Jens Hjerling Leffler

Associate professor in Molecular Neurobiology at Karolinska Institutet

Membership period 2015–2020

Neuropsychiatric disorders are common and cause enormous suffering for both patients and their families as well as significant expenses to society. Many of the late-onset psychiatric disorders are diagnosed in the late teens or early twenties and involves perturbation on the brains inhibitory system. We know that the risk for being affected from these disorders are a combination of genetic susceptibility in combination with environmental insults but we have limited understanding on what are the genetic factors and which neuronal networks that affected.

In the Hjerling-Leffler laboratory we study the inhibitory system investigating how individual nerve cells utilize the genetic code differently and how this information translates into the functional identity of cells in their network. We also study how the role of specific cell classes change during adolescent development and what the genetic requirements are for these changes.

IMAGES

Click to enlarge Photo: Erik Thor/Young Academy of Sweden, Dimitry Usoskin

Jens Hjerling Leffler Foto: Erik Thor

(Click for high reolution portrait) Photo: Erik Thor/Young Academy of Sweden

IN BRIEF

Born: 1975
Family: Wife and a daughter.
Interests: Bird-watching, sailing and spend time in the archipelago.

“As a scientist I feel the responsibility to not only build my own career but to contribute both within the academic world and to society. Because the conditions for academic disciplines vary, I think that the conversation between researchers from different fields is key to long term solutions to the challenges we face.”

Young Academy of Sweden
c/o The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Box 50005
SE-104 05 Stockholm
Sweden

+ 46 (0)8 673 9500
info@sverigesungaakademi.se

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