Pandemics and Alertness member WG2 (Fighting the virus) and WG3 (Complementary and enabling techniques), LINXS Fellow

Professor, Biofilms Research Center for Biointerfaces, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health and Society, Malmö University, Sweden

Börje Sellergren studied chemistry at Lund Institute of Technology in Lund, Sweden where he obtained his PhD in 1989 in Pure and Applied Biochemistry.  After postdoctoral research (1989-93) at UC Irvine he worked as assistant professor at JGU in Mainz (1994-2002) and as associate professor at TU Dortmund (2002-2012), Germany. In 2012 he was appointed Chair in Biomedical Technology at the Biofilm Research Center at Malmö University.  Sellergrens research span over supramolecular chemistry, molecular recognition and separation science, mainly within a life science context. Based on rational chemical design, molecular self-assembly and imprinting, abiotic receptors are designed and used in affinity techniques for molecular biomarker analysis and discovery, pathogen inhibition and sensing, cell imaging, extracellular matrix imitations and therapeutics. Both “lock-and-key” and multivalent recognition concepts are being pursued by leveraging molecular imprinting techniques (nanoMIPs as synthetic antibodies) and dynamic cell membrane mimics in the form of reversible self-assembled monolayers (rSAMs). The latter technique is used to design virus, cell and bacterial receptors featuring exceptionally high affinities e.g. for use as inhibitors, modulators or sensors.

Sellergren has published over 220 scientific publications and 15 patents (H-index: 68) in the field of molecular imprinting and biomimetic chemistry with notable contributions reporting robust lipid bilayer mimetics, protein and peptide imprinting, PTM affinity engineering, combinatorial imprinting and host design.  As current and previous coordinator of several EU Research Training Networks and as company founder, he has extensive experience in international training of researchers as well as in project management and business development.