News archive

COMMENTARY: Karolinska Institutet (KI) takes its historical legacy seriously and has therefore taken several initiatives and implemented several measures, to illuminate some of the dark episodes of our history. We take these to be pressing issues, as discussed in an article in Dagens Nyheter on 18 July (E-DN 17 July). KI's more than 200-year history contains aspects that, from today's point of view, would be considered unethical, unscientific, undemocratic and, in some cases, racist.

Both humans and other animals learn quickly about dangers in their environment by observing the behavior of other individuals. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet now show that both rats and humans can use such social information to reactivate memories about threats that have been previously acquired through their own experiences.

Determining who is the biological father of a child is a sensitive subject, but the answer can be crucial in important issues. In a nationwide study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, researchers from Karolinska Institutet, by using two different models, have been able to show that the proportion of incorrectly established paternities in Sweden is as low as 1.7 percent, a figure that has decreased over time.

The International community must save Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali before it’s too late. Karolinska Institutet backs a call signed by a number of organisations, addressing the European Union, the European state governments, and the United States government to act immediately to secure the release of Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali – an internationally recognized scholar of disaster medicine and KI alumni, wrongfully sentenced to death and in dire need of medical care.

With the application of a novel three-dimensional imaging technology, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have discovered that one portion of the autonomic nervous system in the liver undergoes severe degeneration in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The study, which is conducted in mice and human liver tissue, shows that the degeneration of nerves is correlated with the severity of liver pathology. The results are being published in the journal Science Advances.

Joanna Zawacka-Pankau, senior researcher at MedH and Center for Hematology and Regenerative Medicine (HERM) receives the Cathrine Everts Prize of 50.000 SEK for her research on drug repurposing for the improved therapy in TP53-mutated AML.

Children and young people whose mothers had a BMI greater than 30 during early pregnancy are at an increased risk of fatty liver disease. This is shown in a register-based study from Karolinska Institutet and Harvard University published in the journal Journal of Hepatology. As obesity rates increase also in women at a child-bearing age, more and more young people are at risk of developing fatty liver disease, the researchers say.

Rapid diagnosis is crucial in bacterial soft tissue infections to reduce the risk of severe injury or amputation. Vague symptoms and a heterogeneous patient group increase the risk of misdiagnosis. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and other research institutions have now, with the help of AI, identified a new and very promising biomarker. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, may have implications for both diagnosis and treatment.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, together with British colleagues, have conducted the largest study to date in search of genetic markers about cluster headache. In the long term, it can hopefully pave the way for more effective treatments. The study is published in the scientific journal Annals of Neurology.

The evolutionary ability to identify sick individuals is crucial to reducing contagion and thereby improving chances of survival. Although most animals have this ability, whether humans have the same behavioural immune system has long been a subject of discussion. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now proven that hunter-gatherer groups can, with great certainty, identify the sick from Western Europe. The study was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

On Thursday, 8 July 2021, the European Parliament debated and voted on an awaited resolution to demand that Ahmadreza Djalali – a Swedish-Iranian doctor and researcher sentenced to death – be released from prison in Iran. Passed by a substantial majority of votes, the resolution now calls for the release of Djalali.

In a recently published review article in Nature Reviews Endocrinology, two researchers at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at KI, concludes where the field of research is today regarding causes behind and development of, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and how epigenetic processes can contribute to the development of the syndrome.

Most countries have not introduced nationwide prostate-cancer screening, as current methods result in overdiagnoses and excessive and unnecessary biopsies. A new study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, which is published in The New England Journal of Medicine, indicates that screening by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and targeted biopsies could potentially cut overdiagnoses by half. The results are presented today at the European Association of Urology Congress.

In March 2020, thousands of researchers across the globe joined forces to answer the question of why some COVID-19 patients develop a severe, life-threatening disease, while others manage with mild or no symptoms. A comprehensive summary of their findings to date, based on the analyses of nearly 50,000 patients and published in Nature today, reveals 13 genetic regions that are strongly associated with infection or severe COVID-19.

