News archive

A new thesis from Karolinska Institutet focuses on cancer prevention by investigating the factors and outcomes associated with false-positive mammography recalls, a fairly common event where women are called back for additional tests after an initial screening, but no cancer is detected during the follow-up. A second aim of the thesis was to further our understanding of the association between breast cancer risk factors in women and cancer risk among their relatives, particularly sisters.

KI and Karolinska University Hospital have signed a memorandum of understanding with Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, one of Europe’s largest and most eminent university hospitals and medical universities. The signing of the MoU intensifies cooperation between the organisations.

First the hot dogs – then the diplomas, speeches, fanfares and applause. Tradition prevailed on 12 October as 17 new professors were ceremoniously installed at KI.

The survival rate in lung cancer has increased considerably, albeit from low levels. Oncologist Simon Ekman wants to contribute to better treatments in the future by studying two problems in lung cancer: drug resistance and brain metastases.

Global Child Health and Sustainable Development Goals group member Anna-Theresia Ekman had her halftime seminar October 9 for her PhD project titled: Prevalence, associated risk factors, and early detection of developmental delay and disabilities among young children living in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Tobias Alfvén researches to improve the health of the world’s children. His research ranges from studies on clinical improvements to organisational issues on how to conduct development collaborations in society.

The immune system of individual organs may be something entirely different from the immune system that circulates the blood. Niklas Björkström is conducting research into the immune system of, among other things, the liver and the uterus.

Computer games and social media are designed to draw us in and keep us engaged – something that can be particularly difficult for people with neuropsychiatric disorders. Lisa B. Thorell researches ADHD and the link between digital media and mental health problems.

Peter Bergman is charting mechanisms of the nonspecific immune system and the genetics behind immunodeficiency diseases. His research on endogenous antibiotics can give rise to new treatments to combat multidrug-resistant bacteria.

Mattias Lissing from the Gastroenterology and Rheumatology Unit, at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH) is defending his thesis: "Liver transplantation, cancer risk and comorbidity in acute porphyria" on 20 October 2023. Main supervisor is Staffan Wahlin (MedH).

On October 5, the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet organized a roundtable discussion on the political economy of adolescent mental health and well-being in Sweden. Around thirty key stakeholders contributed to an afternoon of discussion, insightful perspectives and to building bridges for collaboration.

It began with a text message in the early hours of the morning. A few hours later he was on a plane to Morocco, reading the first reports and trying to start a secondary data analysis of the situation. Within the 48 hours after the earthquake, he was in the most affected region. He had barely gotten back from that mission, when he was asked to go to Libya and to do the same thing all over again, this time in a heavily flooded town.

Chewing gum, acupressure, vaccine. There have been numerous attempts to stop nausea. We have interviewed the researchers who are examining an important revolutionary mechanism that makes us feel sick.

A team of researchers from Karolinska Institutet and University of Glasgow has developed a new test that can accurately measure biological aging in a clinical setting. The discovery was made while studying patients for the aging effects of chronic kidney disease.

In two parallel projects, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been involved in creating the most comprehensive atlases of human brain cells to date. The two studies, which are published in Science, provide clues on different brain diseases and give hope for medical advancements in the future, such as new cancer drugs.

Mattias Günther, an anaesthetist at Södersjukhuset and researcher at Karolinska Institutet, is interviewed in Radio Sweden P1's Kropp och Själ (Body and Soul) and explains, among other things, how to stop heavy or hard-to-reach bleeding using a balloon called REBOA.

Occupational exposure limits (OELs) for chemicals are based on 8 hours of work per day, 5 days per week, day time. However, many people have ”unusual” working hours, i.e. work more than 8 hours per shift, more than 40 hours per week, or at night. The Nordic Expert Group (NEG) has reviewed the scientific support for combined effect of unusual working hours (shift work or extended working hours) and chemical exposure.

Marcus Carlsson is using magnetic resonance imaging in cases of heart failure – to understand the disease better in all its forms and to match the right treatment to the right patient.

Hi there Federico Triolo! You are soon to defend your thesis entitled "Depression and chronic diseases in old age: understanding their interplay for better health". What is the main focus?

In his research, Ulrik Kihlbom dissects ethical healthcare issues, often those concerning the patient perspective and powers of decision-making, as a means of improving healthcare guidelines.

With only six years left until 2030 when the Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved, this year's Sustainability Forum was organised with a focus on the role of universities in sustainability work. The organisers were the University Alliance Stockholm Trio. 

Dementia diseases cost society around SEK 80 billion per year, according to Linus Jönsson’s calculations. With his research on health economics, he hopes to help make the utilisation of healthcare resources as effective as possible.

Anders Svenningsson has laid the groundwork for the evidence-based use of the substance rituximab in the treatment of MS, leading to better health for the patients and lower costs for society.

Studying signalling within cells can predict the risk of adverse drug reactions of novel obesity and type II diabetes treatments before they reach the patient, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in Nature Communications.

KI researchers Gunnar Nilsson and John Skår are awarded this year's silver medal. The medal is awarded to people who have made excellent efforts in support of KI's activities. The researchers will receive their medals at the ceremony for Diligence and Devotion in February 2024.

Karin Jensen uses brain imaging to understand why chronic pain occurs and what happens in the body when placebo, the patient's positive expectations, affect the outcome of a treatment.

Volker Lauschke uses three-dimensional models of human organs to study drug candidates and disease mechanisms. The models are called spheroids and when combined can provide answers as to how organs influence each other in health and disease.

