Marie Carlén one of five new members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA)

Marie Carlén, a professor at the Department of Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet, researches the brain and neuronal networks. One of her long-term goals is to study how the brain's network of neurons creates mental processes and goal-oriented behaviour at a detailed level. The focus is on cognitive functions in the prefrontal cortex, part of the frontal lobe.

One hope is to increase knowledge of the biological basis of cognitive abilities, i.e. how the brain takes in, processes and updates information. These are processes that often function less well in neuropsychiatric disabilities and mental illness. These studies could also provide valuable knowledge about disabilities in conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.

The other two newly elected members of the Academy's Class for Biosciences are Love Dalén and Hanna Johannesson, both at Stockholm University.

Love Dalén is Professor of Evolutionary Genomics at the Department of Zoology. He specializes in using DNA technology to study the ecology and evolution of different species. His studies have included how past environmental changes have affected the distribution and survival of species. He has also studied prehistoric DNA from now-extinct animals such as mammoths and cave lions. His studies of prehistoric wolves and how dogs evolved from them have also had a major impact.

Hanna Johannesson holds a position as Professor Bergianus at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. She leads a research group at the Department of Ecology, Environment and Botany at Stockholm University. She is a mycologist and researches the evolution of fungi. To study natural selection in fungi, she has participated in a research collaboration that has developed a technique to isolate and sequence the genome of individual cell nuclei.

Eva Malmström Jonsson, Professor at the division of Coating Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), was elected member of the Academy's Class for Engineering Sciences. Thomas Nilsson, Professor of Physics at Chalmers University of Technology, was elected member of the Academy's Class for Physics.

Source: KAV's