News archive

January is already turning into February, but I’d still like to take this opportunity to welcome everyone back to a new year at KI! 2024 began with our first departmental meetings with the departments of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics (LIME) and the department of Clinical Sciences, Danderyd Hospital (KI DS) on 17 January.

Nomination deadline: March 14, 2024

On January 25, a method support day was organized by Clinicum to introduce researchers to the coordinated method support offered to researchers at KI and Region Stockholm. The meeting was held in the Sune Bergström Hall at Karolinska University Hospital.

A new publication in Molecular Cell presents a collaborative study within the framework of the UTokyo-KI LINK program, headed by Camilla Björkegren from Karolinska Institutet, Kristian Jeppsson and Katsuhiko Shirahige from The University of Tokyo.

Can scientific methods be used to identify who is best suited for physically and mentally demanding missions? In his doctoral thesis, Peter Tedeholm explores the individual characteristics of Swedish operational police officers.

Welcome to Shuai Yuan's doctoral thesis defence on March 8 at 9:30 in Samuelssonsalen, Tomtebodavägen 6

The financial follow-up and reporting of EU-funded research projects at KI was decentralised last year from the Grants Management Office (GMO) to the departments. The departments now assume greater responsibility for financial project administration, with the support of specialist coordinators at the GMO, whose role includes ensuring financial compliance.

Hi Patrik Karlsson, doctoral student at the Division of Physiotherapy. On February 9 you will defend your thesis "Enhanced mobilisation and physical rehabilitation after abdominal cancer surgery : feasibility, effects, and experiences". What is the main focus of the thesis?

As of January, Erin Flanagan joined the department in a new role as a grant writer where she will, among other things, help identify relevant grant opportunities and provide hands-on grant writing support. We took the opportunity to ask her some questions to get to know her.

Anne Heikkinen Sandberg is to be KI’s new master of ceremonies. She has been accompanying retiring master of ceremonies Ylva Blomberg since 5 December and with ten years’ experience from the corresponding office at Stockholm University, she looks forward to administering and promoting KI’s ceremonies.

In the 14 years that Ylva Blomberg has been KI’s master of ceremonies, new doctors, professors and prize-winners have enjoyed a blend of tradition and merry-making. As she heads to retirement on 30 January, she looks back on her 33 years at KI and forward to more time for life’s desserts – and her electric guitar.

Professor Eleni Aklillu, from the GH-Pharma research group, is leading a clinical trial capacity strengthening initiative in Rwanda.

Now you can read the 2024 operational plan for the professional services at KI in Swedish and English. It is a new model that the departments within professional services, the University Library and the units Teaching and Learning, and Medical History and Cultural Heritage are the first to test for 2024.

Every year worldwide, around 1 billion children aged 2–17 experience physical, sexual, or psychological violence or neglect, representing approximately half of the global child population. Sociologist Sergio Keita Nhassengo investigates epidemiology of violence against children in Mozambique and the readiness of stakeholders across organizations to counter and prevent child maltreatment. Meet the PhD student who wants a future where all children can live in a safe environment free from violence.

Asthma and cystic fibrosis are diseases which affect the lungs of children and adults. Previous research has shown that genetic and environmental factors during pregnancy and early childhood can contribute to the way children and young adults are affected by these lung diseases.

From the coast of Bottenviken to the Department of Women's and Children's Health. Ola Nilsson is an active, archipelago-loving, solution-oriented researcher with a solid background in paediatrics and joined as a new professor at KBH in September.

Tips from KI Grants Office about current calls.

The Single Cell Core Facility of Flemingsberg Campus (SICOF) moves to level 6 in Neo, the lab next to BEA. The move of SICOF closer to BEA will benefit both core facilities, as they collaborate on different projects and share equipment.

During Q1 2024, MedH's and BioNut's administration, the KI president and the Neo manager will move their offices to floor 8, to the long side of the building facing KTH. Some remodelling of the premises will be necessary.

An investigation conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet has led to a discovery in breast cancer diagnostics and treatments that could reshape screening programs and clinical approaches. The study, published in JAMA Oncology, unravels the impact of rare genetic variants on interval breast cancers, providing new insights into tailored screening strategies.

The Neuroscience Internship Program Bonn, co-funded by NeurotechEU, provides bachelor and master students with an opportunity to engage in hands-on lab experiences within the field of neuroscience and neurotechnology. Last day for application Feb 29 (updated dead line)
If accepted to the program there is a possibillity to apply for travel grants. Contact Mia Bjerke.

A web-based course is now available for students who are student representatives,  or want to know more about this assignment.

The newly launched global training programme, Leadership for Transformative Change, gathers 22 leaders from all over the world who are working to contribute to transformative social development in their countries. The programme is offered by Uppsala University in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

A new study at the Karolinska Institutet suggests that activation of a certain brain protein can protect women from developing neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.

Recent and unintentional weight loss is associated with an increased risk of a cancer diagnosis in the coming year, according to a new study in JAMA. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet and others behind the study urge healthcare professionals and the public to be vigilant about sudden and unintentional weight loss.

Beyond surviving after an injury comes living. To what extent a person is able to return to the life and independence previously enjoyed is an important aspect of recovery and rehabilitation is often a crucial factor in that. Nonetheless, it is a factor often overlooked in humanitarian settings and it is an area where more research is needed. Bérangère Gohy’s PhD thesis looks beyond survival, to how recovery is measured and what the patients’ road to regained independence looks like.

On Thursday, January 25, the KI Housing staff is away on a conference. The KI Housing office will therefore be closed this day.

