Rickard Sandberg

Rickard Sandberg

Professor
Telephone: +46852482941
Visiting address: Solnavägen 9, 17165 Stockholm
Postal address: C5 Cell- och molekylärbiologi, C5 CMB Sandberg, 171 77 Stockholm
Part of:

About me

  • Education
    - PhD studies, Department of Microbiology, Tumour and Cell Biology (MTC), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden 2000-2004.
    - Postdoctoral training, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, US 2005-2007.
    - Assistant Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB), Karolinska Institutet, Sweden 2008-2013.
    - Associate Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB), Karolinska Institutet, Sweden 2013-

    Academic honours, awards and prizes
    - Torsten Söderbergs akademiprofessur i medicin 2022
    - Elected Member of EMBO 2019.
    - Elected Member of the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet 2019.
    - Anders Jahre's medical prize for young medical researchers (Nordic prize) 2014
    - EMBO Young Investigator 2012
    - Sven and Ebba-Christina Hagbergs Prize 2012

Research

  • Using single-cell transcriptomics to investigate gene regulation, cellular heterogeneity and the specification of cell identities. We are studying gene expression and regulation using a combination of genomic technologies. In particular, we are developing and applying single-cell transcriptomics to better understand how cellular identities are specified at the molecular level during differentiation, in pluripotency and to enable studies of the cellular heterogeneity in tumors. Additionally, we believe that analyses of single-cell level gene expression will unravel general aspects of transcription processes and general rules for the composition of transcriptomes.

Selected publications

Articles

All other publications

Grants

  • Swedish Cancer Society
    1 January 2022
    Cancer research has resulted in thousands of active substances that have been tested or used in the clinical treatment of cancer. These affect various cellular processes in the cell such as cell division, repair of the genetic material, regulation of the genetic material, activation of cell responses or immune cells. Methodology to identify the initial response in the cancer cell after treatment with these substances has unfortunately been lacking, and most of the effects of treatments have been studied at a later stage in the cancer cells. We have developed a methodology that enables the identification of the initial cell responses to treatment in cancer cells. We will study how blood cancer (forms of leukemia) and breast cancer cells respond to treatment with hundreds to thousands of different active substances. This will provide important insights into the exact mechanisms of action of these substances, which we hope can explain why different substances have a better effect on different types of leukemia and breast cancer types. We will also investigate how cancer cells, but also the nearby immune cells and cancer-associated fibroblasts, are affected by the same panel of substances. We hope that the insights into the initial response of cancer cells to treatments can form the basis for more rational development of specific and potent substances, and that it can demonstrate effective combinations of existing substances. In the longer term, we want to investigate whether this method can also show which treatment options are best suited for each individual cancer patient. For example, panels of relevant treatments can be tested on a primary tumor and initial responses read immediately and examined to see if these responses can predict how the tumor will respond to the various treatments in an improved form of precision medicine.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2018 - 31 December 2027
    Recent technological advances have enabled global gene expression analyses in single cells, allowing transcriptional programs to be investigated in terms of cellular frequencies and magnitudes. Moving away from population-level experiments depicting cellular averages, to analyses of large numbers of individual cells, promises to dramatically improve our understanding of gene regulation. Indeed, initial analyses revealed stochastic allelic transcription that had been masked in previous population-level experiments. The overarching goal of this proposal is to develop single-cell sequencing technologies that will allow for unprecedented detailed studies of gene regulation. In particular, we will develop massively parallel single-cell transcriptome methods that maintain full-length transcriptome coverage, and genetically engineered mouse models for allele-resolution gene expression and lineage-reconstructions in single cells. These methods will be used to (i) infer transcriptional burst frequencies and magnitudes, and relate those to genomic sequences, (ii) investigate the temporal dynamics of random monoallelic expression at different resolutions in the reconstructed lineage tree, (iii) explore the phenotypic consequences of stochastic allelic expression in the context of variable penetrance and expressivity, common in human genetic disease. Taken together, in this research program we will develop an experimental foundation for gene regulatory studies at single-cell resolution.
  • National Institute of Mental Health
    1 September 2017 - 30 June 2024
  • Exploring the temporal dynamics of autosomal random monoallelic expression
    International Human Frontier Science Program Organization
    1 May 2017 - 30 April 2020
  • Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
    1 January 2017 - 1 January 2022
  • JPND utlysning 2013. Cross-Disease analysis of pathways.
    Swedish Research Council
    1 December 2014 - 31 December 2016
  • Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
    1 January 2013 - 1 January 2018
  • EMBO Young Investigators Award 2012
    Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2013 - 31 December 2015
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2013 - 31 December 2017
  • The anatomy of a gene expression program
    Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research
    1 January 2011 - 31 December 2016
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2009 - 31 December 2012
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2009 - 31 December 2012

Employments

  • Professor, Molecular Genetics, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Karolinska Institutet, 2015-

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2013
  • Doctor Of Philosophy, Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet, 2004
  • Licentiate Degree, Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet, 2002
  • Master Of Medical Science, Karolinska Institutet, 2000

Supervision

  • Supervision to doctoral degree

    • Mtakai Ngara, Single-Cell RNA Sequencing for Subtype Discovery in Plasmodium falciparum and Mammalian Cells, 2019

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