About
Ulf Göransson heads the Peptide Chemical Biology group at Uppsala University's Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences — one of Scandinavia's leading centres for natural product peptide research. His group combines pharmacognosy (the study of natural product medicines), synthetic chemistry, and biological pharmacology to discover, synthesise, and apply cyclic peptides from plants and other natural sources.
Göransson occupies a unique position in the global cyclotide research community: he completed his PhD at Uppsala in 2002 on the discovery of cyclotides from Scandinavian violet plants, then moved to Australia for postdoctoral training with Professor David Craik at the University of Queensland — giving him deep roots in both of the world's two largest cyclotide research centres. He returned to Uppsala in 2004 and has since built his own internationally recognised group, with more than 11,600 citations to his name.
Background & Career
Göransson's path into cyclotide research followed naturally from Uppsala University's strong tradition in pharmacognosy — the scientific study of plants and other natural organisms as sources of medicines. Uppsala has been a centre of this discipline since the era of Carl Linnaeus, and Göransson's PhD work connected this tradition directly to the cutting edge of peptide biochemistry.
His doctoral research focused on discovering and characterising cyclotides from European violet plants (Violaceae), identifying many of the violet cyclotide variants that are now part of the standard cyclotide database. After completing his postdoctoral training in Craik's laboratory in Brisbane — where he gained expertise in NMR structural methods and chemical synthesis — he returned to Uppsala to establish what is now the Peptide Chemical Biology group.
The group's current work spans from classical natural product discovery (finding new cyclic peptides in plants) through to cutting-edge drug development (engineering those scaffolds as antimicrobial agents and other therapeutic candidates). Göransson has been a consistent co-author of the major cyclotide field reviews and an active contributor to the collaborative networks that bind global cyclotide research together.
Key Contributions
- European violet cyclotide diversity: Established himself as the world leader in cyclotide discovery from European Violaceae — systematically identifying and characterising the cyclotide complement of violet species across the continent. Many of the violet cyclotides now in the scientific literature were first described by Göransson's group.
- Antimicrobial cyclic peptide development: Developing novel antimicrobial cyclic peptide scaffolds as potential alternatives to conventional antibiotics — a field of urgent global importance given the accelerating crisis of antibiotic resistance. His group's structural and biological expertise makes Uppsala a key site for this research direction.
- Advanced synthesis methods: Contributed to the development of synthesis techniques for ultra-stable cyclic peptide structures, enabling the production of cyclotide variants that are not easily accessible from natural plant sources and facilitating structure-activity relationship studies.
- International scientific bridge: As one of the few researchers with deep training in both the Uppsala and UQ research traditions, Göransson has played an important role in connecting European and Australian cyclotide research — co-authoring foundational field reviews with Craik and Gruber and contributing to the unified body of knowledge that defines cyclotide science.
- Ecological and biodiversity mapping: Mapped cyclotide ecology and biodiversity across European plant species, contributing to understanding of which ecological and evolutionary pressures drive cyclotide diversity in plants.
Antimicrobial Cyclic Peptides
One of the most significant directions of Göransson's current research is the development of cyclic peptide scaffolds with antimicrobial activity. The global antibiotic resistance crisis — in which bacterial pathogens are progressively losing susceptibility to existing antibiotic classes — makes the discovery of entirely new antimicrobial mechanisms a medical priority.
Cyclic peptides offer several features that make them attractive candidates: their unusual stability means they survive conditions where conventional peptides are rapidly degraded, and their membrane-active mechanism of action differs fundamentally from the molecular targets of conventional antibiotics — making cross-resistance less likely. Göransson's group combines natural product discovery with rational design and synthetic chemistry to develop cyclic peptide scaffolds with potent, selective antimicrobial activity.
Having trained in Uppsala and at UQ Brisbane, Göransson serves as a scientific bridge between Europe's and Australia's leading cyclotide groups. His position at Uppsala — a university with a 500-year tradition of natural product science dating to Linnaeus — gives his group a unique combination of deep historical roots and contemporary biochemical expertise.
Key Publications
Uppsala University, 2002.
Doctoral thesis presenting original cyclotide discovery work from Scandinavian and European violet plants — establishing Göransson as a leading figure in European cyclotide research from the outset of his career.
Multiple publications in Chemical Reviews, Natural Product Reports, and related journals.
Göransson has contributed to several of the landmark review articles that have defined the cyclotide field — helping to synthesise knowledge from across the global research community.
Uppsala Peptide Chemical Biology group.
A growing body of work describing the design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of cyclic peptide scaffolds with antimicrobial activity against clinically relevant pathogens.
Multiple papers documenting the systematic characterisation of cyclotides from European and global Violaceae species — the most comprehensive survey of this plant family's cyclic peptide content.