Research infrastructure

The Arctic Centre at Umeå University provides a unique opportunity for researchers at Umeå University to deepen the Arctic perspectives in their research, networking, and strengthen their profile in Arctic and northern questions.

Biobank Sweden is a national infrastructure for cooperation between Swedish regions and universities with a medical faculty on biobank related issues. The infrastructure also includes representatives from patient organisations and from industry associations.

Biobanken norr is part of Laboratory Medicine within Region Västerbotten. Biobanken norr consists partly of an organizational unit registered with the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO) with registration number 472, and partly of an operational unit.

BICU is an interdisciplinary facility that provides state-of-the-art imaging technology together with affinity measurements. The facility allows advanced live cell imaging studies and measurement of interactions of proteins with other proteins, RNA, lipids and carbohydrates. Together with UCEM, BICU forms a node in the National Microscopy Infrastructure (NMI), Sweden for Correlative imaging.

An instrument facility for biogeochemical analyses

The Department of Biomedical Engineering-R&D at University Hospital of Umeå is an important partner in e.g, developing equipment or as a technical part in research regarding new methods applicable within the medical fields. We support e.g, the development of measurement technology and software, modelling of physiological processes and statistical analyses. We also contribute to commercialization of new methods through prototyping, leading to further development of the county's business sector.

BMCU is an interdisciplinary facility that provides state-of-the-art technology to characterize biomolecules. The facility allows measurements of affinity using different technologies, together with molecular weight analysis, folding and overall structure.

The Biopolymer Analytical Platform (former UPSC Plant Cell Wall and Carbohydrate Analytical Facility) has been an official KBC facility since 2018 and is dedicated to support research among KBC groups on cell walls of terrestrial and aquatic plants, and biopolymer materials. A large range of standard methods have been established with various sample preparation equipment for conventional wet chemistry methods and with state-of-the-art analytical instrument setups

EL406 is an automation friendly, multifunctional washer and dispenser for 96-well microplates.

CBCS Umeå can help researchers find and develop small molecules to understand and decipher the function of biological pathways. We aim to create powerful tools for your research and set the ground for generating new leads for drug discovery.

Clinical Genomics Umeå is a joint venture between Umeå University and the clinical laboratories at Umeå University Hospital. It operates in a tight collaboration with Genomic Medicine Center North and is an integrated part of the Department of Medical Biosciences, Umeå University.

The Clinical Research Center is a joint resource for Region and University for near-patient clinical studies. The Clinical Research Center may provide support to researchers from an idea to a completed study: anything from research facilities, equipment and GCP (Good Clinical Practice)-trained nurses to regulatory and administrative support in planning of a new clinical trial, management and end reports. At the Center both academic and corporate-sponsored studies are conducted.

Clinical Studies Sweden – Forum North is a platform for research-supporting infrastructure with the goal of facilitating the implementation of studies and increasing the availability of study participants throughout the northern healthcare region. Forum North is based on collaboration between Region Norrbotten, Region Jämtland Härjedalen, Region Västerbotten, Region Västernorrland, and Umeå University.

CORS is a national consortium of six research infrastructures for survey-based research within the social sciences.

CASP is a data analytics platform at Umeå University that provides support and training to life science researchers in the analysis of experimental data, using advanced data-driven tools and strategies.

DCODE is a European network and PhD program. We train researchers and designers to guide society’s digital transformation towards inclusive, sustainable futures.

"Digital ethics investigates what it looks like for individuals and societies to handle digital technology in a responsible way." The aim of this project is to catalyse the creation of a body of knowledge in digital ethics, able to support the installment of the EIT KIC Competence Centre for Design in Umeå, by providing a strong academical grounding to its activities in the field of interaction design and societal transformation.

The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) is one of the world's largest cohort studies and includes more than half a million (521 000) participants from ten European countries. EPIC was designed to study the association between diet, nutrition status, lifestyle, environmental factors, and the occurrence of cancer and other chronic diseases.

DNA methylation is the process through which a methyl group is added to DNA nucleotides, most commonly at the 5-carbon position of cytosine (5mC). Methylation modifications play a crucial role in regulating gene expression by influencing the accessibility of the DNA. Changes in DNA methylation patterns can impact various cellular functions and are implicated in development, aging, and disease.

The Representative Democracy Data Archive (REPDEM) includes the European Representative Democracy Data Archive and other world-leading databases for research on the struggle for the power of government, primarily in European parliamentary democracies.

