Research infrastructure

Biobank Sweden is a national infrastructure for cooperation between Swedish regions and universities with a medical faculty on biobank related issues. The infrastructure also includes representatives from patient organisations and from industry associations.

Biobanken norr is part of Laboratory Medicine within Region Västerbotten. Biobanken norr consists partly of an organizational unit registered with the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO) with registration number 472, and partly of an operational unit.

BICU is an interdisciplinary facility that provides state-of-the-art imaging technology together with affinity measurements. The facility allows advanced live cell imaging studies and measurement of interactions of proteins with other proteins, RNA, lipids and carbohydrates. Together with UCEM, BICU forms a node in the National Microscopy Infrastructure (NMI), Sweden for Correlative imaging.

The Department of Biomedical Engineering-R&D at University Hospital of Umeå is an important partner in e.g, developing equipment or as a technical part in research regarding new methods applicable within the medical fields. We support e.g, the development of measurement technology and software, modelling of physiological processes and statistical analyses. We also contribute to commercialization of new methods through prototyping, leading to further development of the county's business sector.

BMCU is an interdisciplinary facility that provides state-of-the-art technology to characterize biomolecules. The facility allows measurements of affinity using different technologies, together with molecular weight analysis, folding and overall structure.

The Clinical Research Center is a joint resource for Region and University for near-patient clinical studies. The Clinical Research Center may provide support to researchers from an idea to a completed study: anything from research facilities, equipment and GCP (Good Clinical Practice)-trained nurses to regulatory and administrative support in planning of a new clinical trial, management and end reports. At the Center both academic and corporate-sponsored studies are conducted.

Clinical Studies Sweden – Forum North is a platform for research-supporting infrastructure with the goal of facilitating the implementation of studies and increasing the availability of study participants throughout the northern healthcare region. Forum North is based on collaboration between Region Norrbotten, Region Jämtland Härjedalen, Region Västerbotten, Region Västernorrland, and Umeå University.

The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) is one of the world's largest cohort studies and includes more than half a million (521 000) participants from ten European countries. EPIC was designed to study the association between diet, nutrition status, lifestyle, environmental factors, and the occurrence of cancer and other chronic diseases.

DNA methylation is the process through which a methyl group is added to DNA nucleotides, most commonly at the 5-carbon position of cytosine (5mC). Methylation modifications play a crucial role in regulating gene expression by influencing the accessibility of the DNA. Changes in DNA methylation patterns can impact various cellular functions and are implicated in development, aging, and disease.

High Performance Computing Center North (HPC2N) is a national center for Scientific and Parallel Computing.

NBIS provides bioinformatics and data science support to the Swedish life science research community. We offer a broad spectrum of services, including advanced bioinformatics analysis, bioimage informatics, data management, imaging AI support, systems and tools development, and support to national compute resources.

Biobank and database for children and young adults in Västerbotten.

Small Animal Research Imaging Facility (SARIF) is an infrastructure that consists of five instruments that allow advanced imaging of structures and processes that take place inside the experimental animal. These instruments enable the same animal to be analyzed on several occasions and over a long period.

The Biobank Research Unit coordinates access to register data and samples from about 50 sample collections.

The Northern Sweden Diet Database (NSDD) contains refined dietary data from the counties of Norrbotten and Västerbotten.

The Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study (NSHDS) is one of Sweden’s largest population-based cohort studies with biobank samples and includes approximately 150 000 unique participants. NSHDS has a very long follow-up period and documented high sample quality. For around 65 000 individuals, there are repeated blood samples from different sampling occasions, often taken before the individual fell ill.

The MONICA Study was initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an international survey to measure trends and determinants in cardiovascular disease. The MONICA registries for stroke, heart attack and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest monitor trends in the incidence of these cardiovascular diseases in the counties of Norrbotten and Västerbotten.

The infrastructure offers a combination of multiphoton and imaging systems at high spatio-temporal resolution, combined with other physiological equipment for electrophysiology and imaging, in the living organism (mammals, zebrafish, etc), but also in vitro experiments.

(UFBI) is an inter-disciplinary research center where imaging techniques are used to examine brain structure and function in relation to both basic and clinical questions. To date, more than 100 UmU researchers and more than 50 external researchers have been involved in UFBI-projects as co-authors on publications based on data collected at UFBI.

Biomedical research on experimental animals at Umeå University is organized within Umeå Centre for Comparative Biology (UCCB).

Umeå Centre for Electron Microscopy (UCEM) is a joint resource for research and higher education in electron microscopy techniques. Electron microscopy is used for structural and chemical characterization of materials at micro and nano-meter length scales. Medical and biological samples are prepared, imaged and analyzed in 3D. Also, structure biology projects are addressed by cryo electron microscopy.

A facility for performing experiments under hypoxic conditions has been created at the Molecular Biology Department at Umeå University.

A research infrastructure giving access to health and socio-economic individual data on the whole Swedish population. Main research themes include “Childhood living conditions in connection with lifelong health and welfare”, as well as “Health and socio-economic inequalities in a lifecourse perspective.”

Umeå Transgenic Core Facility (UTCF) is housed within UCCB and is a fully integrated platform for generation, maintenance and DNA analysis of genetically modified animals. The transgenic facility performs pronuclear injections, blastocyst injections, embryo transfer, in vitro fertilization, and sperm cryopreservation.

Flow cytometry enables simultaneously analysis of cell surface bound as well as intracellular proteins and RNA expression on a single cell basis. In addition, secreted proteins can be analyzed using a bead based systems.

Umeå Zebrafish Facility (UZF) is the Umeå University facility for Zebrafish research.

UMeHealth is a regional competence centre for research, education and collaboration on intelligent, person-tailored eHealth interventions, behaviour change systems and decision support. UMeHealth strives to be a cross-disciplinary meeting point that transcends knowledge domains and engages citizens in developing their future digital tools for improving health and wellbeing.