Pandemics and Alertness Core Group leader and deputy-leader of WG1 (Understanding the virus), WG2 (Fighting the virus) and WG3 (Complementary and enabling techniques), LINXS Fellow

Lund Protein Production Platform (LP3) & Protein Production Sweden (PPS), Department of Biology, Lund University, Lund Sweden

Wolfgang Knecht was trained in human biology at the Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany, with focus on biochemistry, molecular biology, and virology, followed by a post-doc period at the Technical University of Denmark. Since 2002, he has worked in the cardiovascular research area of AstraZeneca in Mölndal, Sweden, as associate principal scientist in protein production, protein science & enzymology and project leader in early drug discovery projects. In 2013, he joined Lund University (LU) as senior lecturer and director of LP3. LP3 is a university platform for protein production, protein characterization and structure determination. Today, he also serves as the deputy director of the distributed national research infrastructure PPS (Protein Production Sweden), of which LP3 is the LU node. His research is centered around integrated biochemical - structural biology approaches to study enzymes, as lately exemplified by studies of human dihydroorotate dehydrogenase and the complex of the non-structural proteins 10 and 14 of SARS-CoV-2. Since 2025 he has been a SciLifeLab group leader.

Pandemics and Alertness Leader WG1 (Understanding the virus), LINXS Fellow

Professor of Molecular Virology, Institute of Virology, Philipps-University Marburg, Marburg, Germany

Eva Friebertshäuser studied biology at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen and the Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany, with the focus on molecular biology, microbiology and virology, followed by a PhD thesis and post-doc period at the Institute of Virology at the Philipps-Universität Marburg. Since 2015, she has been Professor of Molecular Virology at the institute. Her research interest is the proteolytic activation of viral envelope proteins by host cell proteases and the development of protease inhibitors as novel antiviral drugs. Her research group first identified the transmembrane protease TMPRSS2 as virus-activating protease and made the most significant contributions to understanding how respiratory viruses are proteolytically activated to induce fusion.

Pandemics and Alertness Leader WG3 (Complementary and enabling techniques), LINXS Fellow

Researcher at the Swedish BioMS and SciLifeLab Integrated Structural Biology (ISB) mass spectrometry platforms & Department of Clinical Sciences Lund (IKVL), SciLifeLab Group Leader, Division of Infection Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Lotta Happonen studied biotechnology and genetics at the University of Helsinki, Finland, where she obtained her PhD in 2012 in structural virology using single particle cryoEM and X-ray crystallography as the main research methods. She joined Lund University initially as a postdoctoral researcher, and she is currently a PI and SciLifeLab Group Leader of a research group in Structural Infection Medicine (STRIME) at the Division of Infection Medicine. The methodological interests and research focus of her are to integrate cryoEM, X-ray crystallography, crosslinking and hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry with quantitative proteomics in order to advance the understanding of the molecular basis of infections. These efforts have paved the way for research activities of deciphering the structure of host-pathogen protein complexes, with the aim of providing novel interfaces to target for diagnostic, preventive, and therapeutic opportunities.

In addition to leading her research at the Division of Infection Medicine, she has an affiliation with the Swedish National Infrastructure in Biological Mass Spectrometry (BioMS) Lund node and the SciLifeLab Integrated Structural Biology platform (ISB), where she leads and develops the crosslinking mass spectrometry research and workflows. She is an elected board member and former President of the Swedish Proteomics Society (SPS); a national organisation promoting proteomics research in Sweden, and the Swedish connection to the European and global proteomics organizations.