Ozempic and other GLP1 agonists are associated with a reduced risk of developing cirrhosis and liver cancer in people with type 2 diabetes and chronic liver disease, according to a nationwide study from Karolinska Institutet published in the journal Gut.

The Master's programme is a collaboration between Karolinska Institutet, Universidad de Oviedo in Spain and the University of Nicosia in Cyprus.

A joint web portal featuring information and activities from the student health services of all Swedish universities has recently been launched. Studenthälsa.se provides tips and advice for students to feel better and achieve a more sustainable student life.

Hi Mona-Lisa Malarte, doctoral student at the Division of Clinical Geriatrics. Om January 26 you will defend your thesis ”Tau pathology in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias : translational approach from in vitro autoradiography to in vivo PET imaging”. What is the main focus of the thesis?

Are you interested in health innovation and looking for an exciting opportunity to learn about the innovation process? Then join us at Impact Challenge on March 15-16, 2024!

Impact Challenge is an annual event held during the spring semester at Karolinska Institutet. It provides students with the opportunity to collaborate in interprofessional teams, tackling a real health challenge. The teams will have the chance to meet user groups and learn more about the design thinking methodology.

Following an internal evaluation of the proposals, the StratNeuro board has decided to award SEK 100,000 to the proposal sent by Onur Dagliyan at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, to host a two months' visit in his laboratory by Cristian Ripoli, Associate Professor at the Department of Neuroscience of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy.

Dementia is a brain disease that affects mental capacities such as the individual’s memory, language, or capacity to understand and deal with emotions. Amongst the different types of dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a relatively frequent dementia. Recently, there has been an interest in understanding better whether sex and gender play a role in DLB. Two recent publications from researchers at Karolinska Institutet addressed this question on sex differences in DLB.

Are you a KI student who wants to apply for a job in Life Science but is unsure how to get the job? Then you are welcome to attend the workshop "How to land a job" with career coach Niclas Lindqvist from Trygghetsstiftelsen.

This spring, the university management will be visiting KI’s departments in a series of meetings, the focus of which will be not only their activities but also how we at KI can strengthen dialogue and cooperation going forward. The meetings series kicked off with KI DS and LIME on 17 January.

Minister for Health Care Acko Ankarberg Johansson had a busy schedule when she visited Karolinska Institutet, where she spent an afternoon discussing research conditions and how to create sustainable infrastructures that can increase the interaction between education, research, development and healthcare today and tomorrow.

Five new members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA) have been elected at the General Meeting held on 17 January 2024. Marie Carlén, Karolinska Institutet, Love Dalén and Hanna Johannesson, Stockholm University, were elected new members of the Academy's Class for Biosciences.

Lisa Westerberg has been appointed Professor of Experimental Immunology at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology from 1 January 2024.

New educational administrator at the Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care, NVS.

Professor Per-Olof Berggren has been awarded a ERC Proof of Concept grant by the European Research Council (ERC). The funding will be used to advance a technology in which islets of Langerhans are transplanted into the anterior chamber of the eye and employed as a screening tool to identify novel pharmaceutical treatments for diabetes.

One in three children who suffer from bacterial meningitis live with permanent neurological disabilities due to the infection. This is according to a new epidemiological study led by Karolinska Institutet and published in leading medical journal JAMA Network Open.

Hi Marianne Reimers Wessberg, doctoral student at the Division of Clinical Geriatrics. On February 2 you will defend your thesis "Aspects on heart failure and drug treatment in geriatric patients". What is the main focus of the thesis?

The course is a half-day course via Teams for those who will work with clinical trials and have not previously attended a GCP course. You do not need any prior knowledge. The course is held in Swedish on two occasions, choose the date when you register.

This is a summary of the information meeting that Maria Eriksdotter, the former Dean of KI South, together with the departmental heads of MedH and BioNut as well as the project manager, held on 16 January on Zoom addressing all staff at BioNut and MedH.

In Biomedicum there is 29 coffee machines and in 2023 we drank more than 517 000 cups of coffee or tea.
That is almost 400 cups per person and year.

The most popular machine is placed on floor 4 between quarter B and C with almost 30 000 cups served. The least popular machine is placed in floor 8, in the larger 'fika'-area with only 4000 cups.

FM provides daily maintenance of the coffee machines by cleaning and refilling coffee, tea, milk, suger, cups and more.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and SciLifeLab demonstrate in a new study published in iScience how they can identify substances that can deactivate an enzyme responsible for chemotherapy resistance in cancer cells. These results can have importance to improve chemotherapy effectiveness for cancer patients.

Today, KI uses the Pythagoras facility system for our rented premises and the administration is handled by the Facility department (FA).

During 2023, FA has worked on implementing a new web platform (Pythagoras Web, PW) that replaces the older web platform PIM. (PIM will continue to be available)

Since 31 January 2022, the EU-wide Regulation 536/2014, also known as the Clinical Trials Regulation (CTR), applies to clinical trials of medicines for humans. The CTR applies regardless of whether the trials are commercial or not, and thus also covers academic research.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have used DNA origami, the art of folding DNA into desired structures, to show how an important cell receptor can be activated in a previously unknown way. The result opens new avenues for understanding how the Notch signalling pathway works and how it is involved in several serious diseases. The study is published in Nature Communications.

During the Christmas holidays, a freezer failure occurred in the Neo building on KI's Flemingsberg campus. The automatic filling of the cryotanks with liquid nitrogen was interrupted for an unknown reason. As a result, the temperature in 16 of 19 cryogenic tanks rose and large amounts of biological research material have been destroyed. An investigation with internal and external experts is now underway to find out how this failure could have happened.