Translational Pharmacology

Associate Professor and Group Leader in Personalized Medicine and Drug DevelopmentDocent in Pharmacologyhttp://ki.se/en/people/vollau

To get insights into the mechanisms underlying inter-individual differences in drug response and liver disease, I employ a multidisciplinary approach using bioinformatic analyses of Next Generation Sequencing data and functional testing in 3D integrated liver cultures and iPS derived hepatocytes.

HepaPredict AB is focused contract research organization (CRO) specializing in drug metabolism and hepatic diseases, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fibrosis and cholestasis. Our ambition is to commission our scientific experience and expertise to deliver highest-quality science with the goal to support and optimize drug development efficacy and safety.We offer in-house evaluations of drug metabolism, pharmacokinetic properties and safety as well as drug target validations based on our novel long-term stable physiological 3D spheroid culture platform. Using this platform we provide predictive metabolism and toxicity data using integrated preclinical solutions and scientific consultancy for drug discovery and optimized lead selection.

In my time as a bridging Postdoctoral fellow, I followed up on the findings that I obtained in my PhD project, namely, how signaling dynamics can be read out to provide positional information to cells. I found that multiple signaling pathways oscillate in concert, yet, importantly, with different dynamics thereby generating a spatial map of phase-differences. This work is currently under revision, again in Nature.

I studied how proportionality of structures is maintained during vertebrate development. To this end, I developed a primary cell culture system that recapitulates mesodermal patterning ex vivo.Using 2-photon microscopy and in silico analyses, I could show that positional information was encoded in oscillations of gene activities. This revealed an entirely novel way of dynamic information-processing. This work, published in Nature, was distinguished as a Research Highlight in Nature Genetics and with a dedicated News and Views report in Nature. A second first author publication, again in Nature, is currently in review.

During my Master studies, I worked as a scientific assistant in the Department of Molecular Evolution and Genomics. In my project, I cloned and expressed all components of an epigenetic silencing complex (Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 = PRC2) from the Cnidarian Hydra magnipapillata. I purified the assembled complex using density centrifugation and HPLC. Furthermore, I generated DNA/histone complexes in vitro to study PRC2 activity.

During my time as an intern student in bioinformatics in the group of Dr. Kurt Stüber, I generated code for the visualization of genomic DNA sequences using Perl.