Senior scientist

MSc in Biology, PhD in Neurosience

Research Interests and Accomplishments

Gabriella S. Lundkvist is a neuroscientist who investigates the cellular mechanisms underlying generation of circadian rhythms, such as the sleepwake cycle, and how these mechanisms are altered in infections, psychiatric disease, and inflammatory conditions. The master biological clock driving circadian rhythmicity is located in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN).

GL showed that electrical and synaptic activity, locomotor activity rhythms and molecular rhythms are altered in the SCN in African trypanosomiasis, so called ‘sleeping sickness’. She has shown that pro-inflammatory cytokines associated with sleeping sickness infection can alter and modulate neuronal activity, synaptic function and clock gene expression, which may play a significant role in rhythm and sleep disturbances observed in infectious diseases and aging.

She found the receptor for IFN-γ in the SCN, which is expressed with a diurnal variation. Furthermore, she was first to show that a transmembrane Ca2⁺ flux is essential for molecular rhythm generation, which suggests that neuronal activity and transmembrane ion fluxes are key elements in rhythm generation.