Team members
Present team members
Joakim Larsson, Professor in Environmental Pharmacology
Director, Centre for Antibiotic Resistance Research (CARe) at University of Gothenburg
The Larsson group is engaged in research on several aspects of antibiotic resistance, but has a particular expertise in the environmental dimensions, spawning from a long-standing interest in pharmaceuticals in the environment.
Dr Carl-Fredrik Flach, Associate Professor (medical microbiology), Co-principal Investigator
Main research topic: Waste water and antibiotics
Dr Roelof Coertze, Postdoctoral researcher
Roelof obtained his PhD at the North-West University, South Africa, in 2020. His thesis entailed research on the prevalence and diversity of AmpC beta-lactamase antibiotic resistance genes in aquatic environments. Following his PhD, Roelof started a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of the Free State and his research focused on molecular characterization of double stranded RNA viruses. In 2021, Roelof undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Gothenburg where he is currently employed.
Dr Mutshiene Deogratias Ekwanzala, Postdoctoral researcher
Deo is a qualified biotechnologist and trained microbiologist in water quality and wastewater management. He holds a PhD in Water Science and Technology from the Tshwane University of Technology (Pretoria, South Africa). He worked as a microbiologist at MicroChem Lab Services (Benoni, South Africa) and as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Kyung Hee University (Yongin-si, South Korea), exploring the RNA virome of sewage before joining GU. At GU, he is involved in “the selection of antimicrobial resistance in the environment” and BIOCIDE projects.
Dr Declan Gray, Postdoctoral researcher
Declan received his PhD in Bioscience at Newcastle University studying the survival of Bacillus subtilis under starvation conditions. He continued working with B. subtilis at the University of Amsterdam looking into ROS production during valinomycin treatment. After which he moved back to Newcastle University to perform a Post-Doc with Prof. Bert van den Berg and Dr. David Bolam looking into SusCD-mediated glycan import by the gut microbe Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. Currently Declan is investigating hospital wastewater, trying to identify the selective agent.
Dr Fanny Berglund, Postdoctoral researcher
Fanny did her PhD in Prof. Erik Kristansson’s group at Chalmers University of Technology. Her work consisted of developing methods to discover new variants of antibiotic resistance genes in large metagenomic data sets. She is currently involved in a project that aims to identify environments where species, that have been the origin host for recently mobilized resistance genes, are present, as well as other projects relating to identifying antibiotic resistance genes in metagenomic data.
Dr Stefan Ebmeyer, Postdoctoral researcher
Stefan is a bioinformatics researcher who did his PhD in Joakim Larssons group. During his studies, he and his co-authors identified the recent origins of several mobile antibiotic resistance genes, and developed tools and methods that help other researchers to do the same. Today, Stefan is working on identifying origins of antibiotic resistance genes from metagenomic long read sequencing data.
Dr Marion Hutinel, Postdoctoral researcher
“Pharmacist from the university Lyon I in France, Marion first studied biotechnologies and microbial ecology before joining Joakim Larsson’s research group in 2017. During her doctoral studies, she developed and assessed several ways in which the analysis of wastewater samples could be used to provide clinically relevant antibiotic resistance data by, for example, providing local antibiotic resistance rates among bacterial populations in a resource efficient manner or allowing to monitor the spread of rare resistance determinants. She also studied the effect of wastewater on the transfer of mobile antibiotic resistance genes between bacteria. Since 2021, she continues her work on antibiotic resistance as a postdoctoral researcher focusing on the study of factors increasing horizontal gene transfer and the further development of wastewater based antibiotic resistance surveillance methodologies.”
Dr Carolin Rutgersson, Biologist
Carolin did her PhD in the Larsson lab investigating exposure effects from effluent from pharmaceutical production. In recent years, her research has focused on selection and dissemination of antibiotic resistance, specifically coupled to municipal and hospital waste water. Currently, she is involved in the EU funded BIOCIDE project investigating biocides’ role in the promotion of antibiotic resistance in aquatic ecosystems.
Julian Bobis Camacho, PhD student
Julian is a first-year PhD student at the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of Gothenburg, under the supervision of Prof. Carl-Fredrik Flach. Julian has a background both in biomedicine and in molecular microbiology. The aim of his PhD project here at Sahlgrenska is to develop and test a sewage-based surveillance system to monitor antibiotic resistance in human pathogens like E. coli or Klebsiella spp.
Mariska Coertze, Research assistant
Mariska obtained her degree in Environmental and Biological Sciences in 2019 at the North-West University in South Africa, majoring in Microbiology and Physiology. She started working full time for ISO 17025 accredited food testing laboratories in 2017, managing technical aspects of SMT Labs Bloemfontein, South Africa. Following Mariska’s qualification, she obtained her Honours degree in Environmental Management at the University of South Africa. Currently, she is a Research Assistant in Prof. Joakim Larsson’s group coordinating incoming samples and performing experiments with the group.
Gustaf Stukat von Feilitzen, Medical doctor (ST-läkare)
Dr Zhuofeng Yu, Postdoctoral researcher
Previous Postdoctoral Team Members
Dr Nadine Kraupner
Dr Nicolas Keiffer
Dr Jennie Sjöhamn
Dr Maria-Elisabeth Böhm
Dr Carolin Rutgersson
Dr Sazzad Karim
Dr Johan Bengtsson-Palme
Dr Antti Karkman
Dr Patricia Huijbers
Dr Nachiket Marathe
Dr Jekaterina Jutkina
Dr Carl-Johan Svensson
Dr Stathis Kotsakis
Dr Sara Lundström
Dr Lina Gunnarsson
Dr Bethanie Carnie-Almroth
Dr Anders Janzon
Dr Marija Svijovic
Dr Erik Kristiansson
Dr Jeffrey N Brown
Dr Bart Adriaenssens
Dr Linda M Samuelsson
Dr Anna Holmberg
Dr Noomi Asker
Graduated PhD students
Dr Stefan Ebmeyer
Dr Marion Hutinel (co-supervision)
Dr Mohammad Razavi
Dr Jessica Guzman-Otazo (co-supervision)
Dr Fanny Berglund (co-supervision)
Dr Chandan Pal
Dr Johan Bengtsson-Palme
Dr Anna Bylander
Dr Anna Johnning
Dr Carolin Rutgersson
Dr Filip Cuklev
Dr Lina Gunnarsson
Dr Magdalena Nutu
Dr Anders Friberg (co-supervision)
Dr Eva Albertsson (co-supervision)
Dr Andreas Kullgren (co-supervision)