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 also funded by FORMAS and SSF – The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research after being evaluated to have a great potential for our society. 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.
Antonino Biundo
PhD, Postdoctoral researcher
SciLifeLab and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
antonino.biundo@scilifelab.se
Ciao! My name is Antonino. I come from Italy but I spent the last 5 years in Austria working at both the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences and the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology, previously for my PhD, and afterwards as a Postdoc. My PhD project was on the optimization of enzymes in order to improve their esterase activity for polymer modification. In the meantime, I have also worked with members of the oxidoreductase family, namely laccases and tyrosinases. From March 2018 I started a postdoc position in Per-Olof’s group in Systems Biocatalysis, focusing on the biological conversion of side-streams from forestry and on the engineering and bioinformatical design of enzymes.
Maryam Mousa
Project worker
SciLifeLab
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
maryam.mousa@scilifelab.se
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.
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.
Charlotte Kürten
PhD student
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
charlotte.kurten@scilifelab.se
My name is Lotta and I am from Ludwigshafen in Germany. I studied biology with a focus on molecular biology and biotechnology at the Ruhr-University in Bochum. I finished my master´s in August 2014 and started my PhD in September the same year at the School of Biotechnology at KTH, working at Scilifelab at the Karolinska campus. I am mostly working with solvent dynamics in triterpene cyclases, focusing on the human oxidosqualene cyclase that is catalyzing a crucial step in cholesterol biosynthesis. In my research I am combining computational methods such as molecular dynamics simulations and wet lab work.
Björn Schmidt
PhD student
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
bjorn.schmidt@scilifelab.se
My name is Björn and I am from Sigtuna, Sweden. I studied the Biotechnology program at KTH in Stockholm with a master in Molecular Science and Engineering. I did my diploma work in Per-Olofs group in the spring of 2016 and started my PhD in August that year at the KTH School of Chemical Science and Engineering. My main research involves refinement of waste products from the forest industry by the use of enzymatic cascades to produce high value chemicals for e.g. renewable materials. My work includes optimizing enzymes and conditions for the designed biochemical pathways by combining computational and experimental approaches.
Former group members
Gwenaëlle Charpentier
Hej! My name is Gwenaëlle and I come from Compiègne, France. I did project work in Per-Olofs group during the summer of 2017 as a part of my Engineering degree in Chemistry.
Adam Eriksson
Hej! My name is Adam and I come from Solna, Sweden. I am currently studying the Master’s program in Medical Biotechnology at the KTH School of Biotechnology. During the spring of 2016 I did my Bachelor thesis under supervision of Per-Olof and decided to join the group again for a project course in the spring of 2017. I continued my project as a summer worker that year.
Lauren Lyne
Hej! My name is Lauren and I am a medical student from Karolinska Institute. I was a project student in Per-Olof Syréns group during the summer of 2017, working with characterization of ancestral terpene cyclases.
Martin Toul
My name is Martin and I come from Brno, Czech Republic. I did my ERASMUS exchange semester from September 2016 until January 2017 at KTH in Stockholm, which included a project in Per-Olofs group.