ESS is an attitude and behavioral survey that has been undertaken five times in more than 30 European countries, including Sweden.

FISH can be used to detect specific gene signatures in intact organisms – without nucleic acid extraction, PCR and gene sequencing. FISH can be evaluated by fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry or by other methods. Some of the main benefits of FISH is that the morphology of the targeted object remains intact and that its distribution and association to others can be evaluated in the natural environment. FISH is used worldwide in medical science, life science, and biotechnology.

Gas Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) is an open-access facility which provides a unique highly-sensitive detection of gaseous products and their stable isotopologues in a broad range of biological, geochemical, environmental, and chemical samples both in gas and liquid phases.

Hamilton Microlab Star automated pipetting robot for step-wise ELISA preparation.

High Performance Computing Center North (HPC2N) is a national center for Scientific and Parallel Computing.

Huminfra is a Swedish national infrastructure supporting digital and experimental research in the Humanities by providing users with a single entry point for finding existing Swedish materials and research tools, as well as developing national method courses. Huminfra is coordinated by Lund University Humanities Lab, and comprises 12 universities and organisations.

Humlab's mission is to initiate, inspire and develop the interaction between the humanities, culture and information technology in research, postgraduate training, and teaching. We are a strong competence center at Umeå University with access to a technical environment specifically for digital humanities.

The mesocosms are used for ecological and toxicological experiments in harsh and icy conditions.

Infravis is a national research infrastructure that will help researchers visualise data. The infrastructure will give researchers access to expertise and competence development at nine Swedish higher education institutions.

Integrated Science Lab, IceLab, seeks to be a hub for communication and collaboration in the life sciences at Umeå University. We take a modelling approach for causal understanding and connect researchers from different backgrounds.

The ISSP is a standardized survey cooperation project that presently is without parallel within the area of attitude research concerning the scope of social issues covered, the extent of countries involved, and the availability of time-series data.

At the smell lab at the Department of Psychology, we conduct research on, among other aspects, issues related to environmental intolerances.

Umeå Marine Sciences Centre (UMF) analyzes marine samples, participates in international calibrations and is specialized in brackish water biology and chemistry. Analyses are performed on the request of government agencies and universities, supporting research and environmental monitoring. The analyses are accredited by Swedac.

NanoLab is an open-access infrastructure, providing facilities in nano materials characterization located at the Department of Physics.

This infrastructure is based on a number of spectrometers (360-850 MHz) and provides support for NMR analysis of a wide variety of samples, everything from small organic molecules to proteins and new materials for materials science . The infrastructure is a node in the national networks SciLife Lab, SwedNMR and the Swedish NMR Centre.

Biobank and database for children and young adults in Västerbotten.

Personalised screening, risk prediction, and understanding disease trajectories for early detection of disease - An integrated cohort approach.

PEP is a Umeå node of the national infrastructure Protein Production Sweden (PPS).

Expertise in mass spectrometry-based protein analysis and proteomics at Umeå University in collaboration with the Mass Spectrometry-based Proteomics Laboratory at the BMC in Uppsala and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Umeå.

We can assist with measurement of interactions of proteins with other proteins, RNA, lipids and carbohydrates.

Register Centre North is a unit at Region Västerbotten aiming for high quality regarding register data, knowledge management and clinical research. Register Centre North develops and operates existing and new quality registers. We perform clinical improvement work, statistical analysis and reports and offer IT technical solutions. Our statisticians and epidemiologists have broad expertise and experience in many different types of clinical studies.

The Department of Food, Nutrition and Culinary Sciences have Sweden's most technologically advanced kitchen and dining room, which means that Umeå is advancing its position as a gastronomic metropolis in the north.

At Umeå Marine Sciences Centre (UMF), research vessels are available for research and environmental monitoring. UMF conducts regular sampling activities all year around in the Gulf of Bothnia, and when possible different projects and sampling activities are coordinated.

Small Animal Research Imaging Facility (SARIF) is an infrastructure that consists of five instruments that allow advanced imaging of structures and processes that take place inside the experimental animal. These instruments enable the same animal to be analyzed on several occasions and over a long period.

SciLifeLab has different research infrastructure units in Umeå that provide the needed support for researchers in various research areas.

Ultrasound - Vevo 3100 system

SEAD is an open access, internationally oriented and interdisciplinary national research data infrastructure for storing, managing, disseminating and analyzing empirical data on past human activity, biodiversity and long-term environmental and climate change.

Swe-Clarin is a node in CLARIN – Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure. It is aimed at researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences who work with speech or text-based material.

