On June 17th, 2024, Beatrice Linnea Christina Fageräng defended her PhD thesis. Her grant was from the highly prestigious EU Marie Curie double degree program CORVOS, which gave her a PhD both from the University of Oslo and Copenhagen.

The scientific committee, the acting Dean and the candiadate:

From left: Leendert Trouw (1. opponent), Carola Henriksson (acting Dean), Beatrice Fageräng (the candidate), Clair Harris (2. opponent) and Marit Inngjerdingen (leader of the evaluation committee).

Adjudication committee

• First opponent: Professor Leendert Trouw, University of Leiden, Netherlands
• Second opponent: Visiting Professor Claire Harris, Newcastle University, UK
• Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor Marit Inngjerdingen, University of Oslo

Chair of the Defence: Associate Professor Carola Elisabeth Henriksson, University of Oslo

Principal Supervisors: Professor Tom Eirik Mollnes, University of Oslo; and Professor Peter Garred, University of Copehagen. Co-supervisor: Adjunct Professor Per H. Nilsson, Linnea University, Kalmar.

The trial lecture: The topic for the trial lecture was “Biomarkers for sepsis: Current status and future possibilities” – a topic that is highly relevant for those of us working in complement and innate immunity. Beatrice made an excellent overview over the field and answered the questions in an eminent manner – and the conclusion was of course “passed” – and she was ready for the defense.

The defense: The title of the thesis was “Understanding of the inflammatory response in normal and immunocompromised human whole blood challenged with opportunistic microbes”. She presented a comprehensive overview of the field, and had in addition three papers to defend. She was the first author on all papers, and they were published in high ranked Journals already at the time of dissertation, which is quite unusual; the Journals were J Leuk Biol, J Innate Immun and Front Immunol. The discussion between the candidate and the opponents was on a high scientific level, and both the candidate and the opponents made a very good job and performance on the podium – a real entertainment for us in the audience. Again, no surprise when the committee leader informed us that it was passed, to a great, well deserved, and long-lasting applause from the auditorium.

From left: Tom Eirik Mollnes (supervisor), Leendert Trouw (1. opponent), Carola Henriksson (acting Dean), Beatrice Fageräng (the candidate), Claire Harris (2. opponent), Marit Inngjerdingen (leader of the committee), Peter Garred (supervisor) and Per H. Nilsson (supervisor).

Congratulations to Beatrice for a fantastic PhD and defense – here with the photo with the following text:

Beatrice scored the grant from Marie-Curie,
earning her prestigious double degree.
With diligence and dedication, she digged into immunosuppression,
illuminating the role of complement with great impression.