TBE researcher appointed Wallenberg Clinical Fellow

Sara Gredmark Russ, medical doctor and researcher at Karolinska Institutet’s Centre for Infectious Medicine, has been appointed Wallenberg Clinical Fellow, and will receive a little over SEK 3.6 million for her research on tick-borne encephalitis (TBE). She shares the award with Emma Niméus from Lund University.

The aim of the Wallenberg Clinical Fellows programme is to encourage clinical research by Swedish doctors and to identify future research leaders in a clinical environment. It is targeted primarily at medial PhDs clinically active at a hospital or in primary care in Sweden with research connections to a Swedish university, and was established by Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation with the scientific support of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Sara Gredmark Russ is a resident physician at Karolinska University Hospital and researcher at the Centre for Infectious Medicine on the KI Flemingsberg campus. She is running an innovative project to examine the immunological response to TBE, an acute virus infection transmitted to humans by infected ticks that can cause severe brain inflammation and lasting complications, such as headaches and concentration difficulties.

There is currently no cure for TBE itself, only treatment for its symptoms. As a 2016 Wallenberg Clinical Fellow, Dr Sara Gredmark Russ will seek new insights into the underlying causes of the diseases which can lead to the development of new, targeted therapies.