Bojmar Lab

A banner with focus on cancer research.

Cancer is a systemic disease. Our research focuses on understanding crosstalk between different organs in the human body, and how this affects cancer progression.

We focus mainly on gastrointestinal cancers and their common hepatic metastasis. Our aim is further to study cancers in additional organs, with different metastatic patterns, to ultimately use our knowledge to improve clinical praxis and find new therapeutic options against cancer progression.

News

A man stands outside of US Campus in Linköping.

PhD student to study cancer in New York

Jonas Burman is a doctoral student at Linköping University and has been given the opportunity to go on an international exchange to New York. There he will work at a prestigious laboratory and follow in the footsteps of his supervisor, Linda Bojmar.

Person writes with a pen on a test tube.

Linda Bojmar contributes to groundbreaking study on cancer

Linda Bojmar has played a significant role in a groundbreaking study recently published in Nature. The study sheds new light on how cancers in distant organs can profoundly impact liver function, providing crucial insights for cancer treatment.

Join Our Team in Cancer Research

Are you a skilled researcher with a passion for cancer biology and immunology? We are offering a two-year postdoctoral fellowship for an international candidate to join our team.

Publications

Latest publication in LiU DiVA

2023

Maarten Korrel, Leia R. Jones, Jony van Hilst, Gianpaolo Balzano, Bergthor Björnsson, Ugo Boggi, Svein Olav Bratlie, Olivier R. Busch, Giovanni Butturini, Giovanni Capretti, Riccardo Casadei, Bjorn Edwin, Anouk M. L. H. Emmen, Alessandro Esposito, Massimo Falconi, Bas Groot Koerkamp, Tobias Keck, Ruben H. J. de Kleine, Dyre B. Kleive, Arto Kokkola, Daan J. Lips, Sanne Lof, Misha D. P. Luyer, Alberto Manzoni, Ravi Marudanayagam, Matteo de Pastena, Nicolo Pecorelli, John N. Primrose, Claudio Ricci, Roberto Salvia, Per Sandström, Frederique L. I. M. Vissers, Ulrich F. Wellner, Alessandro Zerbi, Marcel G. W. Dijkgraaf, Marc G. Besselink, Mohammad Abu Hilal (2023) Minimally invasive versus open distal pancreatectomy for resectable pancreatic cancer (DIPLOMA): an international randomised non-inferiority trial The Lancet Regional Health: Europe, Vol. 31, Article 100673 Continue to DOI
Sini Takala, Kristoffer Lassen, Kjetil Soreide, Ernesto Sparrelid, Jon-Helge Angelsen, Erling A. Bringeland, Malin S. Eilard, Oskar Hemmingsson, Bengt Isaksson, Heikki Karjula, Jukka-Pekka Lammi, Peter N. Larsen, Maija Lavonius, Gert Lindell, Frank V. Mortensen, Kim Mortensen, Arno Nordin, Torsten Pless, Per Sandström, Oddvar Sandvik, Yrjo Vaalavuo, Christina Villard, Ville Sallinen (2023) Practice patterns in diagnostics, staging, and management strategies of gallbladder cancer among Nordic tertiary centers Scandinavian Journal of Surgery Continue to DOI
Sanne Lof, Linda Claassen, Gerjon Hannink, Bilal Al-Sarireh, Bergthor Björnsson, Ugo Boggi, Fernando Burdio, Giovanni Butturini, Giovanni Capretti, Riccardo Casadei, Safi Dokmak, Bjorn Edwin, Alessandro Esposito, Jean M. Fabre, Giovanni Ferrari, Asmund A. Fretland, Fadhel S. Fteriche, Giuseppe K. Fusai, Alessandro Giardino, Bas Groot Koerkamp, Mathieu DHondt, Asif Jah, Sivesh K. Kamarajah, Emanuele F. Kauffmann, Tobias Keck, Stijn van Laarhoven, Alberto Manzoni, Marco V. Marino, Ravi Marudanayagam, Izaak Q. Molenaar, Patrick Pessaux, Edoardo Rosso, Roberto Salvia, Zahir Soonawalla, Regis Souche, Steven White, Frans van Workum, Alessandro Zerbi, Camiel Rosman, Martijn W. J. Stommel, Mohammed Abu Hilal, Marc G. Besselink (2023) Learning Curves of Minimally Invasive Distal Pancreatectomy in Experienced Pancreatic Centers JAMA Surgery Continue to DOI
Xuqin Xie, Chuanwen Fan, Bin Luo, Jing Zhang, Lasse Jensen, Jonas Burman, Carolin Jönsson, Anna Ljusberg, Peter Larsson, Zengren Zhao, Xiao-Feng Sun (2023) APR-246 Enhances Colorectal Cancer Sensitivity to Radiotherapy Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, Vol. 22, p. 947-961 Continue to DOI
Lina Gruneau, Stergios Kechagias, Per Sandström, Mattias Ekstedt, Martin Henriksson (2023) Cost-effectiveness analysis of noninvasive tests to identify advanced fibrosis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease HEPATOLOGY COMMUNICATIONS, Vol. 7, Article e00191 Continue to DOI

