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Eva Särndahl

Eva Särndahl Befattning: Professor Organisation: Institutionen för medicinska vetenskaper

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Eva Särndahl
Forskningsämne Forskningsmiljöer

  • Responsive Nutrition Research Centre

Om Eva Särndahl

Research

The Role of Inflammasome Signaling in Health and Disease

Eva Särndahl is professor in Medical microbiology at Örebro University in Sweden. She has more than 35 years of experience as a researcher in signal transduction involved in the regulation of the inflammatory process both in keeping immunological homeostasis but also during the development of inflammatory-mediated diseases. Since 2005, the focus has been set on the involvement of inflammasome signaling in health and disease. Especially the role of dysregulated signaling due to variations in genes encoding the NLRP3 inflammasome in order to understand the inter-individual differences that determine why some individuals respond with severe, life-threatening inflammation, whereas others display a quiescent progression, or even remain asymptomatic following microbial challenges and pollutants, like nanoparticles and silica but also endogenous substances. In collaboration, the underlying mechanisms in host innate response to these stressors are investigated to understand inflammatory-mediated diseases, including sepsis, auto-inflammatory/autoimmune diseases, surgery-induced inflammation, and in individuals exposed to pollutants in their daily work life.

Short Career Narrative

I defended my thesis at Linköping University in 1994. My thesis revealed that chemotactic receptors are turned off by a lateral segregation between the receptor and its transducing partner, i.e. the G-protein; data that also suggests the cytoskeleton to function as a scaffold for signal transduction. Two years later I started my own research group studying the involvement of pro vs. anti-inflammatory signaling on leukocyte adhesion in order to understand the progression of inflammation and its resolution. During this time, I was the recipient of the Swedish Cancer Society 2-year postdoc position in 1995, and a 4-year Assisting Professorship by the Swedish Medical Research Council in 1998. In 2000-01, I was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard Medical School, USA studying and acquiring knowledge on the anti-inflammatory eicosanoid lipoxin. This work was awarded the national Crafoord research grant from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

In 2005, I was asked to join a project in which a rheumatologists and a geneticist needed help to understand the inflammatory mechanisms of a patient with auto-inflammatory symptoms. Polymorphisms of the NLRP3 inflammasome in combination with C10X in CARD8 were found to create an over-activated inflammasome resulting in elevated IL-1β production; thereby giving the patient his symptoms (Verma et al. 2008). My interest for inflammasome signaling was thereby uncovered, and has since been the main focus of my research. In 2007, I got a professorship at Örebro University, and my research has been recognized by national founding as well as strategically research grants and positions from Örebro University. In 2013, the collaborative network iRiSC - Inflammatory Response and Infection Susceptibility Centre involving national and international researchers was launched with me as its Director. 

Since 2019, I act as the Project manager for the strategic research profile X-HiDE - Exploring Inflammation in Health and Disease.

Together with researchers at MTM and AASS, I am the Project leader for the transdiciplinary project NanoSafety2 that made the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA)'s 100 list in 2024.

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