PULSE postdoc program advances training through academic and industry secondments
The SciLifeLab PULSE postdoc program, currently recruiting the second cohort of international talent to Swedish universities has two tracks: the academic and the entrepreneurial, industry supported track, the latter aiming to contribute to facilitating transformation of scientific discoveries into real-world impact within a company setting.
SciLifeLab PULSE is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Cofund postdoctoral program, focusing on innovative, fundamental and translational research carried out in supportive and diverse academic and industrial environments, preparing postdocs with necessary skills for long-term career sustainability. Within the entrepreneurial track, focus is on development of disruptive technologies within machine Learning/AI, therapeutic oligonucleotides, display and selection technologies and proximity inducing agents, all aimed at facilitating target-based drug discovery of novel therapeutics.
The PULSE program brings together 40 partners. This includes 11 implementing partners, i.e. Swedish universities that employ the postdocs and host them under the guidance of SciLifeLab Group Leaders, and 29 associated partners from Sweden and abroad, spanning both academic and non-academic sectors, provide secondments and short research visits. These collaborations supply valuable expertise and capacity that help advance the postdocs’ projects and strengthen their overall training throughout the postdoc period.
“The entrepreneurial track is designed to spark the next generation of life-science ventures based on ground-breaking research made at the universities. Having Testa Center and Cytiva as partners gives our postdocs direct access to industrial-scale environments and expertise, which is critical for translation” says Kristian Sandberg, Co-Director of SciLifeLab’s Drug Discovery and Development Platform.
Testa Center serves as an open-access innovation hub for academic researchers, start-ups, and companies. The facility offers industry-standard laboratories, pilot-scale bioprocess equipment, and expert support within a controlled non-GMP environment.
“At Testa Center, we see projects ranging from early academic research to scaled-up production of modalities like mRNA, monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines, and viral vectors. We support wet-lab work, but also testing of technical and digital solutions, remote process control, and data management in an industry-relevant setting. We are proud to provide a hands-on testbed where PULSE postdocs can validate technologies, scale workflows, and gain hands-on experience in our environment” said Jesper Hedberg.
Cytiva, a long-standing supporter of Testa Center and Swedish biotech innovation, echoed the value of close partnership with emerging researchers.
“The PULSE programme fits well with our mission to support the future of life sciences. By working directly with the postdocs, we aim to help them navigate key stages of development, commercialization, and collaboration with industry. This is an important part of fostering the next generation of researchers entering the drug-development field,” says Ronnie Palmgren, Senior Principal Scientist at Cytiva.
With strengthened ties between academia and industry, the entrepreneurial track of SciLifeLab PULSE program strives to build a pipeline of innovators to equip postdocs with the tools needed to lead tomorrow’s life science development.
About Testa Center
Testa Center is an open access innovation hub, available for both academic researchers and industry. Users get access to industry standard labs for biological production, state-of-the-art, infrastructure and expertise. Our labs are equipped with pilot-scale biomanufacturing platforms and cutting-edge equipment for upstream, midstream and downstream unit operations in a controlled non-GMP environment.
Testa Center is a large-scale test bed for a broad range of projects, ranging from basic academic research to scaled up production of biopharmaceuticals intended for commercialization, such as mRNA, monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines and viral vectors. Besides classical wet lab-based biological projects, technical and digital innovations and solutions, like sensors, remote process control, data management and more, can be tested and evaluated in the industry-relevant application and production environment that Testa Center offers.
About Cytiva
Cytiva (Former Pharmacia Biotech and GE Healthcare) is a global life sciences company that provides tools, technologies, and services to help customers develop, manufacture, and deliver transformative medicines, from biologics to cell and gene therapies, advancing biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Supports the entire lifecycle of medicine, from early-stage discovery to large-scale production. The Largest R&D Hub is in Uppsala/Solna Sweden, around 500 people work in R&D. Focus is purification of Biologics such as: mRNA, monoclonal and multispecific antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines, and viral vectors.