Our team

Group members

Linda Bojmar

PhD, Assistant Professor, Docent

Portrait photograph of a woman outside the glass entrance at Campus US.Linda Bojmar. Photo credit John Karlsson Linda Bojmar did her graduate studies in Linköping Sweden, where she was born. Thereafter, Linda performed her postdoctoral studies in the lab of Dr. David Lyden at Weill Cornell Medicine, New York. Here, Linda studied extracellular vesicles and their role in cancer progression. Together with Memorial Sloan Kettering, Linda performed the first studies of the hepatic pre-metastatic niche in pancreatic cancer patients. These projects set the stage for Linda’s translational lab in Sweden, working on the systemic effects of cancer, and how to employ them to improve care, together with clinicians and pre-clinicians. Linda’s passion is to work in multi-disciplinary teams, and when not running between the hospital and the lab, Linda likes to spend her time outside, preferably with family, friends and horses!

Hakon Andersen Blomstrand

Profile picture of a man. Pathologist, PhD candidate

Hakon Andersen Blomstrand was born in Uppsala, Sweden. He graduated from medical school at University of Gothenburg in 2013. He is interested in all aspects of pancreatic cancer, an interest that started while working clinically with cancer patients. He is currently working and doing his doctoral training at the Department of Clinical Pathology at Linköping University Hospital. In his spare time, Hakon enjoys hiking and climbing.


Elena Arlaman

PhD candidate

Elena Arlaman was born and raised in Syria. She spent three years studying pharmacy at Damascus University before relocating to Sweden in 2014. In Sweden, she studied medicine at Linköpings University and graduated with a master's degree in medicine in January 2023.

Elena's passion for research has been a driving force throughout her academic journey. She actively participated as a research assistant during her medical studies, working with a research group at Linköping University focused on studying thrombocytes and coagulation factors.

However, Elena's goal has always been to become an oncologist and cancer researcher. In April 2023, she embarked on a new academic adventure as a PhD candidate in cancer research under the supervision of Linda Bojmar. Her particular research interest lies in the study of cancer-derived extracellular vesicles and their role in cancer progression, as well as their potential utility as biomarkers.


Jonas Burman

PhD candidate

Photo credit Emma Busk Winquist Jonas Burman grew up in Karlstad but moved to Linköping for his bachelor’s studies in Biology. During this time, he discovered his growing interest in understanding how humans worked, rather than the study of animals and ecology and went on to pursue a master’s degree in Experimental and Medical Biosciences at the university hospital in Linköping, graduating in 2022. For his master’s thesis, he focused on the role of the putative tumor suppressor TAp73 in radiosensitivity under the supervision of Xiao-Feng Sun. After his master’s degree he decided to dive further into the topic of enhancing treatment of colorectal cancer by enrolling in graduate studies under Linda Bojmar as a PhD candidate.

