Published: 21-10-2024 13:10 | Updated: 21-10-2024 13:10

Hello new staff #16

We are happy to introduce new colleagues at the Department of Laboratory Medicine. Welcome everyone!

Tarja Schröder

Biomedical Scientist at Division of Biomolecular and Cellular Medicine, Morphological Phenotype Analysis Core Facility (FENO)

Tarja is from Helsinki, Finland and has previously worked at the Helsinki University Hospital, at the pathology lab at AstraZeneca, Feno Core Facility at KI, Offspring Biosciences in Södertälje, and now she is back at Feno again. At the Feno Core Facility, which provides histopathological analyses for the researchers, she works with techniques such as IHC, IF, Opal, RNAScope, etc. with automated Bond RXm.

Srinidhi Rangarajan

Research Assistant at Division of Biomolecular and Cellular Medicine/ Oscar Wiklander group

Srindi comes from Chennai, India and has previously worked as a Project Management Partner for Roche. She graduated with a joint master's degree in Molecular Techniques in Life Sciences from KI, KTH, and SU in 2020. She is currently working in the Wiklander group as a Research Assistant and her focus is on exploring EVs as a potential preventive and diagnostic approach in liquid biopsies for the prevention and cure of cancer.

Katarina Omholt

Adjunct at Division of Pathology

Katarina grew up in Nyköping and has a master's degree in molecular biology from Umeå University in bottom. She defended her thesis on oncogene mutations in malignant melanoma at KI in 2005. Since 2014, she has been working as a cytodiagnostic at Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge and for three years was involved as an adjunct assistant professor on the master's program in diagnostic cytology at KI. She will teach on the newly started commissioned training in histotechnology and on the biomedical analyst program.

Bing He

Research Specialist at Division of Pathology / Jaakko Patrakka group

Bing's previous research focused on revealing the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy with expertise in genetics, epigenetics and single cell omics. After re-joining KI from SciLifeLab/Stockholm University, he plans to profile single cell transcriptomes of FFPE renal biopsies from patients with diverse glomerular diseases and define the role of mesangial cells in chronic kidney disease.

Leon Heffinger

Master of Science (M.Sc.) at Division of Pathology / Dhifaf Sarhan group

Leon is from Germany and earned his Bachelor’s degree in Biology at Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. He then completed a Master’s in Human Biology in Munich, conducting his thesis with Dhifaf Sarhan’s group at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. He continued with PhD studies in this group, investigating sex immune dimorphism in the tumor microenvironment, focusing on pancreatic cancer.

Jelena Pekic

Division coordinator at Division of Clinical Microbiology and Clinical Chemistry

Jelena has worked at AstraZeneca for 12 years and held roles as a Finance Assistant where she managed financial transactions and processed Invoices. When working as Purchasing Assistant and Process Expert she optimized workflows and trained team members. At her latest roll at Volkswagen Financial Services she was responsible for reviewing and pricing damages on vehicle and also with service contracts for vehicles where she administrated the invoices and supported the dealers and customers.  At Labmed she will work as a Division coordinator for Clinical Microbiology and Clinical Chemistry.

Lara Sweetapple

Postdoc at Division of Clinical Microbiology/Matti Sällberg group

Lara is joining the VIVAC research group as a postdoc and specialises in RNA structure and function. She will be developing mRNA therapies against viruses and cancer. She completed her PhD at KI Solna and Masters in Biomedicine at Heidelberg University, Germany. Lara is a kiwi (not a fruit - from New Zealand!) who also loves dance and running and has a habit of decorating her office space with plants. 

Oscar Sillén

Service technician in the ANA Futura service team

Oscar has an 11-year long background as a caretaker at IES Bromma. He has also worked at a hotel and as an office caretaker for ISS. Besides that, he also has several years experience in graphic design and webdesign, which is one of many interests he has. He loves helping people whenever he can. At Labmed he works as a technician in the ANA Futura Service Team.

Jonathan Kullman

Service technician in the ANA Futura service team

Jonathan was a member of the ANA Futura service team back in 2018 on a temporary contract. Since then, he has been working as a school janitor at Gustav Vasa school, but is now back in the ANA Futura service team full time.

Thomas Hager

Operations Technician in the ANA Futura service team

Thomas has previously worked seventeen years at Sobi in Kungsholmen where he worked with cell culture. After that he became a calibration engineer. At Labmed he works as a technician in the ANA Futura Service Team which is a perfect place to be since he likes fixing things.