Background and activities

Co-Director Centre of Molecular Inflammation Research and Professor in Cell Biology at Dept. of Clinical  and Molecular Medicine. Head of research group on Mycobacteria and HIV. Teaching immunology and cell biology. Researcher unique identifier(s): E-1311-2013

Curriculum

  • Professor in Cell Biology at  Dept. of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, NTNU,
  • Co-director of CEMIR : Centre of Molecular Inflammation Research, a center of excellence at the Faculty of Medicine, NTNU
  • Researcher at Dept. of Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, NTNU, 2004 - 2014
  • Associate Professor II in Immunology at Dept. of Laboratory Medicine, NTNU, 2011 - 2013
  • Visiting post doc in Alan Aderems lab, Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, USA, 2002-2003
  • PhD (Dr.Philos) in Immunology/Cell Biology at Dept. of Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, NTNU, 2001
  • MSc (sivilingeniør) in Biotechnology at The Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH, later NTNU), 1995

Research activities and interests

My research is focused on host-pathogen interactions between innate immune cells and pathogens, e.g. mycobacteria, HIV and lately also SARS-CoV2. Infectious diseases still represents a threath to global health and the world is in great need for new medications and vaccines. Our basic research may contribute in revealing new therapeutic or vaccine targets. We have a BSL3 lab with a Leica SP8 confocal microscope where we investigate host-pathogen relations in M. tuberculosis infected macrophages, HIV and SARS-CoV2 infection and we have established methods for correlative imaging at an ultra-high resolution and in 3D using FIB-SEM together with fluorescence microscopy. Intracellular trafficking, compartmentalized receptor signaling and pathogen-induced host-cell death are investigated in our lab. We are currently establishing multicellular ex vivo infection models to study how cellular cross-talk shapes the resulting immune response. Since the discovery of the anti-bacterial functions of lipocalin 2, I have also initiated and contributed in projects exploring the role of lipocalin 2 in infectious diseases or use as a biomarker in diverse conditions.

My research group is part of a larger intitiative on molecular mechanisms of inflammation research, CEMIR.

Publications

[PubMed]   [Cristin]