The People of Testa Center
Our Team
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.
Emil Sundäng Peters
Upstream Bioprocessing Specialist
Emil is working as a Specialist customer support and USP specialist at Testa Center, focusing on supporting customers with running upstream processes, training customers in equipment usage, and assistance with the general lab space.
He holds an MSc in Industrial and Environmental Biotechnology from KTH and brings nearly nine years of experience in bioprocess development across both academia and industry. During his career, he has worked with a wide range of bioprocesses, including bioplastics, recombinant proteins, gene therapies, and cell therapies.
His expertise spans multiple cell systems, including E. coli, CHO, HEK, hESC, and iPSC cultures, in both adherent and suspension processes. Emil has extensive experience in mammalian cell culture development, with a particular focus on perfusion processes, process intensification, and scale-up of advanced therapy production platforms. He has also worked with a variety of bioreactor technologies, primarily stirred-tank reactors in both single-use and stainless-steel configurations.
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.”
Laura Okmane
Downstream Process Support Specialist
Laura specializes in protein sciences. She holds a PhD in Biotechnology from Swedish University of Aricultural Sciences and brings ten years of experience in the protein science field.
In her role as a downstream customer support specialist at Testa Center, Laura focuses on helping clients develop purification processes that can be efficiently scaled from laboratory conditions to an industrial production environment. She contributes to project discussions with Testa Center clients,
participates in collaboration projects, and provides technical guidance in the lab.
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.
Christofer Björkelid
Customer Relations Specialist, BioProcess
Christofer is an experienced protein scientist with expertise in drug discovery, biopharmaceutical development and customer focused scientific collaboration. With an MSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Structural Biology, he has worked across academia and industry in Sweden, the UK and Singapore, focusing on protein production, assay development, and structural and biophysical analysis. His previous roles at Sobi, Nanyang Technological University and Diamond Light Source reflect a strong track record in guiding complex research projects, delivering technical training and supporting customers in achieving their scientific goals.
At Testa Center, Christofer engages new and prospective clients through outreach and marketing activities and supports companies, startups and academic groups in planning and navigating their bioprocessing scale up projects.
Karolina Kling
Project & Finance Coordinator
Karolina holds a Master of Science in Accounting and has 17 years of experience in auditing, accounting, controlling, and financial governance. She has worked in both international and Swedish organizations, including KPMG, OKQ8, ABB, Danieli, and ICA, across multiple industries.
At Testa Center, Karolina supports financial management by contributing to budgeting, forecasting, cost follow-up, purchasing, and invoicing. She also contributes to financial planning and reporting and ensures that projects are managed correctly and in compliance with internal guidelines.
Our Team
Meet the team
Meet the expert staff at Testa Center.
