Research projects 2016

Grants totaling SEK 704 million for 21 research projects considered to be of the highest international class, and offering potential for future scientific breakthroughs.

Project funding is granted primarily for basic research in the fields of medicine, technology and the natural sciences.

Research into chronic pain, shrinking Arctic sea ice, bacteria that may yield new antibiotics and vaccines, studies of cell functions and changes due to global warming, improved X-ray imaging, and also studies that may shed new light on the evolution of humankind, are some of the research topics for which grants have been awarded.

Natural sciences

Project: “Arctic climate across scales”

Grant: SEK 29,900,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Michael Tjernström, Stockholm University

Multiscale study of the Arctic climate

Project: “Epigenetic and metabolic control of flowering time”

Grant: SEK 28,680,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Markus Schmid, Umeå University

Decision to flower key to plant survival

Project: “Regulation of mammalian mtDNA gene expression”

Grant: SEK 47,000,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Nils-Göran Larsson, Karolinska Institutet

Raising the energy level in feeble cells

Project: “1000 ancient genomes”

Grant: SEK 40,400,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Mattias Jakobsson, Uppsala University

Atlas of prehistoric DNA sheds new light on human origins

Project: “Catalytic composites for sustainable synthesis”

Grant: SEK 35,785,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Belén Martín-Matute, Stockholm University

New materials for sustainable chemicals manufacturing

Project: “Physical chemistry of peptide-lipid co-assembly: from lipid-rich to peptide-rich”

Grant: SEK 30,670,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Sara Snogerup Linse, Lund University

The role of fats in protein clumps

Project: “Physical constraints for accessing genomic information”

Grant: SEK 37,850,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Johan Elf, Uppsala University

Seeking hidden code in DNA

Project: “Climate change induced regime shifts in northern lake ecosystems”

Grant: SEK 36,970,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Jan Karlsson, Umeå University

Mountain fish threatened by warmer climate

Medicine

Project: “Decomposition of pain into cell types”

Grant: SEK 17,175,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Patrik Ernfors, Karolinska Institutet

Mapping pain cells

Project: “Characterization of the antibody response against epitopes at the core of host-bacteria relationships: the protein-protein interaction interfaces”

Grant: SEK 16,565,000 over two years, with the possibility of a three-year extension
Principal investigator: Dr. Johan Malmström, Lund University

Hunting for the body’s own anti-bacterial weapons

Project: “New in vivo adapted approaches to reveal molecular mechanisms of bacterial persistence”

Grant: SEK 28,740,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Maria Fällman, Umeå University

Studying intestinal bacteria to find new antibiotics

Project: “MicroRNA control of neural development: Dissecting biological function with atomic resolution”

Grant: SEK 33,520,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Dr. Katja Petzold, Karolinska Institutet

Flexible molecule regulating brain development

Project: “Characterization, surveillance and targeting of cancer stem cells”

Grant: SEK 45,250,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Sten Eirik Waelgaard Jacobsen, Karolinska Institutet

Learning about cancer stem cells to reduce relapse risk

Technology/physics/mathematics

Project: “Fundamental magnetic processes in the solar chromosphere”

Grant: SEK 33,950,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Dr. Jorrit Leenaarts, Stockholm University

Studying heat around the sun

Project: “Probing catalysis in operando conditions and real time”

Grant: SEK 32,000,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Anders Nilsson, Stockholm University

In-depth study of carbon dioxide conversion

Project: “Molecular X-Ray micro imaging”

Grant: SEK 33,090,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Hans Hertz, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Tenfold increase in resolution with new X-ray technology

Project: “Mastering morphology for solution-borne electronics”

Grant: SEK 28,750,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Ellen Moons, Karlstad University

Flexible solar cells with molecular electronics

Project: “Approximability and proof complexity”

Grant: SEK 32,235,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Johan Håstad, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Showing what is difficult

Project: “A new generation of slow light systems”

Grant: SEK 36,420,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Stefan Kröll, Lund University

Slower light gives better images and better measurement of time

Project: “Nanothermodynamics for optoelectronic semiconductor devices”

Grant: SEK 47,500,000 kronor over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Heiner Linke, Lund University

Electricity from the sun with ideas from nature’s motors

Project: “Multifunctional fiber optics”

Grant: SEK 31,790,000 kronor over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Fredrik Laurell, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Using fiber optics to study cells inside the body

Earlier years