News archive

So far, little research has been done on the risk of children being seriously affected by COVID-19 when the schools were open. A study from Karolinska Institutet has now shown that one child in 130,000 was treated in an intensive care unit on account of COVID-19 during the period March-June. The work has been published as a letter to the editor in New England Journal of Medicine.

People who consume high levels of vitamin C and E in their diet may have a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease than people who get only small amounts of these nutrients, according to a new study from University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, and Karolinska Institutet. The study was published in Neurology.

Hi there Maria Fjell, researcher at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet who recently defended her thesis “Supportive care for patients with breast cancer by using an interactive app during neoadjuvant chemotherapy – a Randomized Controlled Trial”. What’s the main focus of the thesis?

Mikael Tiger, researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet has won his dispute with the Swedish Medical Products Agency over a fee exemption for a clinical trial. This follows an appeal lodged with the Supreme Administrative Court.

The Unit for Teaching and Learning (TL) has been commissioned to lead the project to develop an educational plan for KI. Carl Savage and Teresa Sörö are part of the project team that is currently formulating a joint starting point on learning at KI.

In some cases, immune cells in the lungs can contribute to worsening a virus attack. In a new study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet describe how different kinds of immune cells, called macrophages, develop in the lungs and which of them may be behind severe lung diseases. The study, which was published in Immunity, may contribute to future treatments for COVID-19, among other diseases.

Study shows that the legalization of abortion in Mexico City shows how access to legal and safe abortion reduces abortion-related morbidity such as bleeding.

Per Nilsson has been appointed deputy head of the Divison of Neurogeriatrics, NVS, starting December 1, 2020.

Margarita Mondaca at the Division of Occupational Therapy has been appointed deputy Programme Director (PD) for the Occupational Therapy Study Programme.

Small studies have suggested that a group of medications called RAS inhibitors may be harmful in persons with advanced chronic kidney disease, and physicians therefore often stop the treatment in such patients. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet now show that although stopping the treatment is linked to a lower risk of requiring dialysis, it is also linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular events and death. The results are published in The Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Hi Una Smailovic, PhD student at the Division of Clinical Geriatrics! On January 15 you will defend your thesis “Multimodal phenotyping of synaptic damage in Alzheimer’s disease : translational perspective with focus on quantitative EEG”. What’s the main focus of the thesis?

How the immune system adapts to pregnancies has puzzled scientists for decades. Now, findings from an international group of researchers, led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, reveal important changes that occur in the thymus to prevent miscarriages and gestational diabetes. The results are published in the journal Nature.

Marie Holmqvist, associate professor at the Clinical Epidemiology Division at the Department of Medicine Solna, are one of two who has been appointed Wallenberg Clinical Fellows 2020 award for her research project “Cancer in systemic rheumatic disease – occurrence, genetics, prediction and consequences”. The project studies why cancer is more common in patients with systemic rheumatic diseases and how we can predict which patients will develop cancer earlier, so we can intervene.

During the spring pandemic, the higher education sector, including Karolinska Institutet, received a temporary permit from the government to analyse covid-19 tests in connection with the increase in the spread of the infection. The number of analyses carried out increased rapidly, but now other operators have started up, which means that KI can go back to its regular laboratory activities. KI however still remains in a state of a preparedness to reorganize its operations should the need arise.

Two researchers at KI have been granted funding from the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg foundation with about 6 million SEK. The Foundation supports research in Social Sciences.

Associate professor and Research Group Leader Qiaolin Deng, at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, received up to 1.2 million SEK per year over five years (KI consolidator grant) and 2 million SEK per year over six years (VR consolidator grant).

Hi Sebastian Lindblom, PhD student at the Division of Physiotherapy! On January 8 you will defend your thesis “Understanding the links : the exploration of care transitions between hospital and continued rehabilitation in the home after stroke”. What’s the main focus of the thesis?

MTC awards 2020, is presented to the following recipients from the Head of Department Susanne Nylén.

For the first time, a new study shows that treatment with a progesterone receptor modulator is effective for treatment of typical symptoms such as irritability and depression in women suffering from PMDS. The study, which was conducted at Uppsala University, Karolinska Institutet and Umeå University, has been published in the medical journal American Journal of Psychiatry.

Rodrigo Fernandez Gonzalo at the Division of Clinical Physiology has received an exciting funding of 4,5 MSEK from the Swedish National Space Agency for his project investigating the mechanisms behind the changes in the skeletal muscle and the immune system induced by the lack of gravity.

Sophia Ceder and Klas Wiman and their colleagues at Department of Oncology-Pathology have together with researchers from Peter MacCallum Cancer Center, University of Melbourne, University of Cambridge and Aprea Therapeutics published a study in EMBO Molecular Medicine that provides novel understanding on the mechanisms of mutant p53 targeting compound APR-246.

Hi Sophie Gaber, PhD student at the Division of Occupational Therapy! On January 22 you will defend your thesis “The participation of older people with and without dementia in public space, through the lens of Everyday Technology use”. What’s the main focus of the thesis?

We wish to congratulate Victoria Menéndez-Benito at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, who has been awarded a two-year Strategic Mobility Grant from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF). This grant aims to increase personal mobility, knowledge transfer, and cross-fertilization between academia and industry.

Three researchers from Karolinska Institutet have been awarded grants from the Sjöberg Foundation, in total a sum of SEK 12 million. The foundation supports research with a focus on cancer, health and the environment.

Individuals with high ADHD-traits that do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis are less able to perform tasks involving attentional regulation or emotional control after a sleepless night than individuals with low ADHD-traits, a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging reports.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet report in the journal Nature that they have developed novel first-in-class inhibitors that compromise mitochondrial function in cancer cells. Treatment with the inhibitors stopped cancer cells from proliferating and reduced tumour growth in mice, without significantly affecting healthy cells.

