Research projects 2018

Research projects with high scientific potential

Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has awarded a total of SEK 640 million to 22 research projects in the fields of medicine, the natural sciences and technology that are considered to offer potential for future scientific breakthroughs.

Learning more about how the brain and the nervous system control bodily movement, and developing new materials for the electronics of the future are the aims of two of the 22 projects. Some other examples of project goals are: better cancer therapies, new knowledge about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, how our seas may be impacted by future environmental changes, increasing fiber-optic capacity, and clues about how the brain can repair itself.

Medicine

Project: “Cell turnover in human health and disease”

Grant: SEK 40,600,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Jonas Frisén, Karolinska Institutet

A family tree from stem cell to neuron

Project: “Understanding the origin and heterogeneity of childhood neuroblastoma”

Grant: SEK 36,700,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Ruth Palmer, University of Gothenburg

Less harmful therapies for children’s cancer

Project: “Translating mechanisms of cytotoxicity in natural killer cells and gamma-delta T cells into next generation cell-based cancer immunotherapy”

Grant: SEK 31,200,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Björn Önfelt, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Enhanced immunotherapy with microchips

Project: “The systematic identification of parasite gene function”

Grant: SEK 30,000,000 over six years
Principal investigator: Professor Oliver Billker, Umeå University

Key genes to prevent malaria

Project: “Integrative structural biology of mammalian fertilization: Unveiling the beginning of life from gametes to atoms”

Grant: SEK 29,400,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Luca Jovine, Karolinska Institutet

Showing how a child is born – down to the molecules

Project: “Capturing the regenerative potential of the brain”

Grant: SEK 21 600 000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Malin Parmar, Lund University

Parkinson’s researchers enlist the skills of salamanders

Project: “Tissue-crosstalk and metabolic regulation of type 2 diabetes”

Grant: SEK 18,000,000 over three years
Principal investigator: Professor Juleen Zierath, Karolinska Institutet

Cross-talk within the body gives clues to understanding diabetes

Project: “Decoding the logic of the neural circuits for motor actions”

Grant: SEK 16,200,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Abdel El Manira, Karolinska Institutet

Fish revealing the secrets of movement

Natural sciences

Project: “Constraining past variations in the global biogeochemical silica cycle”

Grant: SEK 34,200,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Daniel Conley, Lund University

Microorganisms – major players in the silica cycle

Project: “The birth of the mitochondrial ribosome”

Grant: SEK 31,500,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Dr. Alexey Amunts, Stockholm University

Modeling the tiniest parts of the cell universe

Project: “Functional quasicrystals?Harnessing the complexity of aperiodic intermetallic compounds”

Grant: SEK 28,100,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Ulrich Häussermann, Stockholm University

Recreating meteorite impacts to find magnetic materials

Project: “Deciphering the role of functional constraint and convergent evolution on genome regulation”

Grant: SEK 28,100,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Kerstin Lindblad Toh, Uppsala University

Unique canine DNA aids medical research

Project: “Co-evolution of protease structure and biological function”

Grant: SEK 27,500,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Peter Bozhkov, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Mapping a hidden world of ancient enzymes

Project: “Organofluorines: anthropogenic small-molecules for life sciences”

Grant: SEK 29,300,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Kálmán Szabó, Stockholm University

Carbon-fluorine molecules helping to treat and diagnose diseases

Technology/physics/mathematics

Project: “Probing charge and mass-transfer reactions on the atomic level”

Grant: SEK 37,200,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Henrik Cederquist, Stockholm University

Mimicking interstellar and stellar phenomena

Project: “Understanding the dynamic universe”

Grant: SEK 37,800,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Hiranya Peiris, Stockholm University

Accelerating expansion of the universe

Project: “Wide-bandgap semi-conductors for next generation quantum components”

Grant: SEK 33,400,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Igor Abrikosov, Linköping University

Quantum bits at room temperature – the building bricks of a new technology

Project: “Unlocking the full-dimensional fiber capacity”

Grant: SEK 30,700,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Associate Professor Henk Wymeersch, Chalmers University of Technology

Exploring the limits of fiber optics

Project: “Novel transient states in quantum matter”

Grant: SEK 30,000,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Oscar Tjernberg, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Solving the riddle of superconductivity

Project: “Hydrogen peroxide, fuel and energy technology for the future”

Grant: SEK 27,200,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Magnus Berggren, Linköping University

Replacing gasoline with paper fuel cells

Project: “Dynamic phenomena of magnetic materials”

Grant: SEK 22,200,000 over three years
Principal investigator: Professor Olle Eriksson, Uppsala University

New electronic potential from in-depth studies of magnetic phenomena

Project: “From scattering amplitudes to gravitational waves”

Grant: SEK 19,100,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Dr. Henrik Johansson, Uppsala University

Sharper methods for understanding gravitational waves and black holes

Earlier years