Siv G. E. Andersson

Last updated
Siv G. E. Andersson
Born
Siv Gun Elisabeth Andersson

1959 (age 6465)
EducationPh.D.
Alma mater Uppsala University
Scientific career
FieldsEvolutionary biology
Institutions Uppsala University, University of Cambridge
Doctoral advisor Charles Kurland
Website www.icm.uu.se/molecular-evolution/andersson-siv/

Siv Gun Elisabeth Andersson (born 1959) is a Swedish evolutionary biologist, professor of molecular evolution at Uppsala University. [1] She is member of both the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and of Engineering. [2] [3] She is also Head of basic research at the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation [4] and has been co-director of the Swedish national center for large-scale research Science for Life Laboratory between 2017 and 2021. [5] Her research focuses on the evolution of bacteria, mainly on intracellular parasites.

Contents

Education and career

Andersson grew up in Horndal, Dalarna. Her mother was home care assistant and her father was employed in the wood industry. [6] She studied Biology at Uppsala University, since the programme was the only one that had a course about DNA. She defended her PhD in molecular biology in 1990, under the supervision of Charles Kurland. [7] She applied for a postdoctoral stipend from EMBO to continue her research in the United States, but ended up obtaining a research position at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. [6] She became professor of molecular evolution in 2000, at the Uppsala University's Evolutionary Biology Center. [6] She was elected at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2005. [2]

Andersson has been very active in developing the Swedish national center for large-scale research Science for Life Laboratory, especially its DNA sequencing and bioinformatics platforms. She served as Co-director for the center between 2017 and 2021. [5]

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, she contributed, together with Lars Engstrand and with the financial support of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, to establish the first large-scale testing facility in Sweden [8] [9]

Research

Andersson's research first focused around the role of codon usage in shaping bacterial genomes. [10] After her postdoctoral fellowship, she contributed to sequence one of the first genome of an obligate intracellular parasite, Rickettsia prowazekii , the causative agent of epidemic typhus. [11]

In her later career, her research continued to explore bacteria and their relationships with their different hosts. [12] In particular, she is interested in the genomic consequences of long-term associations of intracellular bacteria. [13] She explored the evolution of Bartonella , [14] Wolbachia , [15] and Planctomycetota, [16] among others.

Andersson has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, and has an h-index of 61, as of 2022. [17]

Notable awards and honors

Related Research Articles

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References

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  7. Andersson, Siv Gun Elisabeth. (1990). Translation, antibiotics and codon evolution. Uppsala University. ISBN   91-554-2551-8. OCLC   22568986 . Retrieved 2021-01-16.
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  11. Andersson, SG; Zomorodipour, A; Andersson, JO; Sicheritz-Pontén, T; Alsmark, UC; Podowski, RM; Näslund, AK; Eriksson, AS; Winkler, HH; Kurland, CG (12 November 1998). "The genome sequence of Rickettsia prowazekii and the origin of mitochondria". Nature. 396 (6707): 133–40. Bibcode:1998Natur.396..133A. doi: 10.1038/24094 . PMID   9823893. S2CID   4379381.
  12. Toft, C; Andersson, SG (July 2010). "Evolutionary microbial genomics: insights into bacterial host adaptation". Nature Reviews. Genetics. 11 (7): 465–75. doi:10.1038/nrg2798. PMID   20517341. S2CID   40576224.
  13. Sällström, B; Andersson, SG (October 2005). "Genome reduction in the alpha-Proteobacteria". Current Opinion in Microbiology. 8 (5): 579–85. doi:10.1016/j.mib.2005.08.002. PMID   16099701.
  14. Guy, L; Nystedt, B; Toft, C; Zaremba-Niedzwiedzka, K; Berglund, EC; Granberg, F; Näslund, K; Eriksson, AS; Andersson, SG (March 2013). "A gene transfer agent and a dynamic repertoire of secretion systems hold the keys to the explosive radiation of the emerging pathogen Bartonella". PLOS Genetics. 9 (3): e1003393. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1003393 . PMC   3610622 . PMID   23555299.
  15. Klasson, L; Westberg, J; Sapountzis, P; Näslund, K; Lutnaes, Y; Darby, AC; Veneti, Z; Chen, L; Braig, HR; Garrett, R; Bourtzis, K; Andersson, SG (7 April 2009). "The mosaic genome structure of the Wolbachia wRi strain infecting Drosophila simulans". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 106 (14): 5725–30. Bibcode:2009PNAS..106.5725K. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0810753106 . PMC   2659715 . PMID   19307581.
  16. Mahajan, M; Yee, B; Hägglund, E; Guy, L; Fuerst, JA; Andersson, SGE (1 April 2020). "Paralogization and New Protein Architectures in Planctomycetes Bacteria with Complex Cell Structures". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 37 (4): 1020–1040. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msz287 . PMID   31808939.
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