Johan Bengtsson-Palme

Johan Bengtsson-Palme is an Assistant Professor at Chalmers University of Technology, jointly affiliated with Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg. He leads a research group focused on data-driven microbiology funded by the Wallenberg DDLS initiative. His lab investigates antibiotic resistance mechanisms, bacterial pathogenicity, and microbial community interactions using metagenomics and bioinformatics approaches.

Research Interests: The group's work spans three primary areas: 1) Genetic mechanisms of bacterial pathogenicity, 2) Stability factors in microbial communities, and 3) Environmental spread of antibiotic resistance. They develop bioinformatics tools (e.g., ITSx, Metaxa) for taxonomic analysis and maintain the UNITE fungal database. Current projects include EMBARK (establishing antibiotic resistance baselines) and SEARCHER (discovering novel resistance genes).

Research Output Trends: Recent publications demonstrate a focus on environmental monitoring of antimicrobial resistance, microbiome stability in host organisms, and methodological improvements for biodiversity assessment. Work consistently integrates wet-lab experiments with computational biology across human health and ecological contexts.

Group Composition: The research team includes:

• 3 Postdoctoral researchers (Anna Abramova, Máté Vass, Yuselys Garcia-Martinez)
• 3 PhD students (Agata Marchi, Virág Varga, Marcus Wenne)
• 4 Visiting PhD students and researchers