Siv G. E. Andersson

Siv G. E. Andersson
Born	Siv Gun Elisabeth Andersson 1959 (age 64–65)
Education	Ph.D.
Alma mater	Uppsala University
Scientific career
Fields	Evolutionary biology
Institutions	Uppsala University, University of Cambridge
Doctoral advisor	Charles Kurland
Website	www.icm.uu.se/molecular-evolution/andersson-siv/

Siv Gun Elisabeth Andersson (born 1959) is a Swedish evolutionary biologist, professor of molecular evolution at Uppsala University.^[1] She is member of both the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and of Engineering.^[2][3] She is also Head of basic research at the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation^[4] and has been co-director of the Swedish national center for large-scale research Science for Life Laboratory between 2017 and 2021.^[5] Her research focuses on the evolution of bacteria, mainly on intracellular parasites.

Education and career

Andersson grew up in Horndal, Dalarna. Her mother was home care assistant and her father was employed in the wood industry.^[6] She studied Biology at Uppsala University, since the programme was the only one that had a course about DNA. She defended her PhD in molecular biology in 1990, under the supervision of Charles Kurland.^[7] She applied for a postdoctoral stipend from EMBO to continue her research in the United States, but ended up obtaining a research position at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.^[6] She became professor of molecular evolution in 2000, at the Uppsala University's Evolutionary Biology Center.^[6] She was elected at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2005.^[2]

Andersson has been very active in developing the Swedish national center for large-scale research Science for Life Laboratory, especially its DNA sequencing and bioinformatics platforms. She served as Co-director for the center between 2017 and 2021.^[5]

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, she contributed, together with Lars Engstrand and with the financial support of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, to establish the first large-scale testing facility in Sweden^[8][9]

Research

Andersson's research first focused around the role of codon usage in shaping bacterial genomes.^[10] After her postdoctoral fellowship, she contributed to sequence one of the first genome of an obligate intracellular parasite, Rickettsia prowazekii, the causative agent of epidemic typhus.^[11]

In her later career, her research continued to explore bacteria and their relationships with their different hosts.^[12] In particular, she is interested in the genomic consequences of long-term associations of intracellular bacteria.^[13] She explored the evolution of Bartonella,^[14] Wolbachia,^[15] and Planctomycetota,^[16] among others.

Andersson has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, and has an h-index of 61, as of 2022.^[17]

Notable awards and honors

• 2000 - Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.^[3]
• 2002 - Letterstedtska prize for very significant investigation, among others for "an article in Nature (1998), which reports the whole genome sequence of the intracellular parasite Rickettsia prowazekii".^[18]
• 2004 - Member of EMBO.^[19]
• 2005 - Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, number 1514, in the class Biological Sciences.^[20]
• 2005 - Göran Gustafsson Prize in molecular biology.^[21]
• 2005 - Grant for "excellent research" from the Swedish Research Council of SEK 44 millions (together with Hans Ellegren).^[22]
• 2009 - President of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (2009-2011).^[23]
• 2011 - Wallenberg Scholar.^[24]
• 2017 - Extension of Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation of SEK 75 millions (together with Gunnar von Heijne).^[25]

References

1. ""Researcher Profile: Siv Andersson"". Retrieved 2022-03-08.
2. ""KVA Medlemssida Siv Andersson"" (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-03-09.
3. ""IVA Medlemssida Andersson, Siv"" (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-03-09.
4. ""New Program on Data-Driven Life Science"". 26 October 2020. Retrieved 2022-03-08.
5. ""Siv Andersson new Co-Director for SciLifeLab"". 18 May 2017. Retrieved 2022-03-08.
6. ""Tidningen Curie: Hon blev DNA-forskare för att förstå livet"" (in Swedish). 28 February 2017. Retrieved 2022-03-09.
7. Andersson, Siv Gun Elisabeth. (1990). Translation, antibiotics and codon evolution. Uppsala University. ISBN 91-554-2551-8. OCLC 22568986. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
8. ""Siv Andersson: Från nyfikenhet till nytta under pandemin"" (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-03-09.
9. Törnwall, Mikael (20 May 2020). ""Wallenbergs coronakupp: byggde ett labb utan lov"". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-03-09.
10. Andersson, SG; Kurland, CG (June 1990). "Codon preferences in free-living microorganisms". Microbiological Reviews. 54 (2): 198–210. doi:10.1128/mr.54.2.198-210.1990. PMC 372768. PMID 2194095.
11. Andersson, SG; Zomorodipour, A; Andersson, JO; Sicheritz-Pontén, T; Alsmark, UC; Podowski, RM; Näslund, AK; Eriksson, AS; Winkler, HH; Kurland, CG (12 November 1998). "The genome sequence of Rickettsia prowazekii and the origin of mitochondria". Nature. 396 (6707): 133–40. Bibcode:1998Natur.396..133A. doi:10.1038/24094. PMID 9823893. S2CID 4379381.
12. Toft, C; Andersson, SG (July 2010). "Evolutionary microbial genomics: insights into bacterial host adaptation". Nature Reviews. Genetics. 11 (7): 465–75. doi:10.1038/nrg2798. PMID 20517341. S2CID 40576224.
13. Sällström, B; Andersson, SG (October 2005). "Genome reduction in the alpha-Proteobacteria". Current Opinion in Microbiology. 8 (5): 579–85. doi:10.1016/j.mib.2005.08.002. PMID 16099701.
14. Guy, L; Nystedt, B; Toft, C; Zaremba-Niedzwiedzka, K; Berglund, EC; Granberg, F; Näslund, K; Eriksson, AS; Andersson, SG (March 2013). "A gene transfer agent and a dynamic repertoire of secretion systems hold the keys to the explosive radiation of the emerging pathogen Bartonella". PLOS Genetics. 9 (3): e1003393. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003393. PMC 3610622. PMID 23555299.
15. Klasson, L; Westberg, J; Sapountzis, P; Näslund, K; Lutnaes, Y; Darby, AC; Veneti, Z; Chen, L; Braig, HR; Garrett, R; Bourtzis, K; Andersson, SG (7 April 2009). "The mosaic genome structure of the Wolbachia wRi strain infecting Drosophila simulans". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 106 (14): 5725–30. Bibcode:2009PNAS..106.5725K. doi:10.1073/pnas.0810753106. PMC 2659715. PMID 19307581.
16. Mahajan, M; Yee, B; Hägglund, E; Guy, L; Fuerst, JA; Andersson, SGE (1 April 2020). "Paralogization and New Protein Architectures in Planctomycetes Bacteria with Complex Cell Structures". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 37 (4): 1020–1040. doi:10.1093/molbev/msz287. PMID 31808939.
17. "Google Scholar: Siv Andersson". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
18. ""Letterstedska prisen 2002"" (in Swedish). KVA. 4 March 2002. Retrieved 2021-01-14.
19. "People in the EMBO Communities". people.embo.org. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
20. ""Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien: Nya ledamöter invalda, pressmeddelande 2005-02-10" (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-03-09.
21. ""Laureates"" (in Swedish). KVA. Retrieved 2021-01-17.
22. "Miljonanslag för stark forskningsmiljö till Uppsala" (in Swedish). 2005-02-17. Retrieved 2021-01-14.
23. "ESEB Officers - ESEB | European Society for Evolutionary Biology". eseb.org.
24. "Bee bacteria working as vitamin factories | Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation". kaw.wallenberg.org. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
25. ""75 million in Wallenberg grant extension to Gunnar von Heijne - Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics"". www.dbb.su.se. Retrieved 2021-01-14.