Per-Olof Syrén
Associate Professor in Chemistry for Life Sciences
Docent in Biotechnology
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
per-olof.syren@biotech.kth.se
Per-Olof Syrén obtained his PhD in Biotechnology in 2011 from KTH. After a postdoctoral stay as an Alexander von Humboldt-fellow at the University of Stuttgart, Germany between 2011-2013 he came back to Sweden to build his own research group. Supported by a Swedish Research Council (VR) Young Investor grant (less than 5% success rate), and committed to his passion to understand fundamental biochemistry, he has built his own small and independent research group from scratch at Science for Life Laboratory in Stockholm. His research is funded by the Gunnar Sundblad Research Foundation, FORMAS, VINNOVA, KVA, ÅForsk, SLF, VR and SSF – The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research after being evaluated to have a great potential for our society. His research benefits from generous support from industry, including the Swedish forest company Holmen and the US-based biotech company ATUM. His projects have attracted private grants from both Sweden (Royal Academy of Sciences, Wennergren Foundation) and Germany and have won several awards, including an internationally prestigious Alexander von Humboldt award and a Gordon conference research award. He was nominated to represent the Alexander von Humboldt foundation at the Nobel Laureate meeting in Chemistry 2013 in competition with thousands of other young scientists globally. In 2019 he was awarded the the Gunnar Sundblad Research Foundation’s prestigious Skills Development Prize. The prize was awarded by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
Senior Researchers and postdocs
Boyang Guo
PhD, Postdoctoral researcher
SciLifeLab and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
boyangg@kth.se
Hi! My name is Boyang (or you can just call me Sissi!), I was born in China, but I have spent the last ten years studying and working in Japan. I finished my Master’s and Ph.D. in Shinshu University and during that time, my work was focused on targeting and engineering a beta-glucosidase from Trichoderma reesei for disaccharide synthesis via transglycosylation reaction.
In 2016, I moved to the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science as a postdoctoral researcher fellow in the Bioplastic Research Team and performed chemical library screening looking for potential monomers that can be polymerized by laccases. In 2018, I transferred to the Biomacromolecules Research Group and developed a novel method of DNA/protein delivery for genetic modification in rice.
From 2019, I moved to Sweden, joining Per-Olof´s group, and I am now working on a project relevant to bio-based plastic degradation.
Heba Asem
PhD, Postdoctoral researcher
SciLifeLab, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
hebaasem@kth.se
My name is Heba Asem. I am from Egypt, where I have finished my master at University of Alexandria in materials science. Then I moved to Sweden to work as guest researcher at Karolinska Institutet in biodegradable nano-theranostic for leukemia treatment. In 2016, I finished licentiate degree at the division of functional materials at KTH where I developed organic and inorganic nanoparticles for Bioimaging and cancer therapy. In 2020, I graduated my PhD from the department of fiber and polymer technology. My work was focused on synthesis and development of functional polymeric nanoparticles for biomedical applications more specific targeted drug delivery. From June 2020 I started a postdoc researcher position in Per-Olof´s group, focusing mainly on synthesis of advanced bio-based renewable materials.
PhD-students
Natalie Hendrikse
PhD student
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB, Stockholm, Sweden
natalie.hendrikse@sobi.com
My name is Natalie, I come from The Netherlands and I finished my master’s in Medical Engineering at KTH here in Stockholm in June 2016. I am now an industrial PhD student working at the KTH School of Chemical Science and Engineering as well as Sobi, a Swedish biopharmaceutical company specialized in orphan diseases. Both are situated at SciLifeLab in Solna. My project is about designing and engineering enzymes for therapeutic applications, such as treatment of certain rare genetic diseases. Recently, I started working with bioinformatics and especially phylogenetics and ancestral sequence reconstruction of enzymes.
David Hueting
PhD student
SciLifeLab and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
david.hueting@scilifelab.se
Hi! my name is David. I am from the Netherlands, where I have finished my Masters at the Technical University of Delft and Erasmus University Rotterdam in Nanobiology.
During my studies I worked on a variety of projects ranging from growing synthetic cells to the molecular mechanism behind CRISPR/Cas. During these projects I grew a great interest in the correlation between protein structure and function. In October 2019 I started my PhD on protein engineering in the Syrén lab and the lab of prof. Hjalmar Brismar. I am working on engineering of enzymes and the effects that changes in structure have on enzyme activity and dynamics in the cell.
