The 2022 Sven och Ebba-Christina Hagberg Prize is awarded to Cristiana Cruceanu and Hugo Zeberg
The Board of Sven and Ebba-Christina Hagberg's foundation has decided to award Cristiana Cruceanu and Hugo Zeberg the foundations personal prize and a research grant, for a total of SEK 650,000 each. The prize will be awarded at the annual Installation Ceremony at the Karolinska Institutet in October 2023.
Cristiana Cruceanu at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology is awaded the prize for her studies on how fetal brain development is affected by maternal stress and other environmental factors during pregnancy.
Her research aims to use state-of-the-art cell culture modeling approaches and primary tissues to understand how the environment shapes human brain development – during the most plastic periods of pregnancy. It is well established that prenatal exposures can chart the course for a lifetime of risk and resilience for disease, including mental and behavioral disorders. Cristiana’s group will uncover the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which these imprinting processes occur, with hopes of informing prevention and intervention strategies in psychiatry clinical practice.
Hugo Zeberg at the Department of Neuroscience is awarded the prize for his studies on how gene variants inherited from Neanderthals influence occurrence of severe complications from Covid-19.
Hugo Zeberg and his group have an interest in how the genetic inheritance from Neandertals affects health and disease. In addition, they are interested in genetic variability in general and its functional consequences. Other topics of interest include pharmacogenetics and the genetic predisposition to infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. Their methods include both bioinformatics and functional studies.
The purpose of the Sven and Ebba-Christina Hagberg Foundation is to stimulate and promote scientific research, preferably in the medical and biochemical fields, and each year awards research support to a female and male prominent young researcher in Sweden. The Foundation's grants and awards go to the different categories every two years. In nomination matters, the foundation collaborates with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Karolinska Institutet.
Sven Hagberg (1894-1961) was a civil engineer and grain chemist. He developed a new method for measuring baking properties of flour. The method, "Hagberg Falling Number", is used worldwide today. Ebba-Christina Hagberg (1900-1972) was involved in association work and shared her husband's interest in foreign cultures.