Three-quarters of a Billion Kronor Earmarked for 25 Cutting-edge Swedish Research Projects

The Knut och Alice Wallenberg Foundation has approved grants totaling SEK 759 million for 25 research projects considered to be of the highest international class, and offering potential for future scientific breakthroughs.

Most of the funding is destined for basic research projects in the fields of medicine, technology and the natural sciences.

New ways of treating cancer, new treatment methods and drugs to combat infectious diseases, new knowledge about how humans have developed the ability to learn, and new understanding of catalytic reactions at atomic level are some examples of the research projects being supported.

“It is always a pleasure for the board to grant funding applications for projects of high scientific quality. As its name implies, basic research lays the foundation for future breakthroughs. It gives us new knowledge on which to build, and in some cases, it also leads to applications that none of us could have imagined. For instance, the hunt for the Higgs particle gave birth to technology now used in the health sector. There are myriad examples of this kind,” observes Peter Wallenberg Jr., Chair of the Knut och Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

Among the projects awarded grants is a research program at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. The program aims to bridge the gap between the humanities and social sciences on the one hand, and medicine and the natural sciences on the other.

“The institute belongs to a group of eight world-leading institutions for advanced studies. The rapid progress being made in the field of scientific research raises new questions and also yields knowledge creating a need for an exchange of ideas between researchers in a growing number of scientific fields,” says Göran Sandberg, Executive Director of the Foundation.

The Foundation applies a strict peer-review procedure in which applications are assessed by leading researchers in each field.

Project funding 2015 the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation:

More information about the projects may be found on the websites of the various higher education institutions.

Medicine

Project: “Deciphering antigen-presenting cell subset function and regulation in chronic and acute bacterial infections – Relevance for vaccines and immune therapy”
Grant: SEK 41,460,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor William Agace, Lund University

Project: “Towards control of formation and resolution of edema by deciphering mechanisms of vascular leak and lymphatic function”
Grant: SEK 59,985,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Christer Betsholtz, Uppsala University

Project: “Cancer redox-targeting redox pathways for improved cancer therapy”
Grant: SEK 43,750,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Elias Arnér, Karolinska Institutet

Project: “Cis-regulatory logic of the mouse brain transcriptome”
Grant: SEK 26,800,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Sten Linnarsson, Associate Professor, Karolinska Institutet

Project: “Molecular mechanisms of early development”
Grant: SEK 17,000,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Juha Kere, Karolinska Institutet

Project: “Systems precision medicine platform to optimize therapies for cancer patients: acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and beyond”
Grant: SEK 46,000,000
Principal investigator: Professor Olli Kallioniemi, Karolinska Institutet

Natural sciences

Project: “Evolutionary transitions in humans – From nature to culture”
Grant: SEK 22,000,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Magnus Enquist, Stockholm University

Project: “Physiological branch-points with ecosystem consequences: carbon and water in boreal forests”
Grant: SEK 39,450,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Torgny Näsholm, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Project: “Evolutionarily conserved mechanisms of stress response that converge on mediator and chromatin structure”
Grant: SEK 39,700,000
Principal investigator: Professor Stefan Björklund, Umeå University

Project: “Single particle catalysis in nanoreactors”
Grant: SEK 35,890,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Christoph Langhammer, Associate Professor, Chalmers University of Technology

Project: “Atomistic design of catalysts”
Grant: SEK 33,530,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Magnus Skoglundh, Chalmers University of Technology

Project: “Evolution of new genes and proteins”
Grant: SEK 46,770,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Dan Andersson, Uppsala University

Technology/Physics

Project: “Characterization of new superheavy elements (lundium)”
Grant: SEK 38,260,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Dirk Rudolph, Lund University

Project: “The boride frontier – Pioneering materials development of multifunctional metal diboride films by new PVD processes”
Grant: SEK 37,500,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Johanna Rosén, Associate Professor, Linköping University

Project: “Photonic quantum information”
Grant: SEK 34,250,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Mohamed Bourennane, Stockholm University

Project: “Harnessing light and spins through plasmons at the nanoscale”
Grant: SEK 37,995,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Alexander Dmitriev, Associate Professor, Chalmers University of Technology

Project: “Engineering the interconnected society: information, control, interaction”
Grant: SEK 25,350,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Karl-Henrik Johansson, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Project: “Exact results in gauge and string theories”
Grant: SEK 33,960,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Joseph Minahan, Uppsala University

Interdisciplinary research

Project: Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study
Grant: SEK 18,000,000 over five years
Principal investigator: Professor Björn Wittrock, Uppsala University

Grants for continued research

Project: “Advanced non-intrusive laser diagnostics of high temperature”
Grant: SEK 23,300,000
Principal investigator: Marcus Aldén, Lund University

Project: “Prevention of beta-cell failure in Type 2 diabetes”
Grant: SEK 17,600,000
Principal investigator: Professor Helena Edlund, Umeå University

Project: “Spatial transcriptomics of the brain”
Grant: SEK 25,000,000
Principal investigator: Professor Joakim Lundeberg, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Project: “Isotopic control for ultimate material properties – Phase III”
Grant: SEK 9,000,000
Principal investigator: Professor Erik Janzén, Linköping University

Project: “Discovering new forms of monogenic hyperlipidemias”
Grant: SEK 16,200,000
Principal investigator: Professor Bo Angelin, Karolinska Institutet

Project: “A revolutionary new way to grow nanowires”
Grant: SEK 9,000,000
Principal investigator: Professor Lars Samuelson, Lund University

The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation is the largest private financier of research in Sweden. In 2014, the Foundation awarded grants totaling SEK 1.7 billion to Swedish research projects and Swedish researchers.