Camilla Engblom one of this year’s Wallenberg Academy Fellows
CMM Team Leader Camilla Engblom is one of the four young and promising researchers at Karolinska Institutet who have been selected to receive five-year basic research grants from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. This funding provides young researchers with the opportunity to contribute groundbreaking new knowledge by tackling long-term and difficult research questions.
In total, 288 researchers have been appointed Wallenberg Academy Fellows since 2012. Their applications all underwent rigorous evaluation by a large number of international evaluators. This year’s Wallenberg Academy Fellows will be tackling innovative research questions.
Camilla Engblom will use the funding to study a piece of the puzzle that could help develop more precise and personalized treatments for cancer and inflammatory bowel disease.
“We will study B cells, the antibodies they produce, and their microenvironment. By linking gene expression and interactions between B cells, their molecular specificity, and the surrounding environment, we can gain a deeper understanding of how these cells develop and change during disease progression. Understanding this could make it possible to develop more precise treatments, and we hope that our research can pave the way for new immunotherapies and personalized medicines for cancer and inflammatory bowel disease.”
The grant will enable Camilla and her research team to use advanced technologies to map B cells in tissue and further analyze their molecular properties using mouse models and patient samples. They will also produce antibodies based on the B-cell receptors we identify, to explore what they react to. The grant also makes it possible to expand the research group and recruit more curious and talented people to the lab.
The text is based on an article from the Karolinska Institutet News website.