Hi!

My name is Kajsa and I just finished my bachelor at the engineering biology
program. This autumn, and maybe the spring, I’m joining the research preparatory
course. I´m also teaching in a beginners programming course at campus Valla, so
I will spend some time there as well. In my spare time I like to stay active,
which includes everything from movie nights to climbing Sweden’s highest
mountain Kebnekaise.

Here in the
ISB group I will get the chance to continue with the project I was involved in during
the bachelor. In the bachelor project we created a new liver model describing
fatty acid conversion. Now, I will continue the work of the previous students
Valentin Kindesjö, Thirza Poot and Johanna Fridberger to put together a model
that describes fatty acid and glucose fluxes during the day and how it’s
affected by different factors such as insulin and cortisol. My main focus will
be at the fatty acid part and I will continue to work on my liver model as well
as Valentin’s adipose- and cortisol module, which all will be parts of the
bigger model.

I will also
look at newly published data on body fat distribution in connection to diseases
such as type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. A future goal is to connect
the data to our models and being able to describe how the fatty acid
homeostasis is affected by stress factors such as disturbed cortisol levels and
why this in some cases cause diseases. By doing this, we are getting closer to
simulating clinical studies and predicting diseases.