UCMR was established almost 20 years ago and the research environment keeps on successfully bringing about its vision of excellent interdisciplinary worldleading microbial research.
2004: UCMR is initiated
The Umeå Centre for Microbial Research, UCMR, is initiated at Umeå University as a “bottom‐up” effort to strengthen infection biology and microbial research at Umeå University.
2006: Research infrastructure LCBU
Laboratories for Chemical Biology Umeå, LCBU, (later named Chemical Biological Consortium Sweden, CBCS) is established as one of two nodes building up the SciLifeLab national infrastructure in chemical biology.
On 19 June, UCMR is formally established as a univeristy centre by the Umeå University vice-chancellor Göran Sandberg.
October 2007: MIMS formally established
On 3 October, Umeå University officially launch of Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden, MIMS, at Umeå University. It is financed through grants from the Swedish Research Council's open call for "A Laboratory for Molecular Medicine" ad modum European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) with the UCMR vision as the winning proposal.
2008: Linneus Centre of Excellence programme
UCMR receives 10-year grant from the Swedish Research Council's Linnaeus Centre of Excellence programme, enabling the development of interdisciplinary research environments and recruitment of young group leaders.
2009: Molecules for the future
“Molecules for the future” is funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) and Vinnova.
2012: Research infrastructure FESEM
A field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) facility was inaugurated in 2012 with national funding from the Swedish Research Council.
2012: Emmanuelle Charpentier publishes on Crispr-CAS9 in Science
Emmanuelle Charpentier and her lab at MIMS together with the team of Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley, reported a landmark article in Science demonstrating how the bacterial protein Cas9 guided by the duplex tracrRNA-CRISPR RNA can identify targets in the invading DNA and how the system can easily be programmed and re-purposed to edit any target DNA of interest, offering a versatile genetic tool for biologists.
2014: Research Infrastructure Cryo-EM
A Cryo‐EM facility is established with funding from Knut och Alice Wallenbergs stiftelse, Kempe Foundation, and SciLifeLab, further strengthening Umeå’s position as an advanced microscopy hub.
The Swedish National Doctoral Program in Infections and Antibiotics, NDPIA, starts. The research school focuses on infection and antibiotics and covers both basic and clinical research. It is run with funding from the Swedish Research Council and coordinated by MIMS.
Emmanuelle Charpentier, honorary doctor at Umeå University, and former group leader at MIMS and former visiting professor at UCMR, is awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Jennifer Doudna, for her groundbreaking work on the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology.
2020: UCMR "jewel in the crown"
In the Swedish Research Council's final evaluation of the 40 different Centres of Excellence within the Linnaeus programme, UCMR is ranked among the three best in all three areas; research results, societal relevance and international competitiveness.
The international expert panel described UCMR as “the jewel in the crown.”
2022: 'EC' postdoctoral programme
UCMR launches its “Excellence by Choice” Postdoctoral Programme in Life Science, supported by the Kempe and Wallenberg Foundations and Umeå University. The first fellow joined the laboratory of Felipe Cava, marking the start of a programme that in total funds 17 postdoctoral scholarships. Emmanuelle Charpentier serves as the programme’s patron.
2024: Mastering Microbial Infections - prioritised research area
The selection of prioritised research areas has evolved from the work and thematic discussions that started in 2022 based on a Swedish Government proposition to allocate research funding to all higher education institutions based of specific profile areas. The Government has since changed its mind, but Umeå University has used this momentum to develop strategic work on strengthening research quality and competitiveness on a long-term scale.
One of three selected areas was the contribution from UCMR: Mastering Microbial Infections that was granted 17,5 MSEK. The whole amount will be allocated to the building of a new A-BSL3 lab at Umeå University and support of an in vitro Region hospital BSL3 lab. The Kempe Foundations has allocated funding for equipment for the ABSL-3 lab.
Construction has been put on hold by Akademiska Hus and is now planned to begin in 2026.
2025: Two national research schools in infection
UCMR begins coordinating two new national doctoral programmes: the NDPIA (Infections and Antimicrobials) and the NDP-VIP (Virus Infections and Pandemics), both funded by the Swedish Research Council.
These initiatives further consolidate UCMR’s role as a national leader in infection research, training the next generation of scientists in an era when microbial threats and antimicrobial resistance pose global challenges.
