NEWS On Friday 16 October Umeå University and MIMS held the Jubilee Symposium Excellence by Choice with several prominent researchers and leaders in life science research. Award-winning Emmanuelle Charpentier inspired by talking about her revolutionary research and the powerful discovery of the “molecular scissors” CRISPR-Cas9.
“What enables groundbreaking research? What might attract the next generation of researchers? These two questions are of fundamental importance to research and will be highlighted and discussed today at the symposium.”
With these words, Lena Gustafsson, Vice-Chancellor at Umeå University, opened Friday's anniversary symposium in a crowded Aula Nordica. Invited to speak were international researchers and leaders in research organisations with focus on recruiting and supporting young researchers in life science research.
First on stage was Professor Iain Mattaj, who in 2013 was appointed honorary doctor at the Faculty of Medicine at Umeå University. He is also director of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg and has served as both advisor and mainstay when it comes to establishing and developing the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine, where Umeå University MIMS - The Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden - is a Swedish node.
Professor Mattaj explains how EMBL is one of multiple governmental organisations to provide aid to research in Europe under the core principle to promote scientific excellence by giving creative young people the possibility to do what they want to do within their research area in the form of mentoring among other things.
“In order to promote excellence, we need to choose young people and trust them to deliver excellence,” says Professor Mattaj and stresses the importance of internationality in research and how important it is to combine different, international backgrounds to tackle scientific problems.
Next in line was Professor Jörg Hacker, from the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and also honorary doctor at Umeå University. As an expert on the pathogenicity of bacteria, he gave an overview of the global challenges we face in the area of infection, and focused particularly on Umeå University's outstanding research in the field.
Professor Hacker introduced us into the field of infection research and the development of society and on politics by presenting data of infectious diseases in history and at present. Respiratory infections are still the most common cause of death and more than thirty new infectious diseases have appeared since 1976, which demonstrates the importance of continuing with research in the field.
Umeå University has been a major part in helping the understanding of pathogens in the world, Professor Hacker continues. He mentions Staffan Normark, Maria Fällman, Bernt Eric Uhlin, Sun Nyunt Wai, Hans Wolf-Watz, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Sven Bergström as important individuals in infection medicine research. These names show the potency of pyogenesis research at Umeå University.
Infectious diseases are a major future challenge for our society. MIMS has, through international recruitment of young researchers developed eminent research in this field at Umeå University. One of them is research director Andrea Puhar, who studies how intestinal bacteria respond when the intestinal immune system is triggered. At the Jubilee Symposium, she revealed why she chose to conduct her research in Umeå.
Assistant Professor Puhar is the latest recruit to MIMS and was asked why she chose to perform her research in Umeå. Puhar expressed that due to previous moves from country to country mobility was not an issue. The ambition was instead to find the best place to work. With her ideas of future research in mind, MIMS was a strong candidate.
“It is good to be in a place that moves and grows,” says Puhar about MIMS.
At MIMS, researchers are given the opportunity to teach and be in contact with students. An advantage at MIMS is how researchers are exposed to collaboration with other researchers within biology and given access to central services as well as clinical research, for instance.
Other reasons why Umeå is such a good place for research is how it is a young city, the campus is international, there is no language barrier as everything at least at MIMS is in English, Umeå is well connected and many speakers from the world come to Umeå to give seminars. All share the same goal of 'scientific excellence'.
Puhar was pleased to be a part of a group of young research leaders with good mentors in the senior PIs and especially appreciated the ability to establish a lab and recruit before applying for funding.
The second part was opened by Vice-Chancellor Lena Gustafsson presented the award-winner of the Umeå University EC Jubilee Award 2015 – The MIMS Excellence by Choice programme – Emmanuelle Charpentier. With 6 million in joint donation from the Kempe Foundations and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundations, the programme for 2016–2019 offer young foreign researchers to conduct post-doctoral research for two years at Umeå University in connection with the research groups linked to Emmanuelle Charpentier and other researchers’ work at MIMS . The award will be presented by H. M. King Carl XVI Gustaf during Saturday's Annual Celebration Ceremony.
“It is very gratifying to be able to honour Emmanuelle Charpentier for her pioneering research in the University's centennial year. We are very pleased that she is still connected to Umeå University,” said Lena Gustafsson hoping that the award will inspire and contribute to new opportunities for current and future generations of scientists.
In place to introduce the audience to the highly topical research on genetic modification was Professor Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker from Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich, who himself has conducted research on viral and cellular interactions.
Professor Winnacker introduced the audience to the background and importance of Emmanuelle’s research on the CRISPR-Cas9 using literal references comparing genome systems to grammar.
The guest of honour, Professor Emmanuelle Charpentier, visiting professor and research leader at Umeå University, was one of the first international recruitments to MIMS. Her discovery of the ‘molecular scissors’ CRISPR-Cas9, lies behind a breakthrough within biomedical research with great application potential in biology and medicine.
Professor Charpentier began with expressing her pleasure in standing on stage at the symposium and made a point of saying that she could not have foreseen the excitement directed at her as her main focus at her arrival was conducting excellent research.
At the symposium Charpentier spoke about the importance of understanding diseases at a fundamental level in order to comprehend the causes of disease. The goal behind her research is to identify pathways, genes and molecules that can lead to new medicines. A way of understanding how CRISPR-Cas9 was possible is to look at the important milestones towards gene therapy performed by Darwin in 1859 and his followers over the years. Professor Charpentier can therefore confirm that much of the historical research is being used as basis for present-day research, including her own.
The revealing of the genetic code in 1966, for instance, made it possible to introduce changes in DNA but were difficult and time-consuming. A fast and easy tool was needed and could be provided by CRISPR-Cas9 and this dire need has helped in it being so widely spread across the world. Today, CRISPR-Cas9 has applications in biology in, for instance, human medicine in the engineering of disease models and in screening for new targets for therapeutics.
Professor Charpentier also mentions and would like to give extra credit to Elitza Deltcheva, Krzosztof Chylinski, Ines Fonfara, Anais Le Rhun and Anne-Laure Lecrivain for their contributions to the excellent research at MIMS.
The final speaker, Assistant Professor Dirk Heckl, junior research group leader at Hannover Medical School, Germany, and also honorary doctor at Umeå University, talked about how he uses CRISPR-Cas9 tool in his research on acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) which is a disease which, for instance, causes a drop in red blood cells, platelets, and normal white blood cells leading to an increased risks of infections. The treatment options have so far been limited which is why CRISPR-Cas9 now offers revolutionary new options.
The concluding panel discussion, led by moderator Anna Nilsson Vindefjärd, general of Research!Sweden, contained interesting discussions and questions about the necessary conditions for stimulating creativity and successful research. Besides Emmanuelle Charpentier and Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, participants in the debate included Anna Överby Wernstedt, research leader at MIMS, and Bernt Eric Uhlin, director of MIMS.
Editor: Anna Lawrence