2012-02-17 Vacancy for a Compound Logistics Expert at LCBKI

The Laboratories for Chemical Biology at Karolinska Institutet has an opening for a Compound Logistics and Screening Expert at their facilities at Karolinska Institutet in Solna.  For more information, see here.

2011-05-30 CBCS Officially Launched at PCB2011

Stockholm, Sweden 2011-05-30

Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden officially launched in connection with the Perspectives in Chemical Biology 2011 symposium

Professor Stuart L. Schreiber of the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard and Dr. Chas Bountra of the Structural Genomics Consortium Oxford were two of the distinguished speakers that helped officially launch Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden (CBCS) at the organization’s first national meeting held at KI on May 19^th 2011.  The Perspectives in Chemical Biology 2011 (PCB2011) symposium, sponsored by AstraZeneca, Perkin Elmer and Schrödinger, was attended by nearly 200 participants and featured scientific presentations by opinion-leaders from Oxford University, Dundee University, University of Olso, Stockholm University, University of Gothenburg, Karolinska Institutet, Lund University, Uppsala University and Umeå University.

The symposium was concluded by an inaugural address by Karolinska Institutet president Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson who officially announced initiation of the consortium’s activities and the opening of the newly built Laboratories for Chemical Biology Karolinska Instituet (LCBKI).  The event was followed by the first meeting of the CBCS board on Friday the 20^th.  Although PCB2011 marked the official launch of CBCS, the consortium has been actively engaged in collaborative projects with academic groups in Sweden since mid-2010 when funding for the infrastructure was finalized from the National Research Council.

About CBCS

Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden (CBCS) was established in 2010 as a government-funded, non-profit strategic resource for academic researchers across Sweden. CBCS consists of nodes at Karolinska Institutet, Umeå University and Uppsala University.  The organization coordinates, and makes available, a powerful academic framework of infrastructures for the discovery, development and utilization of small-molecules and molecular probes for life-science applications. CBCS provides expertise within assay development, computational chemistry, cheminformatics, chemical library screening, medicinal chemistry, and preclinical profiling. By providing access to state-of-the-art science and technology, CBCS aims to help Swedish academia towards new discoveries in fundamental aspects of biology.  For more information visit www.cbcs.se.

For more information please contact:

Dr. Annika Jenmalm Jensen

Director, CBCS

+46 704107163

annika.jenmalm-jensen@ki.se

2011-03-10 LCBKI to host one-day chemical biology mini-symposium at KI

On May 19th, LCBKI will host a one-day mini-symposium at KI to celebrate the opening of its new facilties at Scheele Laboratories and formally inaugurate CBCS.  The symposium will be open to the public and free of charge.  It will also feature a mingle lunch.  We do ask that all participants register as seats will be limited.

We will shortly post more information on our website.

2011-03-07 New Faces at LCBKI

In 2011, LCBKI continues to grow by the recruitmenty of two new employees to its facilities, Hanna Axelsson and Kristmundur Sigmundsson.  Hanna is an expert in automated biochemical assay process development and was most recently head of Molecular Pharmacology at the Swedish contract research company iNovacia (www.inovacia.se).  Hanna will provide a very welcome addition to the assay development and screening team at LCBKI, which constituted a significant portion of LCBKI's activities in 2010 and continues to grow steadily in 2011.  In addition to her achievements at iNovacia, Hanna has previous professional experience from Astra Zeneca and Biovitrum AB.

Kristmundur Sigmundsson joins LCBKI as Senior Cell Biologist and will be the head of the LCBKI cell lab which will includes the newly acquired Operetta high content imaging system by Perkin Elmer.  Kristmundur has a PhD from the dept of Cell and Molecular Biology at Karolinska Institutet and most recently held a postdoctoral position within the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen studying the thermodynamical basis of action potential propagation in nerves.  Previously, he was a visiting postdoc in the Dept of Cancer and Immunobiology at Novo Nordisk and has significant experience with development of cellular-based assay systems and biophysical methods for protein-ligand interactions.

Please join us in welcoming Hanna and Kristmundur to the LCBKI family!

2010-11-02 LCBKI hosts lecture by Prof. William H. Gerwick

Dr. Gerwicks research centers on the discovery of bioactive molecules with anticancer, antibacterial, neurotoxic, antiviral, or anti-inflammatory activity from marine organisms. A major effort in his lab has been the discovery of diverse unusual molecules from marine cyanobacteria with potent biological activities in the above assay areas. The pathways by which these complex molecules are assembled are under exploration using stable isotope tracer methods and NMR analysis. In the last few years, molecular biology techniques have been applied to access some of the unusual enzymes present in these biosynthetic pathways, and thus opened the door for detailed enzyme mechanism studies. Additionally, many marine algae produce prostaglandin and leukotriene analogs that are strikingly similar to substances produced in the human body and that have therapeutic value as pharmacological agents. These isolation efforts have become the starting point for pursuing other interests in biosynthesis and biotechnology.