Umeå professor awarded for her TBE research

This year, the prize money has been increased to SEK 6.6 million each, of which SEK 300,000 consists of a personal prize and the rest is a grant spread over three years. The money is awarded to young researchers (no more than 45 years old) in medicine, molecular biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics. The five researchers, four of whom work at Lund, Uppsala, Gothenburg and Stockholm University, respectively, are at the absolute forefront of their field. With the help of the grant, they will have the opportunity to focus on their research in Sweden.

Anna Överby Wernstedt receives the prize in medicine "for contributions to the understanding of molecular mechanisms behind viral tropism in human infectious diseases".

Wernstedt has primarily focused on the tick-borne TBE virus. It belongs to a family of flaviviruses that also includes, for example, viruses that cause dengue fever and hepatitis C. Among other things, she is trying to find out how the TBE virus enters the brain. But she has also taken a closer look at how the body defends itself against the virus. Among other things, it has been shown that cells in the brain can interact to prevent the virus from spreading further. Most people who are infected recover from the disease, but in a third of the cases, the virus leads to long-term inflammation of the brain and meninges. How the body's own immune system contributes to inflammation is another thing that Anna Överby Wernstedt has investigated. To help her, she has, among other things, advanced molecular techniques and experiments on mice.

Anna Överby Wernsted, Professor, Department of Clinical Microbiology.

ImageMattias Pettersson

There is a vaccine against TBE, but no cure yet. The long-term goal is therefore to be able to contribute to the development of drugs against the disease.
"The TBE virus is an exciting virus to study and extremely relevant in Sweden and in Europe. Cases are increasing and last year almost 600 people were infected with the inflammation. That's a lot, especially if you consider that between 30 and 50 per cent of these people don't recover completely afterwards," says Anna Överby Wernstedt, who was both happy and surprised when she received the news that she had been awarded the Göran Gustafsson Prize. "It's a fantastic feeling and a tremendous honor.