As life expectancies rise, so does the risk of dementia. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now studied how an active, non-smoking lifestyle can influence this correlation. The results, which are published in PLOS Medicine, suggest that good cardiovascular health gradually decreases the risk of dementia.

In the search for new ways to treat the incurable eye disease glaucoma, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and St. Erik Eye Hospital have discovered more clues as to its pathogenesis. A new study shows how metabolic disturbance of the neurons coincide with raised pressure in the eye. In animal and cell models, rapamycin and pyruvate treatments were shown to have a protective effect. The study is published in the journal PNAS.

With the help of algorithms, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified markers that can differentiate between irritant eczema and contact allergy, two skin reactions that look similar but require different treatment. Their findings, which are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), support the further development of an alternative to today’s diagnostic patch tests.

Carin Lennartsson has been granted funding to collect data and research materials linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project is entitled “The Swedish Panel Study of Living Conditions of the Oldest Old – SWEOLD COVID-19”.

Stefan Swartling Peterson has been appointed Professor of Global Transformations of Health as of 1 January 2021.

Rosaria Galanti receives NOK 10 million from NordForsk. The grant is awarded for collaborative projects between Nordic and Baltic Countries concerning clinical and public health aspects of COVID-19, especially in combination with the use of tobacco such as smoking and snus.

The two used methods for detecting amyloid pathology in Alzheimer's disease give ambiguous results, with the risk of incorrect or delayed care interventions. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have found genetic explanations for the differences. The study is published in Molecular Psychiatry and may be important for more individual diagnostics and the development of future drugs.

The blood is the main source of studies on the immune system, despite the fact that most diseases are combated by immune cells in the body’s tissues. A new study from Karolinska Institutet and the University of Pennsylvania has identified which immune cells patrol the human body’s tissues and circulate back into the blood. The study, which is published in Cell, shows that not all T cells do this – some are found mostly in the blood where they constitute a unique part of our immune system.

Depressed children and teenagers have an increased risk of suffering from premature death and a wide range of illnesses later in life. That is according to a large observational study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The findings highlight the need to look for other potential diseases following childhood or adolescent depression. Other psychiatric conditions, such as anxiety and substance misuse, can explain part of the association. The study is published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Researchers at KI have received SEK 36,800,000 from the Swedish Research Council’s consolidator grant 2020. In total, SEK 217 million was distributed to 20 universities.

Samir El Andaloussi, researcher at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, has been awarded the 2020 European Research Council Consolidator Grant for the project “Release of engineered Extracellular vesicles for delivery of Biotherapeutics”.

On Thursday evening, 15 October, one of the highlights of the academic calendar took place – the annual installation ceremony for new professors at KI, this time both in Aula Medica and digitally. 14 new professors were installed, and new adjunct professors and visiting professors were also welcomed.

Four KI researchers are to receive funding from the Swedish Research Council and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) for interdisciplinary collaboration projects on corona and virus research in the call for applications “Project grant for cross-disciplinary collaboration between China and Sweden on corona and virus research”.

Infectious diseases doctor Katja Wyss’s thesis is the product of many years’ research on malaria in Sweden. With clinical data from almost 3,000 diagnosed cases over a twenty-year time span, Katja Wyss at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Medicine in Solna presents risk factors for malaria and new links between malaria and lymphoma – results that are of potential significance to people in many parts of the world.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have come one step closer toward understanding why some people become seriously ill or die from a common bacterium that leaves most people unharmed. In a study published in The Lancet Microbe, the researchers linked RNA mutations within the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis to invasive meningococcal disease, marking the first time a non-coding RNA in a bacterium has been linked to disease progression.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have succeeded in mapping the neuron types comprising the enteric nervous system in the intestine of mice. The study, which is published today in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience, also describes how the different neurons form during fetal development, a process that follows different principles to brain neurons.

The discovery of the hepatitis C virus is this year acknowledged by The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. It is now possible to detect the virus in blood and to provide an effective treatment for the infection. WHO wants to eliminate hepatitis C by 2030, but is this possible? We asked three researchers what they think.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet characterise a GTPase involved in ribosome biogenesis in mitochondria. The study, published in Nucleic Acid Research, reveals new details of a complex process that enables mitochondria to produce energy.

This year’s silver medals are awarded to professors Kristina Alexanderson and Roland Möllby. The medal recognises excellent efforts to support the activities of Karolinska Institutet and is awarded at the Diligence and Devotion ceremony.

Tânia Costa at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition is the receiver of the Dan Grandér Memorial Prize 2020 for the best doctoral thesis in the area of cancer research at Karolinska Institutet during 2019. With a comprehensive and yet focused thesis, spanning from molecular mechanisms to patient outcome, illuminating the role of PAK 4 in tumor development and prognosis.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet and the Helmholtz Diabetes Research Center shows that primary cilia, hair-like protrusions on endothelial cells inside vessels, play an important role in the blood supply and delivery of glucose to the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreatic islets. The findings are published in eLife and may be relevant for transplantation therapies in diabetes, as formation of functional blood vessels is important for the treatment to be successful.

The award recognises Professor Kivipelto’s more than 20 years of research into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia.

Hi there Linda Sturesson Stabel, PhD student at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Lifelong Learning in Health Care Contexts (LLiHCC), defending her doctoral thesis "Entrance to and advancement within the Swedish medical labour market for physicians with a medical degree from outside the European Union". What is it about?

Professor emeritius Jan Lindsten was awarded KI’s Culture Award during the KI Culture Day on December 2. He was awarded for his outstanding contributions to bridge science with culture at KI.