In addition to Joana Pereira at the Division of Clinical Geriatrics, four more people have been appointed as new research group leaders at NVS during the spring. They are Debora Rizzuto, Weili Xu, Grégoria Kalpouzos and Amaia Calderon Larrañaga, all from the Division of Aging Research Center (ARC).

With the development of more effective treatment for childhood cancer, fertility preservation efforts have become routine at many centers. At the same time, there have been questions about the risks of relapse when re-transplanting ovarian tissue. Now researchers at Karolinska Institutet report on a woman who is expecting her second child after being treated for leukaemia as a teenager. This study, published in Haematologica, may be of great importance to many young women and their families.

New results presented by the Schulte lab at Karolinska Institutet in collaboration with researchers in Shanghai and Montréal, help us understand how the cell surface receptor FZD7 is activated and provides a platform for drug discovery to inhibit this process for therapeutic purposes.

Professor Per Svenningsson at Karolinska Institutet receives funding for a five-year research project of 38 million SEK from Nordstjernan Holding AB and the Axel Johnson Group. The investment goes to fundamental research on the onset of Parkinson's disease and to clinical studies to improve treatment and slow down the course of the disease.

Adults with ADHD are at higher risk of a wide range of physical conditions, including nervous system, respiratory, musculoskeletal, and metabolic diseases, according to a large register-based study from Karolinska Institutet published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

This year, The Swedish Brain Foundation will distribute SEK 106 million in research grants. Karolinska Institutet is awarded 42% of these and includes seven researchers at the Department of Neurobiology, Health Sciences and Society (NVS) as recipients.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet publish new findings in the journal Cancer Discovery showing how pharmacological activation of the protein p53 boosts the immune response against tumours. The results can be of significance to the development of new combination therapies that will give more cancer patients access to immunotherapy.

New review article looks at readiness prior to the implementation of genomics-based precision medicine in complex diseases. The extensive work has been led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Lund University and has been carried out together with some 30 researchers throughout Sweden. The results are now being published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, JIM.

On July 1 the president of Karolinska Institutet Ole Peter Ottersen will take over the chair of the Stockholm Trio, a university alliance which aims to create better interaction within research, education and collaborative projects.

The attempts to create artificial spider silk fibers are progressing. Swedish researchers believe that a strong enough thread may exist in a foreseeable future. Artificial silk fiber is made from the same kind of protein that the spiders have in their hind body and could be used for extra durable textiles, but also in for example nerve surgery. Listen to what Anna Rising at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet, says in an interview with SVT Nyheter.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and their British colleagues have identified a possible contributory cause of fibromyalgia, a difficult to treat pain condition. In a study on mice and human tissue, the researchers found that fibromyalgia patients’ antibodies played a key part in symptom development. The results, which are published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, pave the way for developing new treatment strategies.

Congratulations to all of you, who share a total of SEK 7,650,000!

On 22 June, the Latvian President, Egils Levits, and delegation paid a visit to Karolinska Institutet. The visit was made in connection with an official two-day visit to Sweden.

Roman Zubarev has been funded within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie action “Innovative Training Networks”. The project aims to train a new generation of scientists in exploiting the concept of allostery in drug design.

Congratulations to the researchers at BioNut who received funding from CIMED for 2022-2024. A total of 4.5 million SEK awarded.

Andrea Carmine Belin, researcher at the Department of Neuroscience, has been nominated and elected to the International Headache Society's Board of Directors for a two-year period (2021-2023), which will also be announced in conjunction with the Members' Annual Meeting on September 9, 2021.

Thanks to many years of translational research, some children with the rare childhood cancer neuroblastoma may now be cured. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers at among others Karolinska Institutet and University of Gothenburg write that so-called ALK inhibitors should be tried to treat children with high-risk neuroblastoma. That is after an analysis showed that children with mutations in the ALK gene have poorer prognosis.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have analysed and described in detail the immune cells residing in the human bile duct. The findings may pave the way for new treatment strategies against disorders of the bile duct, which are often linked to immunological processes. The study is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet have discovered how platinum-chemotherapy can enhance the treatment resistance of ovarian cancer cells, by progressively changing the cancer cell-intrinsic adhesion signaling and cell-surrounding microenvironment.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a technology for cost-effective surveillance of the global spread of new SARS-CoV-2 variants. The technique is presented in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

When should a questionnaire be used for data collection? What are the steps included in the development of a questionnaire? What type of questions can be included in a questionnaire? How does one formulate effective questions? How does one design rating scales? How does one avoid common mistakes when developing a questionnaire?

