Diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and ALS, are caused by neurodegeneration and has a major impact on function of the brain and nervous system. This leads to deficiencies in the transport and amplification of biochemical and electrical signals of the central and peripheral nervous system. Today’s treatments and symptom-alleviation methods currently available focus only on the biochemical functions.
The multidisciplinary project into electronic neuromedicines that now has been awarded research funding intends to supplement currently available neuropharmacology with approaches based on the electrical functions. The research is to show how electronic components can be integrated with the nervous system in a radically new manner, in order to be able to treat several diseases and syndromes.
Multidisciplinary collaboration
Magnus Berggren has been awarded more than SEK 28 million in the coming seven years for research into electronic neuromedicines – a field of research residing at the borderland between electronics, biochemistry, molecular biology and physics. Magnus Berggren and his colleagues at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Daniel Simon and Roger Gabrielsson, will collaborate with researchers at Lund University, Roger Olsson, professor of chemical biology, and Martin Bech, senior lecturer in medical radiation physics, and with Eva Olsson, professor of physics at the Chalmers University of Technology.
Nine applications to the call put out by the Swedish Research Council for multidisciplinary environments in 2018 were successful, and more than SEK 220 million was granted. The competition for funding was fierce, with an approval rate for applications of just 6%.
