I am honored to be joining the PharmaTox Strategic Research environment.
Growing up as a farm boy in southern Sweden, most of my time was spent outside, surrounded by nature. I developed a deep fascination with the function of life. The unarticulated childhood questions on why we exist and why we die is something that still fascinates me today. The meaning of life must be something more or less than 42.
After some time in the military and working as a carpenter in Stockholm I started pursuing my dreams of becoming a scientist. These dreams have taken me here, to Oslo. Although my grandmother was born here, I've never had an opportunity to explore this part of my origin. Until now, to begin my PhD project where I hope to contribute towards insights on the effects of pharmaceuticals on human neurotoxicity and neurodevelopment using stem cells.
My most recent research project was my Master’s project, in conjunction with the Lund Research School in Stem Cell Biology, titled ’Engineering new molecular tools to study orphan small nucleolar RNAs in human cells’. Here I developed, together with my brilliant supervisor Roberto Munita, novel molecular tools to study the biological role of orphan snoRNAs during stem cell differentiation.
Evidence suggests that ncRNA classes are involved in important processes that decode the genetic information within cells. A striking example is the family of small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNA) that guide post-transcriptional modifications of key regulatory RNAs. Importantly, several snoRNAs without a known target have been identified and these have been named “orphan snoRNAs”. However, the function of these remain mostly unknown, but recent studies report orphan snoRNA having novel functions and implication in human diseases, such as Prader-Willi syndrome and cancer. We also had preliminary data showing one such orphan differentially expressed during human embryonic stem cell differentiation.
I look forward to bring the experience and knowledge I garnered during the project to this next phase of my research career. It's always an exciting prospect to be working with new colleagues, and under the supervision of Ragnhild Eskeland, I hope to learn new molecular techniques, as well as to establish profound collaborations and great memories.
I'm an outside kind of guy, I love to explore nature and experience new countries. Between weight lifting sessions at the gym. I regularly go on runs and occasionally play some squash (look me up if you're looking for a game!). Between this and other interests, like computer hardware and its bits and pieces, I still try to find time to hang out with friends and family.
Martin Falck