Maja Malmberg

Researcher, HBIO, Bacteriology, Virology, Food Safety and Veterinary Public Health

E-mail

maja.malmberg@slu.se

Mobile phone

+46722152593

Phone

+4618672777

Research and EMA Database

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I'm fascinated by infectious diseases, in particular the agents causing the diseases and their interactions with the surrounding microorganisms. The overall aim of my research is to address questions in infection biology using high-throughput sequencing technologies.

Presentation

Infectious diseases constitute one of the most important present and future challenges for human and animal health. A wide range of new and/or so far "unknown" infectious diseases has emerged during the recent years and more are predicted to threaten animal and humans. Many of these infectious diseases may be appearing from hitherto unknown microorganisms.

Considering this global problem, there is an urgent need to develop powerful novel methods, which are able to trace down new infectious agents and study the complex nature of several microorganisms acting together to cause a disease. The science of viral metagenomics opens a completely new path and good possibilities to solve these problems.

Research

Currently my research is mainly financed by SciLifeLab Pandemic Preparedness, The Swedish Research Counicil and FORMAS:

SAFE Pig - Biosecure and profitable pig production in wild boar-dense areas (Swedish farmers’ foundation for agricultural research (Stiftelsen Lantbruksforskning) O-25-20-092)
Sewage-basaed surveillance of new potentially zoonotic viruses that could cause future pandemics - Funded by Swedish Research Council ID 2024-02910
Equine coronavirus - in collaboration with SVA (Funded by FORMAS)
Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness - Wastewater in Sweden in collaboration with SEEC.

Previous projects that I have been the reserach leader of are:

1. Sewage as a proxy for SARS-CoV2 prevalence, funded by SciLifeLab/KAW national COVID-19 research program project grant.

2. Neurotropic viruses in pigs: the role in congenital disease funded by FORMAS (ID: 2016-00979)

3. An interdisciplinary approach addressing tick-borne diseases in Ugandan indigenous cattle funded by Swedish Research Council (VR) (ID: 2016-05705)

Environment analysis

At the Swedish Environmental Epidemiology Center (SEEC), my colleagues and I analyze wastewater samples, among other things, to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2. The data is published weekly here.

Teaching

I teach veterinary students and I organize a course in "Molecular Infection Biology" for PhD students.

Educational credentials

 In 2023, I organized a workshop at Makerere University based on the findings of the project “An interdisciplinary approach addressing tick-borne diseases in Ugandan cattle.” The workshop brought together 78 participants from a variety of stakeholder groups and resulted in a policy brief.
In 2018, I organized a workshop on metagenomics and bioinformatics (including hands-on training with MinION) at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
In 2017, I organized a workshop on ticks and tick-borne diseases at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
Organized the doctoral course “Molecular Infection Biology” at SLU in 2017.
 Regularly supervises doctoral and master’s students.
Organized the course “The Global Challenge” at Umeå University in 2006–2007.

Cooperation

As part of the SARS-CoV2 in sewage project I have regular contacts with media. I'm facility director of SEEC (Swedish Environmental Epidemiology Center) and resposible for communcation and outreach. The SARS-CoV2 levels in sewage is published weekly here.

I work 45% of my time with comminmcation within the Swedish International Agricultural Network Initative (SIANI).

I was the project leader for the Agri4D conference, held at SLU Uppsala and partly online 23-25th September 2025. The theme was "Nurturing regenerative food systems in a changing climate".

I work 20% of my time as coordinator for the collaboration between SLU Global and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences.

I participated as a speaker in the outreach event Soapbox Science in Umeå 2018, and was initiatior of the same event in Uppsala 2019.

Background

I did my undergraduate studies in engineer in biotechnology with focus on medical biotechnology (MSc), at Umeå University in Sweden.

During my PhD at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, I studied the parasite Plasmodium falciparum, causative agent of malaria. More specifically my work was about developing improved methods to stud drug resistance development and identifying molecular markers associated with tolerance/resistance towards artemether-lumefantrine, the currently most used drug for treatment of malaria. The title of my thesis was: The role of molecular markers in emerging artemether-lumefantrine resistant Plasmodium falciparum.

I defended my thesis in January 2013. Thereafter I went as a guest researcher to Nagasaki University, Japan, to work on a project in drug resistance in Leishmania, a protozoan parasite that causes the disease Leishmaniasis.

Between August 2013 and August 2015, I did my postdoc at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), in the FORMAS project "Viral Metagenomics and Bioinformatics as powerful novel tools in veterinary infection biology" (221-2012-586). Since August 2015 I'm a researcher at the section of virology at SLU.

In 2020 I became Docent (Associate Professor) in Molecular Infection Biology at SLU.