Digital Public Defence: Malin Lager
Malin Lager, will be defending the thesis “Molecular and serological tools for clinical diagnostics of Lyme borreliosis - can the laboratory analysis be improved?” for the degree of PhD (Philosophiae Doctor).
Time and place: November 20, 2020 13:00 PM, 13.00 PM. The public defence will be held as a video conference over Zoom.
The thesis is based of four papers. Two of the papers evaluate the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity among the serological assays used in Northern Europe for laboratory diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis with a special focus on Lyme neuroborreliosis. The two other papers focus on the analytical sensitivity and specificity in the molecular process from sampling to real-time PCR. The aim was to evaluate the diagnostic tools and to identify possible needs for improvement. In conclusion, this thesis presents results revealing that both molecular and serological tools for detection of Borrelia have, in general, high sensitivity and specificity with results comparable between different protocols and different laboratories. It also presents recommendations for pre-analytical handling of cerebrospinal fluid samples before PCR-analysis and shows the benefits in diagnostic performance by simultaneous detection of IgM and IgG antibodies in serum and cerebrospinal fluid for accurate diagnosis of Lyme neuroborreliosis.
Malin is a biomedical analyst at the microbiology laboratory, Ryhov County Hospital in Jönköping, Sweden and is also involved in the NorhTick Project where she is working on the evaluation and development of diagnostic tools for detection of tick-borne diseases.
The defence will follow regular procedure as far as possible, hence it will be open to the public and the audience can ask ex auditorio questions when invited to do so.
Interested in attending? Send an e-mail to anna.jonsson.henningsson@liu.se, to get access to the zoom link.