The Department of medical biochemistry and biophysics (MBB) receives research grants of SEK 9.8 million from the Swedish Brain Foundation. Five projects at the department receive grants from the non-profit foundation.

A Swedish registry study, performed at the National Center for Suicide Research and Prevention (NASP) at Karolinska Institutet and the Stockholm County Council, has shown that there is no significant increase in suicide risk during the Midsummer holiday. The results of the study has been published in the Nordic Journal of Psychiatry.

Early intervention for disruptive behaviour disorders in children reduces the risk of antisocial development and psychiatric problems later in life. Parental training and child CBT are two interventions about which more needs to be known concerning the effects on disruptive behaviour disorders. According to a new doctoral thesis from Karolinska Institutet, both have a positive effect on such disorders, where severity should determine the choice of treatment.

Sweden was the first country in the world to introduce open-identity sperm donation, whereby adult children are entitled to obtain information about their donors. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now explored how such contacts and relations affect the parents of these young men and women. The study, which is published in Human Reproduction, shows that mothers often find it easier to accept the new situation.

StratNeuro awards a total of 18 MSEK to six Collaborative Neuroscience Research Projects. 41 letters of intent from across 12 departments were received, of which the top ranking 1/3 (ranging seven departments at KI), were invited to submit full proposals for a second round of evaluation by an external evaluator panel.

On 1 July 2021, a new virtual centre – the Centre for Health Crises – will be established at Karolinska Institutet. The COVID-19 pandemic has indicated that in the event of acute health threats and pandemics, universities and colleges must be able to quickly change their research, education, and other activities to help solve urgent needs.

In order to assess the health and environmental risks of nanomaterials, data is needed. The effective management and reuse of data from standardised testing methods, but also from new high-efficiency and animal-free methods, is expected to accelerate and improve both research and the risk assessment of chemicals and nanomaterials.

Many diseases caused by a dysregulated immune system, such as allergies, asthma and autoimmunity, can be traced back to events in the first few months after birth. To date, the mechanisms behind the development of the immune system have not been fully understood. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet show a connection between breast milk, beneficial gut bacteria and the development of the immune system. The study is published in Cell.

Eva Karlöf at the research group Vascular Surgery, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend her thesis "Improving stroke risk prediction and individualised treatment in carotid atherosclerosis" on June 18, 2021. Main Supervisor is Professor Ulf Hedin.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet found industrial chemicals in the organs of fetuses conceived decades after many countries had banned the substances. In a study published in the journal Chemosphere, the researchers urge decision makers to consider the combined impact of the mix of chemicals that accumulate in people and nature.

What do you know about ATMPs? Equip yourself for the future – learn the basics of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMP). Join in and take the Swedish healthcare into the future!

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers at Karolinska Institutet provide insight into the sequence of events leading to formation of functional mitoribosomes and sheds light on the mechanism of action of nine mitoribosome assembly factors involved in this process. The results may help yield novel opportunities for diagnosis and therapeutic intervention for mitochondrial diseases as well as cancer or diabetes.

High blood lipids and inactivity are two risk factors for atherosclerosis in humans. When the European brown bear (Ursus arctos) hibernates during winter, it is inactive for 5-6 months and also develops high blood lipids, but still show no signs of atherosclerosis.

For a little more than 1.5 years, the harmonized professional services programme has focused on coordinating work methods and processes. The programme, which is soon to be wrapped up, has been a starting point for further work.

Based on the assessment that the spread of COVID-19 is expected to decrease and that vaccinations will take place according to plan, KI is planning for a return to campus-based education during the fall semester.