By using bats as a model system Daniel G. Streicker shows how infectious diseases can be transmitted between species.
Today in Uppsala the Grand Prize winner of the Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists presented his PhD research. Daniel G. Streicker began his presentation by thanking Science and SciLifeLab for initiating the prize for young scientists, and for giving him the opportunity to meet with the other nominees.
He explained that transmission between species is the most common cause of the emergence of new diseases. There is still a lot that is unknown about how pathogens function, but Daniel G. Streicker’s interdisciplinary work on bat rabies provides a simple model system for answering key questions on viral emergence and transmission.
The three runner-ups for the prize also presented their work today. Dominic Schmidt spoke about the evolution of vertebrate transcriptional regulator binding, while Weizhe Hong described his research on the complex connections of the nervous system. In turn, Gabriel Victora explained how our antibodies are able to evolve the strong binding ability that allows them to combat foreign particles, such as viruses.
Todays program also included Uppsala-based SciLifeLab researchers: Erik Ingelsson, professor at the Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular epidemiology, Carolina Wählby, senior lecturer at the Department of Information Technology, Division of Visual Information and Interaction, and Mia Phillipson, senior lecturer at the Department of Medical Cell Biology. They presented frontline research in various fields such as large-scale methods to identify novel drug targets, how to extract more information from microscopic images by the use of computational methods, as well as the movement and behavior of immune cells.
After the presentations the winners had lunch with – among others – Eva Åkesson, Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University, and enjoyed a guided tour around the university main building, Gustavianum and Uppsala Cathedral. They continued on towards Stockholm for the evening award ceremony.
More information about Science & SciLifeLab Prize
More information about the open presentations (in Swedish)
From left to right: Daniel G. Streicker, Dominic Schmidt, Weizhe Hong and Gabriel Victora.