He is interested in molecular factors which differentiate patients that respond well to radiotherapy to those that do not, and the mechanisms behind this, using bioinformatics and wet-lab assays. Already during his master’s degree, the small molecule APR-246, or Eprenetapopt, which appears to have cause cell death in cells with mutant p53, but also could be useful in improving response rate to conventional treatment piqued his interest. Recently, the topic that has been of interest is the study of the potential of cargo from extracellular vesicles shed from the primary tumor, to alter the tumor microenvironment, establishing a pre-metastatic niche in distant tissues, as well as how this relates to treatment response in colon and rectal cancer.


Bergthor Björnsson

MD, PhD, Docent / Senior consultant

The research Bergthor Björnsson conduct is largely based on collaborations in various networks. After his defense in 2014, he ran a randomized trial at US (Linköping) where the value of minimally invasive pancreatic surgery was evaluated. At the same time, his unit led a multicenter and multinational study comparing different liver surgeries. It became clear that to tackle the larger clinical issues, large networks are needed. Therefore, he participate in the research for clinical projects described on his employee page.

Translational research often requires closer collaboration than clinical research and there can be difficulties with large distances. Therefore, the translational part of his research is mainly conducted in collaboration with other researchers at Linköping University.


Carolin Jönsson

Research Engineer

A woman out in the nature.Carolin Jönsson. Carolin Jönsson grew up in the South of Germany and graduated as a research technician at the Max-Planck Institute in Freiburg, Germany.

She then worked at Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel Switzerland and The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto Canada.

She moved 1993 to Sweden and worked at Uppsala University and Lund University until she finally came to Linköping University in 2003.

Throughout the years Carolin has worked in many different research fields.

She joined the Bojmar group in 2022. Carolin is responsible for collecting and “processing” all patient material and is involved in different projects concerning the understanding of the pre-metastatic niche in pancreatic cancer and the role of extracellular vesicles as a biomarker for metastasis.

In her spare time she enjoys kayaking, gardening and arts.


Erik Lundqvist

MD, Surgical consultant, PhD-student

Erik Lundqvist is a local ability, born in a small town called Söderköping in Östergötland county. After medicine degree in Linköping University and internship at Vrinnevi hospital, Norrköping, he started his career as a surgical resident in the department of Surgery, Vrinnevi hospital. The scientific career started with an observation study of hereditary evaluation of young persons diagnosed with colorectal cancer in the South-East Healthcare region. He is now a surgical consultant and PhD-student at Linköping University, with main focus on risk factors and outcome in young individuals with colorectal cancer. The collaboration with Linda Bojmar started in 2022 and sampling of colon cancer patients treated with surgery in Norrköping started in 2023.

The overall aim with his research is to improve the diagnosis and management of patients with colorectal cancer, a disease affecting almost 7000 new individuals in Sweden each year.


Constantinos Zambirinis

MD, MRes

A man on a platform.Constantinos Zambirinis. Constantinos Zambirinis, is a surgeon-scientist, originally from Paphos, Cyprus. He graduated from the University of Athens Medical School in Greece, and completed a Masters of Research in Translational Cancer Medicine at King's College London, UK. He spent 12 years in the U.S. during which he completed clinical training in General Surgery (Harlem Hospital Center, NY, and Rhode Island Hospital of Brown University, RI) and Complex General Surgical Oncology (Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey). He also spent several years in the lab, first at New York University and subsequently at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, studying the role of inflammation in pancreatic carcinogenesis as well as the liver pre-metastatic niche.

His research focuses on immune-mediated mechanisms of pancreatic cancer progression and metastasis, and the development of novel approaches for radiomic and molecular profiling of pancreatic cancer in order to predict outcomes and tailor treatment to each patient's individual tumor.


Research funders

Logo Swedish research council.

Region Östergötland is one of LiU:s strategic partners

LiU Cancer's logotype.

Logotype of The Swedish Cancer Society.

Logotype for SSMF.

Organisation