I am currently at Lund University on the last year of the International postdoc grant from VR working in Lars Råberg’s group with Borrelia. I am interested on host-pathogen interactions and to understand processes of diversification in pathogen populations.
I received my PhD at Linnaeus University in 2012 where I studied influenza A virus circulating in wild birds sampled at Ottenby, southern Sweden. I was investigating the seasonal dynamics of the virus in migratory hosts, costs of infection and the patterns in subtype diversity at the population and individual levels. The individual infection histories of re-captured mallards indicated that there was strong influence of the virus causing primary infections on the probability of secondary infection by a specific subtype. During the time as postdoc at The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA I tested the influence of the primary infection on the re-infection patterns in mallards by performing experimental infections and exploring the development of cross-immunity to influenza between subtypes. Re-infection in the mallards with a range of subtypes/different viruses indicates that similar subtypes of influenza induce strong protection against infection which implies strong competition in the system that may be driving the diversification of subtypes. Similar processes seem to act in the Borrelia system causing Lyme disease in humans. Therefore it will be exciting to explore the diversity of Borrelia!
