Meet our researchers

Here you will find short bios & presentations to the researchers of our team. Welcome to contact us for further information about us and our operations.

Per Hansson, Professor

Per Hansson received his B.Sc. in biology and Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Uppsala University (Supervisor: M. Almgren). After a two year postdoc stay at the Division of Physical Chemistry 1, Lund University (B. Lindman group), he returned to Uppsala for a position as assistant professor at the Department of Physical chemistry. In year 2002 Hansson took a position as senior lecturer in Pharmaceutical physical chemistry at the Department of Pharmacy where he became full professor in year 2011. Since 2016 he is leader of the Pharmaceutical Physical Chemistry research group, and since 2017 leader of the Parenteral Drug Delivery Platform within the Swedish Drug Delivery Forum (SDDF).

Professor Hansson's research is focused on colloidal systems of relevance for developing and understanding the properties of drug delivery systems. Most of his studies have dealt with polyelectrolytes and their interaction with colloids of opposite charge, including proteins and self-assembling amphiphiles. He has been internationally recognized for his investigations of surfactant-polyelectrolyte systems. His early contributions to the field included a method to determine surfactant aggregation numbers by means of time-resolved fluorescence quenching and a theoretical model of surfactant-polyion complexes. He has also successfully modelled the phase behavior of polyion-surfactant ion complex salts, highlighting the importance of polyion-mediated interactions between the surfactant aggregates. Recent focus has been on phase transitions and phase separation in polyelectrolyte hydrogels in relation to the uptake and release of surfactants, proteins and peptides, where he has explored in detail the phenomenon of core-shell phase separation. This has involved the development of novel micropipette-assisted microscopy techniques to study dynamic and equilibrium properties of single microgels, and detailed theoretical explanations of the conditions for core-shell phase coexistence, in particularly the importance of polymer network elasticity and charge density of the components.

Currently, Professor Hansson's research run along two directions. One is about the self-assembling properties of amphiphilic drugs in solutions and in hydrogels, including microgel delivery systems for treatment of liver cancer. The other explores the fate of drug formulations after injection into the subcutaneous tissue, with main focus on macromolecular drugs of biological origin. This involves the development of novel in vitro methods to study the release of drugs from formulations and the transport through the extracellular matrix in subcutaneous adipose tissue.

Magnus Bergström, Associate Professor

Magnus Bergström is Associate Professor (Docent) in Physical Chemistry specialized in the field of Colloid and Interface Science. He is author of both theoretical and experimental works about self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules that have received a great deal of international attention. In his research Bergström has mainly been focused on the problem to predict the size and geometry of self-assembled aggregates (micelles, vesicles, microemulsions etc) from the chemical structure of amphiphilic molecules such as surfactants and lipids. His experimental competence is in the field of structural analysis and particle size determination with light, small-angle x-ray and neutron scattering.

Bergström received his Master of Science in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (1990) and PhD in Physical Chemistry (1995) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. He was working as Postdoctoral Scientist at Risø National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark (1996-1999) specialized in small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). He has been working as Senior Lecturer and Senior Scientist at the Department of Pharmacy, Uppsala University as well as Department of Chemistry, KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Victor Agmo Hernandez, Associate Professor

Victor Agmo Hernandez obtained the title of B.Sc. in Chemical Sciences from the Monterrey Institute of Technology, Monterrey, Mexico, in December 2002. After a brief experience at the industry (CEMEX, Mexico), in 2004 he moved to Germany to pursue Ph.D studies at the University of Greifswald, obtaining the degree of Dr. rer. nat. in Analytical Chemistry in 2008. His Ph.D. thesis focused on describing the mechanism of adhesion of giant unilamellar vesicles on mercury electrodes. In May 2008 he moved to Sweden to start a postdoc at Uppsala University, working in physical chemistry studies on the behavior of lipid membranes. Since 2013 he is a researcher at the Department of Chemistry-BMC at Uppsala University, where he was appointed as Associated Professor (Docent) with specialization in Physical Chemistry in 2014. Currently, he is senior lecturer at the Department of Pharmacy, Uppsala University.

Victor is interested in self-associated lipid systems and surface chemistry. His main research focus is the use and development of tailored interfaces and surface sensitive techniques for the study of the properties of lipid membranes and lipid-based nanoparticles, as well as their interactions with relevant biomolecules and compounds of pharmaceutical interest. Among others, He applies electrochemical and nanogravimetric (QCM-D) methods to the study of lipid-modified substrates and the interactions of lipid membranes and nanoparticles with peptides, proteins, drugs and inorganic material.

Sana Tirgani, Lecturer

Sana Tirgani has a master´s degree in Analytical Chemistry from Uppsala University. She worked as Laboratory engineer at Fresenius Kabi Brunna and currently, she is working as lecturer in pharmaceutical physical chemistry group at Uppsala University.

Sana's research is mainly focused on the development of novel in vitro methods to facilitate and improve the transport of the drug delivery system. She is specifically investigating and trying to understand how the structure and dynamics of the microgel in a crosslinked network will affect the transport and release properties of the drugs. The more understanding of the material will open up the opportunity to tailor the functionalities and the physicochemical properties of the in vitro drug release and drug-loading from a crosslinked microgel. This research is conducted with a wide range of analytical methods such as laser scattering, spectroscopy and microscopy techniques.

