Nils Landegren
Our immune system protects us against infections and cancer, but it can also attack our own bodies and cause autoimmune disease. Our research aims to understand why this happens and use that knowledge to improve diagnosis and treatment.
Identifying causal autoantibodies
Autoimmune disease processes are reflected in blood by autoantibodies targeting the body’s own proteins. We develop and use large-scale methods to map autoantibodies against thousands of proteins. By studying patients with autoimmune and unexplained diseases, we aim to discover new disease mechanisms and improve diagnosis.
An exciting area is the discovery of autoantibodies that directly cause disease by blocking important immune functions. Our research focuses on autoantibodies against cytokines—the signal molecules that immune cells use to communicate. These autoantibodies can weaken immune defence and increase the risk of severe infections, or disrupt immune regulation and drive inflammatory disease.
Sex differences in immunity
Women are several times more likely to develop autoimmune diseases, while men are more vulnerable to severe infections. Our SEXimmune project investigates the biological basis for these differences, studying how sex hormones and sex chromosomes shape the human immune system.
Our research is supported by the European Research Council (ERC), Swedish Research Council, Swedish Cancer Society, Göran Gustafsson Foundation, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Cancer Research UK, and others.
Group Members
Anish Behere
Emma Bergström
Axel Cederholm
Emma DeGrace
Hedvig Mildner
Klaudia Orfin
Fabian Sardh
Ahmet Yalcinkaya