New Board of Directors for CIMED
The Center for Innovative Medicine (CIMED) is a research centre focusing on prevalent illnesses such as cancer and chronic diseases with a large burden of illness. Annika Bergquist has been director of CIMED since 1 January 2018.
The CIMED research centre is a collaboration between Karolinska Institutet (KI) and Stockholm County Council (SLL) aimed at promoting research into prevalent public health issues and chronic diseases that impose a large burden of illness on sufferers. All researchers at CIMED are based at Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge and/or Campus Flemingsberg. A new board of directors comprised of eight active physicians and researchers from KI and Karolinska University Hospital assumed their positions in 2017.
What is the greatest challenge right now?
– That must be to knit together the clinical and preclinical (experimental) research. High-quality research is being conducted both at the clinics and in laboratories, although collaboration between researchers needs to be strengthened. We also need to work to more rapidly implement new research results in healthcare, so that it reaches patients as quickly as possible, says Annika Bergquist, Director of CIMED.
What will you be doing to succeed in this?
– To promote collaboration between researchers, among other things we will announce a collaborative grant through which clinical and preclinical researchers are able to apply for joint funding for research projects. This grant will be announced in the spring, but we are always open to good project ideas that involve interaction. Shortening the time between research and implementation in healthcare is a major challenge but it is a method for ensuring the early involvement of doctors and other healthcare professionals in our projects, explains Annika Bergquist.
Tell us more about the research being conducted at CIMED
– We are a virtual research centre, that is we have no physical platform, although all of our researchers are employed at KI South. We have around 30 researchers, both junior and senior, who conduct research into diseases such as cancer, diabetes and geriatric disorders, says Annika Bergquist.
Background
The Center for Innovative Medicine (CIMED) started at KI South in 2015 at the behest of Stockholm County Council, for the purpose of supporting research into common diseases affecting public health. In 2016, SLL carried out a review of CIMED, among other things leading to a demand for the more rapid implementation of research results in healthcare. After this review, a new board of directors was appointed and Annika Bergquist, senior consultant and head of KI’s Clinical Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, took over as Director, with Professor Peter Lönnroth of the University of Gothenburg as the Chair of the Board.