Karen Schriever
PhD student
SciLifeLab and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
karen.schriever@scilifelab.se
Hej! My name is Karen – I come from Germany and finished my Master of Biochemistry at the University of Heidelberg in summer 2018. During my Master degree, I have worked with different types of proteins and protein engineering methods. I started my PhD in the Protein Engineering of Enzymes group in October 2018. In my project I will focus on enzyme engineering and biocatalytic pathways at the interface to metabolic engineering.
Arne Stamm
PhD student
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
arne.stamm@scilifelab.se
Hej! My name is Arne, I am from Germany and I did my master’s in Nanoscience at the University of Hamburg. I started my PhD in March 2017 at the School of Chemical Science and Engineering at KTH in Stockholm. I am working on the polymerization of biopolymers using molecular building blocks from renewable sources, mainly focussing on monomers containing cycling subunits.
Elisabeth Söderberg
PhD student
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
elsoderb@kth.se
Hello! My name is Elisabeth and I am from Sweden. In the summer of 2020, I finished my Master of Science in Molecular Biotechnology Engineering at Uppsala University. During my master’s, I found the potential of synthetic biology and enzymes to replace classic chemistry as a greener option very interesting. Autumn of 2020, I started my Ph.D. in wood-based biocatalysis with a polymer focus. In my project, I will develop methods for biocatalytic generation of complex molecular building blocks from renewable resources for the incorporation into biopolymers.
Diploma students
Johannes Carlsson
MSc student
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
johac@kth.se
Working on polymerization of renewable building blocks and generation of biopolymers with tunable properties.
Martina Ravizza
MSc student
SciLifeLab and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
ravizza@kth.se
“Hi! My name is Martina and I come from Torino, in Italy. I completed my bachelor in chemical and food engineering in 2018 at Politecnico di Torino, where I also started my double degree master in chemical engineering of sustainable processes. I came to Sweden in summer 2019 and I attended the second year of master at KTH. I joined Per-Olof’s group to write my final project, which will regard bioplastics recycling using enzymes”.
Ximena Lopez Lorenzo
Project worker
SciLifeLab and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
ximena.lopez@scilifelab.se
Hi! My name is Ximena. I am originally from Mexico where I got my Bachelor’s in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Universidad de las Américas Puebla. I moved to Sweden two years ago to obtain a Masters in Medical Biotechnology from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. I have previously worked with cancer biology, immunology, and microbiology. I joined the Syrén lab during the summer to work in a project focused on enzyme engineering at the interface of metabolic engineering.
Former group members
Patricia Saenz-Mendez
Researcher, computational protein design.
Caroline Mosbech
Postdoctoral researcher, biocatalytic upcycling of terpenes.
Philip Josephson
Diploma student, fundamental terpene biochemistries.
Wissam Farhat
Postdoctoral researcher, polymer chemistry.
Antonino Biundo
Postdoctoral researcher, biocatalytic upgrading of terpenes.
Laiqing Xu
Project worker, synthetic biology.
Sara Ericsson
Project worker, enzyme engineering of plastic degrading enzymes.
Liliya Vasilevich
Project worker, biopolymers.
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
Johan Granath
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
Bachelor student, fundamental terpene biochemistries (2019).
Oscar Skirfors
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
Project worker, microbiology and protein engineering (2018).
Hailey Sounart
SciLifeLab
Project worker, synthetic biology (2018).
Maxime Robert-Monpate
ESCOM – Superior School of Organic and Mineral Chemistry in Compiègne, France.
Project worker, synthetic chemistry and biology (2018).
Maryam Mousa
Stockholm University, Sweden.
Project on monomeric building blocks from renewable sources for further polymerization (2018).
Gwenaëlle Charpentier
ESCOM – Superior School of Organic and Mineral Chemistry in Compiègne, France.
Project on ancestral terpene cyclases (2017).
Adam Eriksson
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
Project on fundamental terpene biochemistries (2017).
Lauren Lyne
Karolinska Institute, Solna, Sweden.
Project on characterization of ancestral terpene cyclases (2017).
Martin Toul
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
ERASMUS student. Project on biocatalysis and mechanisms of enzyme catalysis (2016).
