2012-01-09
Of what stuff are research leaders made? The question begs asking as MultiPark welcomes three junior group leaders to the fray. Kick-starting a lab, putting together a balanced team, while at the same time keeping momentum in your own research is no easy feat. The tasks at hand easily pile up for any newborn group leader. Neuroinflammation expert Maria Swanberg now takes the first cautious steps in her new role, leaving behind a more straightforward life in the lab as she starts to juggle her many responsibilities.
In her new offices, surrounded by unpacked boxes of lab equipment, Maria Swanberg finds herself thrust into a new reality and a new professional identity. After only a few weeks on the job she is trying to find her feet in the unfamiliar surroundings of the labs and offices on the first floor of the Wallenberg Neuroscience Science. She knows that the start-up of a new research team requires patience and she seems to have a lot of it. Even though things may be moving slowly at times she looks to be brimming with excitement about what the future holds. Shouldering the role of research leader is a new experience but it is not a responsibility that she shies away from, far from it. Sometimes, though, she admits that she still feels like a fish out of water.
- Coming from outside and not being familiar with this particular environment means that it will take a little time to get the feel for the place. To understand who’s who and what everyone is doing. Before to soon I’m quite sure I will get the hang of it.
Maria considers herself lucky to have ended up in the MultiPark milieu. Starting a research team from scratch poses many new challenges and the accumulated experience surrounding her in the BMC laboratories gives her every chance of getting off to a promising start. In a setting where many research teams already work closely together she believes she will be able to offer her students and post-docs a nurturing environment where they can grow quickly and realize their potential.
- It truly feels like there are opportunities for exciting collaborations here and I hope and believe that I will be able to take advantage of the different core competences that exist within MultiPark. I also believe that when I get my students in place here, they have a lot to win from being a part of this environment, a lively environment with a lot of workshops and seminars across disciplines.
The plight of a scientist
In the life of a dedicated researcher there are few wake moments when a scientific problem isn’t occupying the back of your mind. As a research leader Maria realizes that it may be even harder to find the off switch when she’s left the lab for the day. She is however confident that her family life won’t allow her to be entirely consumed by the ups and downs in the workplace. With two small children at home she’s forced to keep two feet firmly on the ground. In spite of this, and she seems very aware of it, her workload will undoubtedly intensify as she begins to establish the research guidelines for her team.
- Of course I will have to have a broader perspective as I keep a lot of balls in the air at the same time. Previously, I’ve only had to focus on the one thing, being one part of a bigger project. This has now changed. What’s so great about this is that I get the opportunity to steer the research in the direction I find most interesting. I think that’s what all scientists dream of.
Maria tells me she could not stop herself from applying for the position as Junior Group Leader. With a background in neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation she simply fit the bill. Coming straight from clinical genetics in Malmö, after receiving her doctorate at Karolinska Institutet she now returns to Lund where she once kicked of her career in biomedicine. She comes with sought after skills, adding some unique competences to the MultiPark palette.
Going translational
Maria has a long story of investigating neurodegeneration and inflammatory responses in the central nervous system. During her spell at Karolinska Institutet she looked specifically at a nerve injury where motor neurons died from losing their axon. In these experiments she managed to create an isolated environment that made it possible for her to understand what actually happened at the spinal cord level. Looking at inbred rat strains and their sensibility towards the injury she established that injury-induced neurodegeneration and inflammation could be mapped genetically to distinct regions in the rat genome.
Through genetic analysis she believes that it is very possible to identify the root causes of why certain groups of people are susceptible to some diseases. In combination with looking at the processes in the cell, e.g. studying which proteins that vary, she tries to connect the neurodegenerative enigma back to different variations in the genetic setup.
- Looking at the big picture we simply want to know why some people fall ill and others don’t. In Parkinson’s disease and MS we try to look at different rat strains, all with the same disease model and identical environmental conditions. When they react differently to the induced disease model we know that this has to do with their genetic code. The results we take from the following genetic analysis we then hope to confirm in clinical materials to see if the same genes are responsible for causing human disease.
Coming straight from a clinical environment in Malmoe hospital she believes that she has the tools to bring these experiments towards clinical trials in just a couple of years.
- Of course it’s a major research project and I know that it will take some time. But this is what I want and I believe that in the not too distant future we will have a clear translational research strategy with one leg securely placed in the clinic, concludes Maria Swanberg, as she rushes off to yet another preparatory meeting.
Page Manager: Jens Persson
Last modified: 2012-01-09
