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Meet the team
Our People
Jesper Hedberg
CEO of Testa Center
Jesper Hedberg (PhD) has had the opportunity to dream, visualize and grow the open access purpose-built research facility Testa Center from scratch. At the facility, academia, SMEs and industries can verify their innovations in a true bioproduction environment.
With a PhD from Karolinska Institute, Jesper Hedberg began his career path as a specialist in protein chemistry, joining GE in 2002. During 2007 to 2012 Jesper worked as project leader and team leader at AstraZeneca, Södertälje. In 2012 he joined Cytiva R&D as section manager for a group responsible for bioreactor processes, product development, and market support. Jesper Hedberg has been part of the Testa Center project as project leader from the planning phase in 2016, and as a director from the inauguration in August 2018 till 2022. Since May 2022 Jesper Hedberg is the CEO of Testa Center.
“I am passionate about providing an environment where our clients can truly accelerate their innovation journey. I strongly believe that if we do things together, we can achieve so much more.”
Alexandra Patriksson
Science Relations Manager
Alexandra has been working in the intersection of research and industry for the last 10 years, supporting academic researchers and start-ups with their innovation and industry collaboration projects. She has a PhD in Biophysics, a MSc in Molecular Biotechnology Engineering and master training from the school of entrepreneurship from Uppsala University. She has several years of work experience in management consulting both at WM-data, Logica Sweden and in Deloitte Norway, and in public research and innovation funding and support in Innovation Norway, Oslo University and The Centre for Digital Life Norway, Uppsala University Innovation and SciLifeLab.
At Testa Center, Alexandra is working both with supporting clients as well as with internal business development, national research and innovation policy as well as ecosystem development. Being a creative and solution oriented person, Alexandra’s ambition is to help the customers of Testa Center to develop their projects and ideas into products or services that can create value for society, by helping them understand how to access the existing innovation supporting organizations and funding opportunities.
Dimitra Peirasmaki
Upstream Bioprocessing Specialist
Dimitra is working as an upstream specialist at Testa Center, focusing on supporting customers with running cultures in stirred-tank and rocking-motion bioreactors and the overall usage of upstream bio-processing equipment and lab space. She has 10+ years’ of experience with several types of mammalian cells (adherent and in suspension) as well as bacteria. Dimitra holds a MSc in Applied Biotechnology and a PhD in Microbiology from Uppsala University and has work experience both as a lab manager and a researcher at Karolinska Institute, focusing on cancer research and post-transcriptional modifications of mRNA, and as a life science consultant.
Edo Avdic
Head of IT & Digital
Edo is an IT, human factors, and UX specialist with over 20 years of professional experience and an MSc in Technology, Design and Communication (IT) from Linköping University. He has worked on a wide variety of projects for reputed organizations like ABB, Mälardalen University, the Swedish Tax Agency, the UN, the Swedish Transport Agency, GE Healthcare, Cytiva, and others. He has several years of experience as a team leader, educator, and supervisor as well as working with emerging technologies and complex system design in various industries, creating creative ideas and innovative solutions.
At Testa Center, Edo is responsible for the IT infrastructure and IT projects, working on, among other things, how “Lab of the Future” with its new technical and digital solutions can be designed to support users in their decisions and actions. He enjoys working with customers and partners and the opportunities to help develop new knowledge in today's and future technologies.
“I am passionate about discovering meaningful and practical solutions to the various IT and design challenges that affect people and communities.”
Louise Fitkin
Downstream Bioprocessing Specialist
Louise holds the role of the downstream specialist at Testa Center, supporting the projects with protein purification and chromatography. She is involved both in general project planning and technical discussions, and during the purification part of the projects where she trains the customers in using the labs and the downstream equipment. Louise also has a role as a lab coordinator, taking part in several internal development projects. By training, Louise holds a MSc in Molecular Biotechnology Engineering from Uppsala university and she has work experience as a life science consultant.
József Vasi
Director, Head of Operations
József has 20+ years’ of experience, both from academia and industry, in recombinant protein production with cultivation of a variety of cell lines, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic, expression of biomolecules and midstream techniques (NFF, TFF, centrifugation). He holds a MSc in Biochemical engineering from Technical University of Budapest, and a PhD in Microbiology from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
With his expertise in process development and scale-up of upstream and midstream processes for production of biomolecules, and solid skills in in both single-use and traditional platforms, József is responsible for leading the technical discussions with incoming customers and providing the best possible technical support and service to ongoing projects at Testa Center. József also has experience at evaluating novel, innovative technologies aimed for PAT applications in upstream/downstream processes and has contributed to the development and launch of numerous new product introduction projects, both hardware and chromatographic resins, at Cytiva and its predecessors.
Adam Wegelius
Upstream Bioprocessing Specialist, Innovation Scientist
Adam holds a MSc in Molecular Biotechnology Engineering and a PhD in microbial chemistry from Uppsala University. At Testa Center, Adam is conducting research in collaboration with Cytiva R&D and supporting customers in bioreactor operation as an upstream specialist. His research is focused on new separation techniques for biopharmaceuticals.
External processes and funding
Anisha Khan
Project manager, STUNS Life Science
Anisha is working as a project manager at the Uppsala based foundation STUNS Life sciences where she has mainly worked with SMEs within biological production.
Anisha has a key role in Testa Challenge and as communication advisor for Testa Center. She is also involved as a an external party in handling access and funding applications to Testa Center.
Anisha has a MSc in Molecular Biotechnology Engineering from Uppsala University and has during her master done two optimizing and scale-up projects at Testa Center.
Malin Wiederholm
Business Developer, STUNS Life Science
Malin is working as a business developer at the Uppsala based foundation STUNS Life Sciences. She has 15+ years’ of experience in the innovation supporting system of Uppsala, focusing on supporting academic research with commercial potential, as well as SMEs. Malin, as an external party, is responsible for handling the evaluation of access applications to Testa Center, as well as funding applications, thereby securing neutrality and no conflict of interest. Malin has a MSc in Molecular Biology and master training from the school of entrepreneurship at Uppsala University.
