Published: 08-09-2017 15:29 | Updated: 15-09-2017 11:44

KI and Karolinska University Hospital in experience exchange with Mayo Clinic

KI:s rektor Ole Petter Ottersen och professor Eric D. Wieben från Mayo Clinic

Representatives of Mayo Clinic are on a visit to Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital to exchange knowledge and experiences on a number of subjects covering everything from research, education and innovation to administration. A conference has been arranged for all parties on 6 to 8 September at both the university and the hospital.

The USA’s Mayo Clinic is considered an international role-model when it comes to integrating research and clinical activity. This has long interested Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital, which this week is taking part in the annual conference that has formed part of the Karolinska Institutet-Mayo Clinic partnership for the past 25 years.

“We need to exchange experiences and ways of thinking to achieve a swifter transition from research to clinic, where the results of our research can benefit healthcare provision,” says Vice-Chancellor Ole Petter Ottersen during his opening conference address. “Mayo Clinic excels in this field and can serve as an example to us in our collaboration with the healthcare sector.”

Melvin Samsom. Foto: Stefan BohlinMelvin Samsom, director of Karolinska University Hospital, stressed the importance of a sustained and advanced partnership between academy and clinic at a time of radical changes in how healthcare in Sweden, the USA and elsewhere is governed and organised: “We’re facing huge structural changes and have similar challenges in how we organise healthcare to make it more integrated, cost-effective and sustainable.”

The main scientific lectures on the conference’s first day gave proof of groundbreaking research projects that have managed with the help of technological innovations to improve diagnostic and therapeutic procedures for patients with rare and difficult-to-treat diseases.

Professors Eric Wieben and Martin Schalling, who are the scientific coordinators of the partnership at Mayo Clinic and Karolinska Institutet, respectively, hope that it can continue to be a platform for the development of clinical practice. Another goal is to create a career path with dual institutional affiliation, in which researchers from one can claim credit for the time spent and work done at the other.

The partnership between Karolinska Institutet and Mayo Clinic began as a modest research collaboration on diabetes and metabolism in the 1990s and has since grown to include over a dozen research disciplines, such as psychology and psychiatry, autoimmune diseases, regenerative medicine, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. It also covers administration, education and innovation, which was identified as a success factor in a recent evaluation.

Text: Maissa Al-Adhami