Maja Malmberg
Researcher at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Infectious diseases constitute one of the most important present and future challenges for human and animal health. A wide range of new and/or so far “unknown” infectious diseases has emerged during the recent years and more are predicted to threaten animal and humans. Many of these infectious diseases may be appearing from hitherto unknown agents. Considering this global problem, there is an urgent need to develop powerful novel methods, which are able to trace down new infectious agents and study the possible complex nature of several infectious agents acting together to cause a disease. The science of viral metagenomics opens a completely new path and good possibilities to solve the above listed problems and can for example provide insights into the composition of viral populations. My research focuses on the development and application of this technology to different questions related to infection biology and animal health.