2022-present, Associate Professor, Shanghai Institute of Immunity and Infection, CAS， Shanghai, China

2013-2021, Post-doctoral Fellow, Institute of Molecular Infection Biology, University of Würzburg,Germany
2012-2013, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

2005-2012, PhD, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
1999-2004, BSc, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

The evolving SARS CoV-2 pandemic reminds us that we must understand how microbes adapt to new environments. In bacteria, the acquisition of canonical virulence factors often does not fully explain the emergence of prevalent strains. My work aims to use information present in the genomes of natural bacterial populations, as well as a wide range of post-genomic methods (eg. RNA-seq, Ribo-seq, Tn-seq) to understand how genotype affects fitness or virulence. As models, I study three major gastrointestinal pathogens in China and worldwide: Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Helicobacter pylori, and Campylobacter jejuni.

We are currently studying phenotypic and transcriptomic differences of previously identified distinct "ecospecies" in V. parahaemolyticus and H. pylori that are characterized by large sets of co-adapted genes.

Evidence suggests that rewiring of gene expression networks is as important in the evolution of new pathogenic strains as the acquisition of new genes. A second focus of my research is how regulatory networks, especially those involving small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs) evolve to elicit novel phenotypes.

New sequencing-based methodologies such as ribosome profiling are revealing that bacterial genomes harbour small ORFs (sORFs, <50 codons) encoding small proteins that have key functions in the cell. I am to identify and functionally characterize new small proteins that play roles in key phenotypes such as motility and virulence.

By understanding how bacterial genomes evolve to generate new phenotypes, we can understand how bacterial pathogens sense and adapt to their environment and new niches, including for emerging pathogens. This will help us determine the molecular characteristics of pathogenic bacteria to design countermeasures, such as infection control or antimicrobials.

Selected publications

1. Drobni？ T, EJ Cohen, M Alzheimer, K Froschauer, SL Svensson, N Singh, SG Garg, L Henderson, T Umrekar, A Nans, D Ribardo, G Hochberg, DR Hendrixson, CM Sharma, P Rosenthal, M Beeby. 2023. Molecular model of a bacterial flagellar motor in situ reveals a “parts-list” of protein adaptations to increase torque.Biorxiv: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.08.556779

2. Tourette E, RC Torres, SL Svensson, T Matsumoto, M Miftahussurur, K Afrida Fauzia, R Indra Alfaray, R-K Vilaichone, V Phuoc Tuan, HelicobacterGenomicsConsortium, A Yadegar, L Olsson, Z Zhou, Y Yamaoka, K Thorell, Daniel Falush. 2023. Meat without vegetables: An ancient ecospecies of Helicobacter pylori found in Indigenous populations and animal adapted lineages. Biorxiv: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.04.28.538659

3. K？nig F, SL Svensson, & CM Sharma. 2023. Interplay of two small RNAs fine-tunes hierarchical flagellar gene expression in the foodborne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni. Biorxiv: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.04.21.537696

4. Svensson SL*, K Froschauer*, E Fiore, L Hadjeras, F Eggenhofer, R Gelhausen, S Engelmann, R Backofen, & CM Sharma. 2022. Integrated translatomics reveals novel small proteins in the major foodborne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni. Biorxiv: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.09.51545 *Equally contributing authors

5. Liao, C, S Sharma*, SL Svensson*, A Kibe, Z Weinberg, OS Alkhnbashi, T Bischler, R Backofen, N Caliskan, CM Sharma, CL Beisel. 2022. Spacer prioritization in CRISPR-Cas9 immunity is enabled by the leader RNA. Nature Microbiology. 7(4):530-541. *equal contributions

6. Hadjeras L, J Bartel, LK Maier, S Maa？, V Vogel, SL Svensson, F Eggenhofer, R Gelhausen, T Müller, OS Alkhnbashi, R Backofen, D Becher, CM Sharma, A Marchfelder. 2023. Revealing the small proteome of Haloferax volcanii by combining ribosome profiling and small-protein optimized mass spectrometry. microLife. 4: uqad001.

7. Svensson SL & Y Chao. 2022.RNase III-CLASH brings bacterial RNA networks into focus.Trends in Microbiology. 30:1125-1127.

8. Gelhausen R*, T Mueller*, SL Svensson*, CM Sharma, F Eggenhofer, & R Backofen. 2022. RiboReport - Benchmarking ribosome-profiling based identification of open reading frames in bacteria. Briefings in Bioinformatics. 0;23(2):bbab549. *Equally contributing authors

9. Svensson SL & CM Sharma. 2022. Small RNAs that target G-rich sequences are generated by diverse biogenesis pathways in Epsilonproteobacteria. Molecular Microbiology. 117:215-233.

10. Svensson SL & CM Sharma. 2021. RNase III-mediated processing of a trans-acting bacterial sRNA and its cis-encoded antagonist. ELife. 10:e69064.

11. Venturini E, SL Svensson, S Maa？, R Gelhausen, F Eggenhofer, L Li, AK Cain, J Parkhill, D Becher, R Backofen, L Barquist, CM Sharma, AJ Westermann, J Vogel. 2020. A global data-driven census of Salmonella small proteins and their potential functions in bacterial virulence. microLife. 1:uqaa002.

12.  Alzheimer M, SL Svensson, F K？nig, M Schweinlin, M Metzger, H Walles, & CM Sharma. 2020. A three-dimensional intestinal tissue model reveals factors and small regulatory RNAs important for colonization with Campylobacter jejuni. PLOS Pathogens. 16 (2): e1008304.

13. Gelhausen R, SL Svensson, K Froschauer, F Heyl, L Hadjeras, CM Sharma, F Eggenhofer, R Backofen. HRIBO: high-throughput analysis of bacterial ribosome profiling data. Bioinformatics. 37:2061-2063.

14.  Svensson SL, S Behroozian, W Xu, MG Surette, L Li, & J Davies (2017). Kisameet Glacial Clay: an unexpected source of bacterial diversity. MBio. 8: e00590.

15.  Dugar G, SL Svensson, T Bischler, S W？ldchen, R Reinhardt, M Sauer, & CM Sharma (2016). The CsrA-FliW network controls polar localization of the dual-function flagellin mRNA in Campylobacter jejuni. Nat Commun. 7:11667.