Leading blood-vessel researcher at KI receives prestigious award
Christer Betsholtz, professor at the Department of Medicine Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded the major Nordic Prize for 2021 by the Eric K. Fernström Foundation. He receives one million SEK for his research into blood-vessel cells and their vascular structure and function.
The major Nordic Prize for 2021 by the Eric K. Fernström Foundation, is one of Scandinavia’s largest research prizes in medicine. Professor Christer Betsholtz at the Department of Medicine Huddinge and ICMC/Metabolism, is now being recognised for his research into vascular structure and function.
“His research has been of essential significance for our understanding of how blood-vessel cells cooperate to achieve the functional balance required to maintain efficient blood circulation”, states the motivation for the award.
Christer Betsholtz is a leading vascular researcher and has charted the communication between different types of cells in the blood-vessels and studied how they develop and form. Endothelial cells, which form the inner tube of our blood-vessels, and pericytes, a cell type included in all blood capillaries, which are the body’s smallest blood vessels, are of specific interest of Christer.
The Eric K. Fernström Foundation at the Lund University Faculty of Medicine awards the Eric K. Fernström Nordic Prize every year to an outstanding medical researcher from one of the Nordic countries.