Collaboration at the core: Professor Merete Fredholm on the making of PIG PARADIGM

From the very beginning, the Host Pillar within PIG‑PARADIGM was designed differently from most research settings. Instead of dividing the work into small, separate projects, the researchers built a single shared cohort study—one dataset, one protocol, one foundation on which everything would rest. This meant that geneticists, clinicians, and pathologists had to come together long before any animal was sampled. Fredholm describes those early months as an intense but formative process: 

“We started by sitting together a lot. We spent an enormous amount of time creating detailed protocols. The entire foundation of the project was built together, before anything even began.”

This joint starting point meant that every decision had to be communicated, negotiated, and understood across disciplinary lines. In practical terms, it meant hours spent discussing which data should be collected, how they should be recorded, which samples would be useful, which would not, and how to secure the necessary permissions. This constant conversation was not always easy. “Genetics is not an easy area for others to understand,” Fredholm says. 

“It can be difficult to communicate on the same level when our disciplines are so different.” 

She remembers moments where she felt she had to fight for the genetic perspective to be understood. 

“I probably had the hardest time convincing the others that it made sense to build the Host Pillar this way. It was difficult for them to understand what I wanted to achieve.”

Despite the difficulty, this process created something invaluable: trust. Through countless meetings, discussions, and explanations, the team built an internal culture where each discipline’s strengths became part of the project’s identity. 

“We now know each other so well, and we trust each other’s competencies,” she says. “That respect is crucial when you combine such different research areas.” 

Today, that trust allows the Host Pillar to function smoothly, even when the scientific approaches diverge.

The collaborative nature of PIG‑PARADIGM does not end within the Host Pillar. External partnerships have become an equally important component, particularly the collaboration with the Microbiome Pillar  who use parts of the biological material collected within the project. Across the duration of PIG‑PARADIGM, the team has euthanized and sampled 175 pigs at different stages of life, generating a rich biological resource. Coordinating how this material would be used, required careful alignment with external partners. 

“We have had many discussions about which samples would be the most sensible to collect,” Fredholm explains. “Some of our material is used directly in their projects, so it has been important to align our approaches.”

Once again, genetics proved to be one of the most challenging areas to communicate.

“Genetics is still one of the areas that is hardest for others to fully grasp,” she notes, acknowledging that the complexity of her field sometimes slows communication. But the shared goal—understanding robustness in pigs—keeps the partnerships strong and productive.

What stands out when listening to Fredholm is her sense of long-term perspective. PIG‑PARADIGM is not only about the research being conducted today but about what the project will enable tomorrow. The substantial funding behind the project has made it possible to establish a stable scientific platform—protocols, sample collections, data structures, cross-disciplinary relationships—that will support future collaboration. 

“We have established a very strong foundation,” she says. “It makes it possible to apply for new projects—both internally at the institute and together with other institutions." She anticipates even more integration in the future, and hope that the Data Integration Pillar can establish links between the Host Pillar and the Nutrition Pillar once the microbiome analyses take shape.

Fredholm is aware that interdisciplinary collaboration always takes more time. It demands patience, dialogue, explanation, and the willingness to understand another field’s logic. But she also believes it creates more resilient, meaningful science. 

“Everything takes time—especially when you collaborate across disciplines,” she reflects. “But now we have a foundation we can build on.”

In the end, she sees collaboration not as an add‑on or a background process but as the defining element of PIG‑PARADIGM. It is the reason the project was able to start on solid ground, the reason it continues to run effectively, and the reason it will be able to expand in the future. As she puts it simply: “This collaboration is central. It is simply the reason the project works.”