With the latest DNA technology, the most advanced microscopes and the fastest supercomputers, researchers in Sweden want to stop disease-causing microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and parasites.
Birgitta Henriques Normark at Karolinska Institutet is studying pneumococci, a bacterium that can be completely harmless but also fatal. William Agace and Fredric Carlsson at Lund University are researching the mycobacteria that each year kill 1.5 million people in tuberculosis. Peter Kasson, Uppsala University, focuses on influenza virus.
Parasites are other microorganisms that can be lethal. Malaria kills more than 400,000 people every year. Oliver Billker wants to change that. He researches the mysterious genes of the parasite at Cambridge and Umeå University. And at the University of Gothenburg, Nils Lycke is researching on vaccines. He wants to develop vaccines that one can drink or take as nasal spray.