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Fourteen researchers at LiU have received grants totalling more than SEK 64 million. This is the result when the Swedish Research Council has awarded nearly SEK 1.1 billion in research grants for the medical and health sciences.

As the corona pandemic swept across the world, virologists and protein chemists rapidly joined forces and started to collaborate. Together they were able to develop ways to test the immune response after infection, and help the healthcare system.

The more severe the COVID-19 infection, the slower the recovery of immune cells which are necessary for the activation of the immune system. Six months after severe COVID-19, a negative impact on several types of immune cells can still be seen.

LiU scientists are working intensely to develop two different analysis methods for the immune response that follows infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. One of the tests is now being used by the medical care services in Region Östergötland.

The immune cells of patients who received hospital care for COVID-19 early in the pandemic were still affected six months later, shows a study conducted by researchers at Linköping University.

The biological function of the C-reactive protein, CRP, has long been unknown. Researchers now show that this protein has a beneficial function in SLE, an inflammatory disease. But this is true only for one of CRP’s two forms, according to the study.