Johan Gråsjö, Senior research engineer

Johan Gråsjö is senior research engineer at the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and is also connected to the Department of Pharmaceutical Bioscience. He received his PhD degree in engineering physics at Uppsala University in 2013. In the thesis, aqueous solutions and moist materials were studied using soft X-ray and impedance spectroscopic methods. During the years as an employee at the Department of Pharmacy and later at the Department of Medicinal Chemistry, he has had a supporting function for researchers and PhD-students. This support has mainly concerned statistical issues, programming (data collection, data processing and calculations), instrument development, mathematical issues and mathematical modelling. Since 2020, he has been responsible for the maintenance and development of a small-angle X-ray scattering instrument (SAXS).

In later years, Johan has been involved in various projects such as:

• characterization of the solid state of lactose.
• modeling of dissolution of drugs.
• transport of drug molecules in model systems mimicking different body tissues.
• studying structure at grain level in lactose powder compacts (tablets).

His research has been carried out with Raman spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography and soft X-ray spectroscopy (mainly RIXS and NEXAFS), low and ultra-low angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/USAXS), various statistical and data signal processing methods and has included instrument development. He also teaches mathematics in the Pharmacist program.

Dávid Juriga, Researcher

Dávid Juriga joins SweDeliver and the Faculty of Pharmacy as research. He has graduated at Semmelweis University and the University of Groningen. At the Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Dávid has already begun his work studying the correlations between in vitro properties of various subcutaneously administered peptides, which show promising results in cancer treatment, as well as their bioavailability and in vivo uptake. Important results are expected, and we are very pleased to welcome Dávid to SweDeliver and Uppsala University.

Yassir Al-Tikriti, Postdoc

Yassir Al-Tikriti is already well-known at the Faculty of Pharmacy and SweDeliver, where he previously conducted his doctoral project titled "Microgels as drug delivery vehicles: loading and release of amphiphilic drugs," for which he defended his thesis on June 14, 2022.

Yassir, a pharmacist with a degree from the University of Baghdad, obtained his master's degree in pharmaceutical sciences from Uppsala University in 2012. Over the past year, he has worked as the Pharmaceutical Development & Research Manager at Calliditas Therapeutics AB. We are very pleased to welcome Yassir back as a postdoc at the Department of Medicinal Chemistry.

Ellen Brunzell, PhD Student

Ellen Brunzell received her master of science in pharmacy from Uppsala University summer of 2020, and started as a PhD student in the group of pharmaceutical physical chemistry autumn 2020. The aim of Ellen’s research project is to examine the aggregation behaviour and self-assembly properties of therapeutic peptides, and how these aggregates interact with cellular membranes and other biological systems. Aggregate size and structure will be determined using SAXS, SANS and dynamic/static light scattering measurements. The purpose of which, is to gain greater knowledge of causes and mechanisms behind peptide aggregation and self-assembly, which in turn can provide better understanding of aggregated peptides increased immunogenicity.

This is useful not only in manufacturing, storing, and handling of peptide drugs, but also in research of several neurodegenerative diseases that are linked to accumulation of aggregated peptides.

Julia Parlow, PhD Student

Julia Parlow graduated from the master program in Pharmacy at Uppsala University in the spring of 2017. After that she worked at a pharmacy and since autumn 2018 she is a PhD student in the Pharmaceutical Physical Chemistry resarch group at Uppsala University. She is currently conducting the research project Novel In Vitro Models for Subcutaneous Administration of Drugs: Transport Properties

The aim of this project is to develop methods to study the transport of drug molecules in biorelevant synthetic models of human SC extracellular matrix, and to use the methods to clarify the key factors governing the transport with respect to interaction with the constituents of the matrix and the interstitial fluid.

Anton Norberg, PhD Student

Anton Norberg has previous experience with SweDeliver, as in the summer of 2021, he was one of six highly promising students who had the opportunity to undertake a six-week summer internship at Apotek Produktion & Laboratorier AB – one of the competence center's industry partners. After graduating from Uppsala University's Pharmacy program, Anton gained experience working at Cytiva and Enphasys.

We are very pleased to welcome Anton as a doctoral student in Professor Per Hansson's research group in Pharmaceutical Physical Chemistry, where he will continue the development of Marcus Wanselius's findings in the project Physical-chemical aspects of subcutaneous administration of drugs.

Vahid Forooqi Motlaq, PhD Student

Vahid Forooqi Motlaq completed his bachelor’s program at Baha’i University of higher education (BIHE) in applied chemistry. His final project was focused on the recovery of glycerin from soap spent lye, and has aimed to find more reasonable and faster solutions for treatment of soap lye and to reduce its negative environmental impact.

Vahid's Master’s degree was in polymer and colloid science at University of Oslo (UiO) under supervision of Professor Bo Nyström. He worked on synthesis and characterization of thermos-responsive nanogels which were decorated with different PEG length and PEG surface concentration as shell layer. Investigating the steric hindrance effect of this PEG layer in preventing particles from forming aggregates was main part of his master’s thesis.

Vahid's main research interests is soft matter (polymers, proteins, peptides…etc.) and their self-association and interactions in different environment, especially in biological environments. Self-assembly of amphiphilic drug and their interaction with membrane and surfactant are other research fields which He plan to explore