Functional Proteins for the Future Core Group member and leader of WG3 (Computational approaches to experimental design and data analysis), LINXS Fellow

Associate Professor, Lund University, Sweden

Dr. Atkinson leads a research group at the Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, studying the evolution and function of microbial proteins, with an emphasis on phage–bacteria interactions and antibiotic resistance. Her group combines large-scale bioinformatics, protein structure prediction, and experimental validation to predict new microbial immune systems, a rich reservoir of biotechnological tools, with CRISPR-Cas and restriction-modification systems as notable examples. Her lab has developed widely used bioinformatics tools and resources, including FlaGs, iLund4u, and the Viral AlphaFold Database. She is Director of LU-Fold, the SciLifeLab and Lund University structure prediction infrastructure, and received the Swedish Fernström Prize in 2025.