Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren group - Immune responses to human virus infections and cancer

Interview about the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Following the announcement, Professor Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren was interviewed by free lance journalist Jan-Olov Johansson about the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Speaking at the World Stem Cell Summit 2018

Video from Day 3 of the World Stem Cell Summit 2018 with the title: Reversing Cancer with Immunotherapies and Exosomes where Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren, MD, PhD (Karolinska Institutet) was one of the invited speakers.

Group leader

Hans-Gustaf received his MD and PhD from Karolinska Institutet between 1982 and 1992. He completed a two-year post-doc fellowship at M.I.T., Boston, USA 1992-1994. He then returned to KI and started his own research group at the Department of Microbiology Tumor and Cell Biology in 1994. In 2001, Hans-Gustaf was appointed Professor at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge and there founded the Center for Infectious Medicine (CIM).

Group members

Mira Akber has been working at Karolinska institutet since October 2019 as a research assistant in the field of immunology. Currently, Mira Akber is working as a research technician with Covid-19 vaccine sample processing and Biobank.

She completed her PhD preparatory training from Uppsala graduate school for biomedical research (UGSBR), Uppsala University where she worked on “the Role of Peroxiredoxin II and ICAM3 as Biomarker in NK and DC mediated HIV1 Infection”. She also did her masters in molecular biology with an external thesis from Lund University. During her master thesis work, Mira analyzed the dynamic pattern of the bicoid (bcd) mRNA and protein in various mutant Drosophila fly lines using molecular, genetic and cell biological techniques.

Benedict Chambers is leading the team NK cells in the development of adaptive immune responses within the Hans-Gustaf Ljunggrens research group.

Puran Chen received his Medical Degree from Karolinska Institutet in 2015, and his PhD in 2020. He joined the group as a Postdoctoral researcher, focusing on SARS-CoV-2 research where he have coordinated the efforts for the joint Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital SARS-CoV-2 sample collection as well as several clinical trials in the same context. The research focuses on data-driven translational research in SARS-CoV-2 and aims at improving AI-assisted clinical decision making.

Angelica Cuapio Gomez is an MD with a doctorate from the University of Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany. In 2018, after a two year Post Doc at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, she joined the Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren group to study the immunopathogenic effects of natural killer cells in viral infections targeting the central nervous system. Angelica's scientific trajectory has involved natural killer cells in three different scenarios: autoimmunity, cancer and viral infections.

Quirin Hammer is leading the team Innate Immune Regulation within the Hans-Gustaf Ljunggrens research group.

Tyler Sandberg joined the group in 2016 as a PhD student, focusing on B cell responses towards different flavivirus vaccines as well as investigating new vaccine strategies against these infections.

Tyler received his Master of Science in Immunology and Infection Biology from Uppsala University in 2016, where he worked on understanding vaccine responses in germinal center reactions in non-human primates.

David Wulliman joined the Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren group, amidst the covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, as a doctoral student to focus his work on understanding the cell-mediated immune response to flavivirus vaccination and advance current global vaccine strategies against flavivirus infection.  

During his degree project as a Master’s student in Molecular Biology with Medical Biology as specialization from Lund University, David studied the molecular effects of exercise on the effector function of CD8 T cells.

Previous group members

Post docs (years)

Algarra, I., 1990-92; DeFries, R., 1994-95; DiPalo, D., 1994-96; Chambers, B., 1994-98; Norbury, C., 1996-97; Diehl, A., 1997-99; Shi, F.D., 1999-2001; Berglund, P., 1999-2001; Wilson, J., 1999-2001; Wang, H.B., 2000-01; Screpanti, V., 2002-04; Applequist, S., 2000-06; Donati, D., 2002-06; Achour, A., 2002-04; Malmberg, K.J., 2003-06; Guimaraes, F., 2004-06; Wacnik, P.W., 2004-06; van Hall, T., 2005-06; Waering, M., 2004-07; Baumann, B., 2004-06; Fauriat, C., 2006-09; Bryceson, Y., 2008-10; Wood, S, 2009-; Anthoni, M., 2009-11; Braun, M., 2010-; Darmanin, S., 2010-12; Kekäläinen, E., 2012-14; Mjösberg, J., Sweden, 2012-13; Marquardt, N., 2013-17; Blom, K., 2016-; Cuapio, A., 2017-, Chen, P., 2020-

Selected collaborators, Karolinska Institutet

Evren Alici, NK cell-based immunotherapies, clinical trials, NK cell-tumor cell engagers, oncolytic viruses, small molecule NK cell modulators

Jakob Michaelsson, Tissue specific immunity, mRNA profiling of innate immune cells

Nicole Marquardt, Tissue specific immunity, flow-cytometry based profiling of innate immune cells

Kalle Malmberg, Development of NK cell-based immunotherapies for treatment of human cancer, clinical trials

Jonas Klingström, Immunity and Immunopathogenesis of human hantavirus infections

Sara Gredmark-Russ, Immunity and immunopathogenesis of human flavivirus and SARS-CoV-2 infection

Karin Loré, Immunity towards flavivirus and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines

Niklas Björkström, Immunity to and immunopathogenesis of human hepatitis and SARS-CoV-2 viruses

Soo Aleman, Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 viruses and vaccines

Kristoffer Strålin, Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 viruses

Marcus Buggert, T cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2 viruses and vaccines

Johan Sandberg, Innate T cell immunity to SARS-CoV viruses and vaccines

Publications

Pubmed Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren