Bahira Shahim appointed research leader of the future
The Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) has appointed Bahira Shahim at the Department of Medicine, Solna, as one of this year's "Research Leaders of the Future." A total of 213 applications were received, of which 16 were selected. The researchers receive a grant of 15 million SEK each over a five-year period and will participate in an extensive leadership training program.
The aim of SSF's Future Research Leaders program is to provide newly established researchers with high scientific and pedagogical competence the opportunity to develop as research leaders. In this ninth round since the program's inception, Docent Bahira Shahim at the Department of Medicine, Solna, was one of 16 young researchers selected.
Congratulations, Bahira! What does this appointment mean for you and your research?
“Thank you! It is incredibly encouraging, both for me and my team. This grant allows us to take a comprehensive approach to a complex and relatively unexplored disease in the mitral valve of the left heart. Despite more than 24 million people globally being affected, we know surprisingly little about why the disease occurs, how it progresses over time, and when treatment should be initiated.
The goal of our research is to deepen the understanding of the disease process in mitral valve disease, both in the valve itself and in the heart muscle, and to investigate the connection to ventricular arrhythmias. In the long term, the results can contribute to better risk assessment and pave the way for the development of new preventive and disease-modifying treatments.
The grant enables me to expand my team with postdocs, doctoral students, and expertise in cardiac imaging, molecular biology, and bioinformatics. I am also looking forward to SSF's leadership program and hope to better understand myself as a leader and develop my working methods to scale up the research.”
What is next?
“We continue to build and follow patient cohorts where we collect cardiac imaging data, arrhythmia recordings, and tissue samples from heart valves and heart muscle. Thanks to the grant, I can now also recruit new members to the research group, focusing on advanced analyses of our biobanks.”