Jesper has a Master of Science in Biotechnology from Chalmers University of Technology. His interest in pursuing a PhD was sparked during his thesis work, where he spent a year exploring how AI and machine learning could be used to facilitate the treatment of antibiotic resistance. The aim of the thesis was to develop a model that predicts test results and thus can improve the quality and speed of healthcare decisions for patients in situations where every minute counts.
“I look forward to investigating how different types of data, such as genomics, proteomics, and imaging, can complement each other and how the analysis of these data can provide insights that could be used in the field of ischemic stroke. The first step will be to investigate blood-based biomarkers, primarily in the form of proteins, which hopefully can inform outcomes after stroke on an individual level.”
The Stroke Group works closely with healthcare, and the group is led by Christina Jern, Chief Physician and Professor at the Institute of Biomedicine. She is also Jesper’s Main Supervisor. Björn Andersson, one of Jesper’s Co-Supervisors, is a Research Advisor at the Bioinformatics and Data Centre, one of the Core Facilities' research infrastructures at the Sahlgrenska Academy.
“When we saw the call from the DDLS PhD school, we felt it was a perfect fit for us. AI and machine learning bring new opportunities to our research, and we want to take advantage of that.”
Four supervisors are involved, each bringing different perspectives. Björn has a background in mathematics and statistics and supports Jesper with the technical aspects of the implementation, as well as data analysis and interpretation. Tara Stanne, also a researcher at the Institute of Biomedicine, is, like Björn, a Co-Supervisor. The fourth supervisor is Markus Schirmer at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He has developed data processing pipelines that can be used to extract different types of data from MRI scans of the brains of patients with ischemic stroke. Jesper will apply these pipelines to obtain additional data to work with.
“It is a strength that we supervisors have different competencies and can assist Jesper with different perspectives in the work,” says Björn Andersson.
“The funding from DDLS means everything. It has given us the opportunity to have Jesper here as a PhD student. The biomarkers we are looking for, we believe, can help identify which patients have the worst prognosis for recovery and therefore need more interventions from healthcare. If all goes well, I hope that in four years we will have found biomarkers or at least candidates for biomarkers that can ultimately lead to improved treatment of stroke patients. A possible scenario could be that we manage to develop a simple and quick blood test that can provide as much information as currently requires an MRI.”
