Pontus Nordenfelt and Harry Björkbacka receiving grants from no-profit foundation owning Medicon Village

Medicon Village

This is the third of four texts introducing research projects awarded funds from “Mats Paulsson foundation for research, innovation and societal Development” in 2022.

Project 5/8: Monoclonal antibody cocktails as adjuvant antibiotic therapy

Principal applicant: Associate Professor Pontus Nordenfelt, Infection Medicine (BMC), Faculty of Medicine, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University

Project start/end date: 1/1/2023 – 31/12/2024

Granted amount (SEK): 2,000,000

Antibiotic resistance is a growing global problem and the need for alternative or complementary treatment is great. The research group has discovered an antibody that protects against group A streptococcus and intends to explore it and other antibodies as adjunctive therapy to antibiotics. A major problem is that effective antibodies have been difficult to produce, but modern technology and knowledge have improved the situation. The research group uses a state-of-the-art platform for production of antibodies directly from patients, which keeps track of classes and subclasses of antibodies. The goal is to develop a safe antibody cocktail easy to administer in combination treatment with antibiotics, primarily in severe streptococcal infections. In the long run, the research group wants to establish a principle that can easily be transferred to other bacteria, to produce both alternatives and complements to antibiotics.

Project 6/8: Histochemical analysis of tissues and cells in diabetes and cardiovascular research

Principal applicant: Associate Professor Harry Björkbacka, Cardiovascular Research – Cellular Metabolism and Inflammation, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University

Project start/end date: 1/1/2023 – 31/12/2023

Granted amount (SEK): 2,000,000

The research groups’ vision is to improve and individualize prevention and management of diabetes and its complications according to the motto “correct preventive measures and treatment, for the right patients at the right time”. To understand cellular and molecular mechanisms and to study the presence of disease markers in tissues from both animal models and patients is absolutely crucial for new innovations to benefit healthcare. Imaging and analysis of tissues and cells is today a bottleneck that prevents the research group from exploiting their large unique tissue sample collection fully. A multichannel slide scanner will automate and improve high-resolution microscopic imaging of tissues and provide the research environment in the field of diabetes with significantly better opportunities, both quantitatively and qualitatively, to study tissue samples from pancreas, hearts, vessels and livers from patients.

The foundation behind Medicon Village donates SEK 15.6 million to life science research in Malmö/Lund

When PEAB founder Mats Paulsson created Medicon Village ten years ago, it was with a new non-profit foundation as owner. The purpose of the foundation is to promote research within life science with the aim of achieving better conditions for people’s health and life. For 2022, this and two other foundations created by Mats Paulsson, have decided to distribute SEK 25.7 million to ten research projects in Malmö/Lund. Since 2005, these foundations have donated a total of SEK 166 million to research.

The non-profit foundation that owns Medicon Village, “Mats Paulsson foundation for research, innovation and societal development“, has decided to donate SEK 15.6 million to purposes that promote research in medicine and other life sciences with the goal of benefiting health care, development, innovation and community building in Skåne county. This year’s eight recipients work at Malmö University, Lund University and Lund University of Technology.

At the same time, two other foundations created by Mats Paulsson distribute a further total of SEK 10.1 million to two recipients at Lund University; SEK 9.6 million from “Mats Paulsson foundation” and SEK 0.5 million from “Stefan Paulsson cancer fund”.

The idea behind both the Mats Paulsson Foundations and Medicon Village is to contribute to new projects around important research and innovation that benefit people’s opportunities for a better life. The model is that returns on capital together with surpluses from the activities within Medicon Village go back to research.

Previously published texts in this series

  1. Per Augustsson and Denis Music receiving grants from no-profit foundation owning Medicon Village
  2. Sandra Lindstedt and Maria Antfolk receiving grants from no-profit foundation owning Medicon Village