Christopher Sundling Group

Our main area of research is in Inflammation and immune regulation during infection.

Infectious diseases remain a threat to human health and development. Globalization with rapid mobility and decreasing natural barriers promote a rapid spread of known infectious diseases, resistant pathogens, and emerging infectious diseases. However, the development of efficacious vaccines and novel biologics continues to be a lengthy and complicated process, emphasizing the great need for a better understanding of host-pathogen interactions and the development of protective immunity.

More specifically, Our research focuses on understanding the interplay between different infectious diseases and the immune system. In order to study the immune response after infection we use state-of-the-art technology to investigate the immune system on a cellular, molecular, and genetic level. We then use bioinformatics to analyse the high-dimensional data and combine the results with clinical variables. By comparing several diseases, we can identify unique features associated with the individual pathogens, which in turn can be useful for developing novel diagnostic tests or pin-point potential targets for therapeutics. We also achieve an improved understanding of how the immune system responds to a given infection on a systems scale, which we then further investigate mechanistically.

• Defining the immune landscape after malaria and tuberculosis. In these projects, we use systems immunology approaches and mechanistic studies to investigate the interplay between different immune cell subsets, plasma proteins, and antibodies and how they affect the clinical presentation.

• Role and regulation of atypical B cells. In this project, we investigate the origin, dynamics, heterogeneity, and function of CD11c and T-bet expressing B cells.

• Immune tolerance in tuberculosis and malaria. In this project, we investigate how tolerance develops and is maintained in infected individuals.

• Development of novel diagnostics tools. We have several projects where we use data-driven approaches to identify biomarkers that are associated with disease etiology, progression, severity, or treatment success. We also have projects where we, together with industry partners, work to improve current clinical diagnostic methods.

Christopher Sundling, Associate Professor (Docent) and principal researcher at the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine Solna. christopher.sundling@ki.se

Margarida Correia-Neves, Professor, Affiliated, School of Medicine, University of Miho, Portugal, margarida.correia-neves@ki.se

Alan Dine Courey-Ghaouzi, PhD student, alan.dine.coureyghaouzi@ki.se

Linn Kleberg, Research Assistant, linn.kleberg@ki.se

Gunilla Källenius, Professor, gunilla.kallenius@ki.se

Maximilian Julius Lautenbach, PhD student, julius.lautenbach@ki.se

Zaynab Mousavian, Postdoc, zaynab.mousavian@ki.se

Carolina Sousa Silva, Postdoc, carolina.sousa.silva@ki.se

Christopher Sundling, Principal Researcher, and Team leader, christopher.sundling@ki.se

Pengjun Xi, PhD student, pengjun.xi@ki.se

Director of the Centre for Tuberculosis Research (https://ki.se/en/research/centre-for-tuberculosis-research)

VALIDATE network investigator (https://www.validate-network.org/home)

Member of the TBnet network (https://www.tbnet.eu/)

Member of the ERASE-TB consortium (https://www.erase-tb.co.uk/)

The Swedish Research Council

The Heart-Lung Foundation

Karolinska Institutet

The Swedish Society of Medicine

Clas Groschinsky Foundation

Åke Wiberg Foundation

Scandinavian Society for Immunology, young investigator award (to C. Sundling 2022)

Excellent supervision award for MD project student Vendela Brismar (2021)

Excellent supervision award for MD project student Ellen Von Horn (2021)

Jonas Söderquist’s stipend (to C. Sundling 2014).

Carolina Sousa Silva: The immune response to mycobacterial glycolipids in tuberculosis

Supervisors: Dr. Christopher Sundling, and Dr. João Carlos Sousa

Presented at University of Minho, April 19, 2023

christopher.sundling@ki.se