The Committee for Research at Karolinska Institutet has decided on recipients from the Jonas Söderquist scholarship foundation for basic research in virology and immunology. The awarded are Benjamin Nilsson Payant at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology and Egle Kvedaraite at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics.
Motivations from the reviewer group;
Dr. Egle Kvedaraite is awarded for her studies on the etiology and immunopathogenesis of Erdheim-Chester Disease, a histiocytic disorder with a wide range of clinical presentations. Her research uses high dimensional transcriptional and protein characterization in situ to accurately map viral response elements at the cellular level, and to depict potentially targetable immune signalling pathways. This work has the potential to increase our understanding of histiocytic diseases, and potentially open novel therapeutic avenues.
Assistant Professor Benjamin Nilsson Payant is awarded for his studies on the molecular biology of emerging RNA viruses. His research focuses on understanding how influenza virus and hantaviruses regulate their gene expression and replication, and how that knowledge could provide biomarkers for severe disease. Using state-of-the-art techniques and a multidisciplinary approach, his work will answer fundamental questions about viral replication and human disease and stimulate the development of new antiviral strategies.
The funding is divided equally between the awardees.