Pandemics and Alertness Leader WG2 (Fighting the virus), LINXS Fellow

Dept. of Immunotecnology & SciLifeLab Drug Discovery and Development Platform, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Prof. Mats Ohlin defended his thesis in Immunotechnology at Lund University with a specific focus on human antibody repertoires in 1992. He has been engaged in antibody technology development and studies of immune responses throughout his career, with a specific focus of immune responses associated to allergic disease. He also developed a scaffold for development of carbohydrate-specific probes, and exploited X-ray and neutron crystal structure determination in this context. He was appointed Assoc. Prof of Immunotechnology in 1995 and Professor of Immunotechnology in 2003. He was appointed Platform Scientific Director of the Human Antibody Therapeutics unit (now Display and Selection Technology) of the national infrastructure Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) Drug Discovery and Development Platform in 2016 when the laboratory in Lund was introduced into this national infrastructure for therapeutic drug development. He has since 2021 acted as Co-chair of the Inferred Allele Review Committee of The Adaptive Immune Receptor Repertoire Community (AIRR-C) of the Antibody society (https://www.antibodysociety.org/), a committee with responsibility to judge the validity of germline immunoglobulin and TCR genes inferred from AIRR-Seq and genomic data. This committee directly collaborates with the International Union of Immunological Societies’ T-cell Receptor and Immunoglobulin Nomenclature Review Committee on aspects of gene and allele nomenclature.

Pandemics and Alertness member WG1 (Understanding the virus) and WG3 (Complementary and enabling techniques), LINXS Fellow

Head of Systems Virology Group, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Joakim Esbjörnsson has for the last 19 years developed a research profile that combines expertise in molecular virology, bioinformatics and immunology. After doctoral studies at Lund University (LU), and postdoctoral studies at the Katholieke Universiteit and University of Oxford, he returned to LU in 2016 to set up his own research team focusing on molecular virus epidemiology and understanding how virus-host interactions determine pathogenesis using different bioinformatics and systems virology approaches. His career development have been supported by Vetenskapsrådet (international postdoctoral grant, establishment grant, and consolidator grant), Swedish Society for Medical Research, SciLifeLab, the European Commission, Lund University (multiple internal grants and a tenured position from associate senior lecturer to full Professor since 2016), other funds. He has >70 scientific publications, whereof the majority is as either first or senior author. Major original articles as first or senior author include publications in the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Communications, Lancet HIV, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and Frontiers in Immunology. Other acknowledgements include being ranked as top 1% of HIV-2 researchers in the world, initiator and coordinator of the Lund University Virus Centre (LUVC), member of Vetenskapsrådets reference group for the national research program on virus and pandemics, member of the SciLifeLab DDLS Research School Management group, coordinator of the LU cooperation initiative on Pandemics and alertness, coordinator of the research and innovation dimension of the European University alliance EUGLOH 2.0 (including nine universities), and invitations to numerous scientific conferences as keynote speaker. He has been the main supervisor of nine postdocs/research fellows, three PhD students that successfully defended their theses, and co-supervisor of 8 PhD students that successfully defended their theses.

Pandemics and Alertness member WG1 (Understanding the virus) and WG3 (Complementary and enabling techniques), LINXS Fellow

MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Marjolein Thunnissen, currently serving as senior science advisor at MAX IV, involved in coordinating activities towards the life sciences community. These encompass a wide spectrum of applications, including protein crystallography, small angle X-ray scattering, cutting-edge imaging techniques, X-ray absorption methods, and more. Marjolein plays a pivotal role in fostering relationships with users, both from academic and industrial backgrounds, while also spearheading educational and training initiatives. Marjolein's academic journey commenced at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, where she embarked on her undergraduate and doctoral studies in chemistry. It was during her undergraduate years that her fascination with unraveling the intricate structure-function relationships of proteins through X-ray diffraction was ignited. Her main scientific interests have been inflammation and infection. She has solved several protein structures, amongst which the structure of Leukotriene A4 Hydrolase, the first member of the M1 group of zinc metalloproteases for which a structure got determined.

Pandemics and Alertness member WG1 (Understanding the virus), LINXS Fellow

Social Medicine and Global health and Systems Virology group, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Pia Svensson holds a PhD in Public Health from Lund University. Her research is centered around patient and public health literacy, public health communication, and crisis communication, with a particular focus on hard to reach groups. She has specific experience and interest in interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration. Since 2024, Pia has served as the administrative coordinator for the thematic initiative Pandemics and Alertness, a role she will also assume within the LINXS theme collaboration.