The Swedish Metabolomics Centre (SMC) is a facility specialized in the use of mass spectrometry based methods for analysis of metabolites in different biological systems.

The Biobank Research Unit coordinates access to register data and samples from about 50 sample collections.

Welcome to Environmental Archaeology Laboratory, a national resource. We conduct and support contract research in connection to cultural- and environmental conservation.

The Laserlab Umeå comprises a collection of laboratories using lasers for their research.

The Mesocosm Facility at Umeå Marine Sciences Centre is one of Europe's most advanced. The mesocosms provide possibilities to conduct large scale water and sediment experiments under highly controlled conditions. The mesocosm facility is available for researchers from universities all over the world.

The Northern Sweden Diet Database (NSDD) contains refined dietary data from the counties of Norrbotten and Västerbotten.

The Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study (NSHDS) is one of Sweden’s largest population-based cohort studies with biobank samples and includes approximately 150 000 unique participants. NSHDS has a very long follow-up period and documented high sample quality. For around 65 000 individuals, there are repeated blood samples from different sampling occasions, often taken before the individual fell ill.

The MONICA Study was initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an international survey to measure trends and determinants in cardiovascular disease. The MONICA registries for stroke, heart attack and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest monitor trends in the incidence of these cardiovascular diseases in the counties of Norrbotten and Västerbotten.

Our fluorescence microscopy is a top-end inverted microscope that can be used to look at a sample through a transparent substrate

The trace analysis platform (TAP) at the Department of Chemistry, Umeå University aims to provide state-of-the-art equipment, instrumentation, user training and support for trace analysis of small molecules in complex matrices, such as environmental and biological samples.

(UFBI) is an inter-disciplinary research center where imaging techniques are used to examine brain structure and function in relation to both basic and clinical questions. To date, more than 100 UmU researchers and more than 50 external researchers have been involved in UFBI-projects as co-authors on publications based on data collected at UFBI.

Biomedical research on experimental animals at Umeå University is organized within Umeå Centre for Comparative Biology (UCCB).

Umeå Centre for Electron Microscopy (UCEM) is a joint resource for research and higher education in electron microscopy techniques. Electron microscopy is used for structural and chemical characterization of materials at micro and nano-meter length scales. Medical and biological samples are prepared, imaged and analyzed in 3D. Also, structure biology projects are addressed by cryo electron microscopy.

A facility for performing experiments under hypoxic conditions has been created at the Molecular Biology Department at Umeå University.

A research infrastructure giving access to health and socio-economic individual data on the whole Swedish population. Main research themes include “Childhood living conditions in connection with lifelong health and welfare”, as well as “Health and socio-economic inequalities in a lifecourse perspective.”

Umeå Transgenic Core Facility (UTCF) is housed within UCCB and is a fully integrated platform for generation, maintenance and DNA analysis of genetically modified animals. The transgenic facility performs pronuclear injections, blastocyst injections, embryo transfer, in vitro fertilization, and sperm cryopreservation.

Flow cytometry enables simultaneously analysis of cell surface bound as well as intracellular proteins and RNA expression on a single cell basis. In addition, secreted proteins can be analyzed using a bead based systems.

Umeå Zebrafish Facility (UZF) is the Umeå University facility for Zebrafish research.

UMeHealth is a regional competence centre for research, education and collaboration on intelligent, person-tailored eHealth interventions, behaviour change systems and decision support. UMeHealth strives to be a cross-disciplinary meeting point that transcends knowledge domains and engages citizens in developing their future digital tools for improving health and wellbeing.

UMIT Research Lab is an environment for fundamental research in computational science and engineering. Innovative software tools for simulation and high-performance computing are developed and tested in collaboration with industry partners.

We are an open-access infrastructure, providing Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy and microspectroscopy services for local, national and international users, both academic and non-academic.

Visible Speech (VISP) is an infrastructure developed to enable the handling of audio recordings of people speaking, in accordance with GDPR and IT security requirements.

The XRDF provides services in robotic crystal set-ups, supervised crystal growth, cryo-data collection, high-resolution 3D structure determination and refinement

XPS Platform provides surface analysis by X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) technique. Full range of conventional XPS measurements is available including monochromatic Al Kα excitation, angle-resolved XPS, XPS imaging, and cryogenic measurements of hydrated (wet) samples. XPS, also known as Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis (ESCA), is now one of the most widely used tools in countless fields of science and engineering where advanced analysis of surfaces and interfaces is needed.