Eduardo Villablanca granted 3 million by FORMAS
Eduardo Villablanca, Department of Medicine, Solna has received a FORMAS grant of SEK 3 million. He and his team will study the immunotoxic effects of PFAS in the intestinal mucosal immune responses.
Eduardo Villablanca research group will study the immunotoxic effects of PFAS, which is a pollutant highly present in the environment, also in Sweden, and it is almost impossible to get rid of. PFAS exposure has been associate with many autoimmune disorders including inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). In addition, PFAS has recently been associated with impaired response to COVID vaccines. In this Formas project, they will investigate the effect of PFAS in intestinal mucosal immune responses and study the responses to vaccines.
“This grant means that we for the first time will be able to study the effect of this pollutants in mucosal immune responses and vaccines, which would not be possible without FORMAS support. This project would give us the chance to transition our research into sustainability issues and find the causal links between exposure to pollutants and autoimmune diseases”, says Eduardo Villablanca.
More information:
Formas is a government research council for sustainable development. They fund research and innovation, develop strategies, perform analyses and conduct evaluations. Their areas of activity include the environment, agricultural sciences and spatial planning. Formas conduct evidence syntheses analyses that aim to make it easier for Sweden to achieve our environmental objectives.