Susanne Rautiainen Lagerström

About me

I am a researcher at the Global and Sexual Health (GloSH) Research Group and research fellow at the Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston USA. 

I have research experience in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and clinical- and lifestyle-related risk factors from small- and large-scale clinical trials and obsevational studies gained from my PhD training at Karolinska Institutet and 4-year postdoc at Harvard Medical School.  

My main research goal is to identify new strategies to tackle malnutrition, infectious, and NCDs in low- and middle-income countries. 

Research description

Current project:

• The open population-based Rakai Community Cohort in Uganda: Understand the interplay between nutrition and microbiome in NCDs and infectious diseases
• WelTel study: Prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT), HIV/AIDS care in Kenya - mobile phone intervention
• The COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS) trial http://www.cosmostrial.org  
• Physicians' Health Study (PHS) II
• the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL)-HT trial https://www.vitalstudy.org/index.html
• Aterenon trial: Testing lycopene supplementation on changes in key cardiovascular biomarkers

 

Teaching portfolio

• Course cooridnator: NCD, Non-Communicable Diseases, Injuries, Natural Emergencies and Conflicts in a Global Health Perspective 

• BSc courses - “Nutrition and nutritional status” and “Nutritional Epidemiology” - at the Nutrition Program, Karolinska Institutet. 

• BSc courses - “Nutritional Epidemiology” - at the Nutrition Program, Karolinska Institutet. Topic: Randomized Clinical Trials.

• MSc course - “Epidemiology” - at the Program of Toxicology, Karolinska Institutet: Topic: Different study designs. 

 

Education

• 2012: PhD degree (June 15, 2012) in Medical Science, Department of Environmental Medicine (IMM), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Title of the thesis: Antioxidants from Diet and Supplements in Relation to Cardiovascular Disease. Advisors: Prof. Alicja Wolk and Prof. Ralf Morgenstern, IMM, Karolinska Institutet.
• 2006: MSc in Nutrition, Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Title of the thesis: Total Antioxidant Capacity of diet among Swedish Women. Supervisor: Prof. Alicja Wolk, IMM, Karolinska Institutet.
• 2005: BSc in Nutrition, Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Title of the thesis: Estrogen Receptor-Beta as a new pharmaceutical target treating Leukemia. Supervisor: Margaret Warner, PhD, Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet.

Academic honours, awards and prizes

2014: Funding from the Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet to develop a PhD course in Nutritional Epidemiology. 

2014: American Society for Nutrition’s Advances and Controversies in Clinical Nutrition. Abstract selected for Travel Award.

2013: 36-month COFAS 2 Marie Curie fellowship for postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Boston USA and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm Sweden.

2013: Travel award from FORTE for AHA Epi/Lifestyle in New Orleans, LA; USA, 2013.

2011: 12-month postdoc award from FORTE to support postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Boston USA.

2007: Four year PhD award from the Karolinska Institutet (KID).

2006: Travel award from Anders Otto Swärds stiftelse for training in the ORAC assay at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR, USA.