Treatments that boost the immune system help some cancer patients, but not others. Andreas Lundqvist researches the causes of these differences in order to help make existing therapies more effective and to enable the development of new ones.

Professor Agneta Åkesson, Institute of Environmental Medicin (IMM) has been elected to the The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the National committee on Nutrition and Food Science.

Gabriel Oniscu is increasing access to organs for transplantation by using a technique that makes it possible to preserve, evaluate and improve organs outside the body before they are transplanted into the recipient.

Dementia and stroke often cause problems with speaking and swallowing. Speech and language pathologist Per Östberg researches ways to improve our understanding of these problems and facilitate their treatment.

Better psychological treatments based on science – this is what Emily Holmes is passionate about. Her research concerns how we think and remember in mental images, and developing new treatments based on this knowledge. Among other things, Holmes’ group has developed methods for reducing the risk of intrusive memories (also known as flashbacks) soon after trauma.

Zaher Elbeck from ICMC at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH) is defending his thesis: "Redox and epigenetic modulators regulate cardiac function and remodeling in health and disease", 16 October 2023. Main supervisor is Christer Betsholtz (MedH).

Advanced surgery saves the life of children born with serious malformations of the gastrointestinal tract. Tomas Wester researches the risk of residual problems and the health outcomes for these patients.

The Swedish Childhood Tumor Biobank is a nationally established genomic biobank infrastructure in the field of childhood cancer that works to promote research on childhood tumors. Within the Genomic Medicine Sweden (GMS) Child Cancer project, the Swedish Childhood Tumor Biobank at KI and the Department of Oncology-Pathology receive SEK 5.13 million from the government.

The human sense of smell is both well-developed and important to our health. Johan Lundström is trying to unpack a sense that has long been neglected by science.

A recently published study shows how nanoclusters of insulin can control insulin activity. The results can lead to new types of insulin drugs, senior author Ana Teixeira at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics (MBB) at Karolinska Institutet, says.

We wish to congratulate Professor Eckardt Treuter, at the Department of Biosciences and Nutriton, Karolinska Institutet, who has received the Novo Nordisk Foundation Project Grant in Endocrinology & Metabolism 2023, for a project on "Role of monocyte enhancers and silencers in inflammatory type 2 diabetes" (2 years, DKK 2 million).

On 22nd September 2023, KI celebrated the postgraduates from Saudi Arabia who have completed KI:s Course in Clinical Specialization in Orthodontics.

Researchers' Grand Prix is a competition where researchers from Swedish universities compete to see who can make the most engaging and easy-to-understand presentation of their research in just four minutes. The competitions are part of the science festival ForskarFredag. Johanna Mayer at the Division of Neurogeriatrics, NVS, won the Stockholm semi-final in the Researchers' Grand Prix on Friday 29 September. Now she is looking forward to the national final, which will take place on November 23.

On the 5th Wednesday after the start of each semester, Medicinska Föreningen's Sports Committee at KI organizes Sports Day for all students.

In autumn 2022, KI students had the opportunity to answer a survey about their experiences of and risks of discrimination and harassment. The results point to the need for more knowledge and active measures linked to lack of accessibility, discrimination and harassment in the study environment. This applies in particular to ethnicity and gender in connection with On-site training (VFU/VIL). KI is now working to strengthen its work with equal opportunities for all students.

Hi there Xin Xia! You are about to defend your thesis entitled “Cardiovascular Health, Orthostatic Hypotension, and Cognitive Aging”. Could you tell us a little bit more?

Hi Michael Axenhus, PhD student at the Division of Neurogeriatrics. On October 20 you will defend your thesis ”Characterization of proteins involved in disease progression in Alzheimer disease”, what is the main focus of the thesis?

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded this year to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, whose research gave rise to effective mRNA vaccines that contained the COVID pandemic and saved millions of lives. A well-deserved honour, according to Karolinska Institutet.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends infants to be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life to achieve optimal growth, development, and health. But in some contexts, such as in a humanitarian emergency, adopting and maintaining optimal breastfeeding practices could be challenging. Unpacking what the challenges and opportunities of breastfeeding support in humanitarian emergencies are, and how to conduct such support effectively, is the topic of Nieves Amat Camacho’s PhD.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the University of Oslo present a new type of immunotherapy that attacks cancer cells with a specific mutation. A study published in the journal Nature Cancer shows promising effects on patient cells in mice and offers hope for patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), a cancer that has proven difficult to treat.

The yearly StratNeuro retreat gathers neuroscience researchers from Karolinska Institutet, Umeå University, and the Royal Institute of Technology for a couple of days of networking and getting up to date with the latest research from across the spectrum of neuroscience topics aligning with the interests that the StratNeuro constellation represents. This year, our retreat took place on the 29th and 30th of May, at Djurönäset, in a picturesque location by the Stockholm archipelago.

Ángela Amorós Molina is a former Global Health master student who was invited to present at Rowan University that has hosted a workshop series about teaching and research on the Sustainable Development Goals. Her paper Integrating the United Nations sustainable development goals into higher education globally: a scoping review, sparked the workshop participants to reflect on the importance of raising awareness among the students of the role of the SDGs and increase their presence in university.

We congratulate Professor Anna Martling, Research Group for Colorectal Surgery, Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, who has been appointed an honorary member of the European Society of Coloproctology (ESCP).