutions have largely worked well. Only a few second-semester students have had to delay their clinical training, but the Institute of Health and Care Sciences is counting on them being able to make this up and then graduate as planned. “After a difficult transition period and major efforts by…
A message from Dean Agneta Holmäng
It has been nearly two months since we transitioned to our new work approach to help slow the spread of the virus. Perhaps many of you now consider distance education has become the new normal. I’m happy to see how well you have adopted the changes, since I know the change is significant. Huge efforts are being made, particularly within teaching, where many teaching staff are still working hard to…
Construction information Medicinareberget: Waste containers remain outside Medicinarelängan
CONSTRUCTION INFORMATION. Akademiliv provides an overview of the construction project Natrium, the new premises for the Faculty of science, and reconstruction work in Medicinarelängan and surrounding area. In regards of the spread of covid-19, there is currently no impact on the progress of the projects, but developments can change quickly. The University of Gothenburg and Akademiska Hus are closely monitoring developments and are making adjustments as needed. If you have…
The student corp provides situation report on the study situation for students at GU
TEACHING. The University of Gothenburg Student Union, which includes the Sahlgrenska Academy Student Union, has published a current report on how students experience their study environment since the university introduced distance learning. The experience of distance education varies, according to the report. The report is based on survey responses from members’ corps, student environment work representatives, student head environmental representatives and student representatives at central level. According to the report,…
Research Leader Initiative – open for nominations by Heads of institutes
YOUNG RESEARCHERS. Are you a possible candidate to be nominated to the Research Leader Initiative 2020-2021, a course for future research leaders? If so, contact your Head of institute! Before May 15, a ranked list of five nominees (from each institute), should be sent by email to sigridur.beck@gu.se. The Research Leader Initiative will be given for the 6th time and is now open for nominations from all departments at the University…
Reduced obesity for weighted-vest wearers
STUDY. Scientists from the University of Gothenburg have found a new method of reducing human body weight and fat mass using weighted vests. The new study indicates that there is something comparable to built-in bathroom scales that contributes to keeping our body weight and, by the same token, fat mass constant. The researchers hypothesized that loading the vests with weights would result in a compensatory body-weight decrease. Sixty-nine people with…
Why the faculty is unable to enroll more medical and nursing students
EDUCATION. Sahlgrenska Academy shoulders great responsibility for meeting the need of the medical system for trained doctors and nurses but sees no options for expanding its programs even more. The decision has raised questions among our dedicated teaching staff. For this reason, the faculty and program leadership would like to explain the circumstances that forced us to decline to enroll more students. “Our society is going through one of its…
Unusually large number of applicants to our programs
EDUCATION. The number of applicants to many of Sahlgrenska Academy’s programs has increased significantly this year compared to last year. First-choice applicants to our medicine, nursing and dental programs increased by over 30 percent. The Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR) reports that health science programs throughout the country have seen higher numbers of applicants, and the largest increase is among young people under 20. The number of applicants to…
Meet Fredrik Nyberg, new Visiting Professor of Register Epidemiology
STAFF. How to create an epidemiological study design and which registers and databases can contribute to a research project are the kinds of question Fredrik Nyberg, new Visiting Professor of Register Epidemiology, can help to answer. Here he talks about his role, how register-based research can become more useful for health and medical care, and what 19 years as a scientist at AstraZeneca taught him. “Being part of this strategic…
New blood test for Alzheimer’s developed
STUDY. A new blood test for Alzheimer’s disease has been developed under the leadership of researchers at the University of Gothenburg. The method is based on measuring a specific variant of tau protein in ordinary blood samples, which makes the test relatively simple and cheap to perform. The research behind the test was headed by Kaj Blennow, Professor of Clinical Neurochemistry, and Henrik Zetterberg, Professor of Neurochemistry, at Sahlgrenska Academy,…
What medicines are effective against the coronavirus?
COVID-19. Large quantities of SARS-Cov-2 virus have been grown in cell culture and are now available in a specially equipped laboratory at Microbiology. The cell-culture grown virus will be used to test if existing substances in 1500 already approved medicines may be effective against COVID-19. “I am hopeful that we will find something interesting,” explains Kristina Nyström, docent at Medical Microbiology. The studies now starting at Microbiology will give medicine…
New prosthesis material stimulates new bone growth
RESEARCH. Sometimes a traditional prosthesis is not enough when large amounts of bone need replacing. This includes injuries where a large piece of bone has been broken off or if a piece of the skullcap has been removed as part of a brain tumor operation. Peter Thomsen, professor at the Department of Biomaterials, is working with materials researchers to study ceramic materials that can be used to repair these types…
A message from Dean Agneta Holmäng
We are living in an extraordinary situation, where it is unclear when life can return to normal. I see and truly appreciate the incredible commitment shown by our colleagues in maintaining the quality of education and my sincere thanks for the hard work being put in by our teachers. We are currently planning and booking classrooms and facilities for the autumn semester, when we hope to be back to teaching…
Serious form of melanoma gene-sequenced
STUDY. Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy and Sahlgrenska University Hospital have mapped the genome of metastases from uveal melanoma, a rare but severe form of malignant melanoma that originates in the eye. The knowledge provided by this gene mapping includes new insights into how metastases arise and the nature of tumor-infiltrating immune cells. The study, now published in Nature Communications, provides hope for new approaches to combating this form of tumor.…