News archive

We want to welcome Jialiang Sun Wang to our lab. Jialiang is a PhD student from University of Barcelona. He is coming to our lab for a short stay to learn the ChIPseq technique. We are looking forward to a great discussion and collaboration ahead. Welcome Jialiang!

A preclinical study from Karolinska Institutet offers hope for treating severe neurodegenerative diseases with an existing drug. The study suggests that the leprosy drug clofazimine may be effective in the treatment of Huntington’s disease.

In an article published in Nature, researchers from Karolinska Institutet present an atlas of the early development of the brain. The atlas can be used, among other things, to find out what went wrong in the development of brain tumors in children and also to find new treatments.

Last Friday, 150 new KI doctors and two honorary doctors were presented with their academic awards at a formal ceremony in Stockholm City Hall. The evening was one of stirring entertainment, academic tradition – and an academic vice president in a Barbra Streisand wig.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet may have found a new way to treat obesity and related disorders by targeting the cells’ powerhouses, the mitochondria. A study published in Nature Metabolism shows that a specific class of drugs that block mitochondrial function can reverse diet-induced obesity, fatty liver and diabetes in mice.

The Internationalisation Board has set aside SEK 200,000 for activities or projects that promote internationalisation at home for education at the undergraduate and advanced level.

Karolinska Institutet (KI) and Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité) have entered into a bilateral agreement. The Internationalisation Board at KI is pleased to announce the availability of limited competitive funds for KI faculty and staff for grant applications to strengthen collaborative interactions within research and education.

We are looking for students to join us in welcoming all new students starting at KI this fall semester of 2024. There are many roles and shifts available for you to get involved. Take this opportunity to meet new people and at the same time earn some extra money. Read more about the different opportunities and how to apply below.

How is the University Alliance Stockholm Trio working to influence the EU's research agenda and what potential impact will the EU election have on research and education in Europe? We asked three questions to Dan Andrée, senior advisor at the university alliance's office in Brussels.

Researchers at the Thoracic Surgery research group, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, have performed a study of patients who underwent bioprosthetic aortic valve replacement in Sweden between 2003 and 2018.
The study is published in JAMA Network Open and shows varying performance between different mechanical cardiac valves.

New parents were in focus when the KI Impact Challenge was arranged on a weekend, a student event to promote innovation. More than 40 students worked over two days on the challenge of improving parents' health and well-being.

For the 12th Tissue and Motion Conference, Karolinska Institutet researchers returned to Djurönäset Hotel on 16th-17th April 2024 to discuss research, network, and enjoy Stockholm’s archipelago.

Around 200 people from near and far gathered to celebrate FyFa 75 years on Tuesday 23 April. The day was characterised by togetherness, strategic and visionary talks, good food, and a positive outlook on the future.

Tips from KI Grants Office regarding current calls

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a web-based platform that provides a whole new insight into the human body at the cellular level. The aim is to create an invaluable resource for researchers worldwide to increase knowledge about human health and disease. The study is published in Genome Biology.

On 25 April it was eight years since Ahmadreza Djalali, Swedish citizen and doctor of disaster medicine at Karolinska Institutet, was arrested while on a visit to Iran. Karolinska Institutet’s president, Annika Östman Wernerson, and vice-president, Martin Bergö, have written an open letter to Sweden’s minister for foreign affairs and minister for education, calling on them to use all means available to increase the pressure on Iran to free Dr Djalali and other Swedish citizens.

Dominika Radziun, a former PhD student at Karolinska Institutet, and currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Institute, The Netherlands, has recently been awarded one of the five Glushko Dissertation Prizes for her doctoral thesis entitled "Body perception and brain plasticity in blind and sighted individuals".

This summer, the 27th Nordic Congress of Gerontology will take place. The theme this year is “Ageing in a Transforming World,” and the congress will be held from June 12 to 14, arranged by Karolinska Institutet (KI). It has been 20 years since it was last held in Stockholm, and the most recent time it was in Sweden was in 2014 in Gothenburg.

Cloud-based personal health records are on the rise globally. This article series introduces the concept of a GPOC of PHRs, consisting of five parts, with the current article focusing on systematic review and meta-analysis. It scrutinizes technical, computer scientific, and security-based prerequisites, analyzing twelve factors including data security, efficiency, cost, integrity, cryptography, and access.

Do you use clean water?

An international research team, led by Tibor Harkany and Robert Schnell at Karolinska Institutet and MedUni Vienna's Center for Brain Research, set out to find ways of influencing hormone release to reduce stress reactions in post-traumatic stress disorder. They came across secretagogin, which regulates the release of some of the most fundamental and indispensable neurotransmitters and hormones.

In a study recently published in Nature, an international research team led by Karolinska Institutet and MedUni Vienna, addressed how and why acute heat exposure, in conditions reminiscent of a sauna session or limited exposure to the sun, leads to reduced food intake.

Neuropeptides, which are broadly considered to modulate synaptic communication, can have unique and life-long effects on brain development, particularly the wiring of neuronal circuits. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and MedUni Vienna now show that the presence of the neuropeptide galanin during a critical window of brain development is imperative for neurons to connect efficaciously to one another. The study is published in in Nature Communications.

The 2024 Karolinska Comprehensive Cancer Centre Day draw a large number of experts in the field of cancer research from KI and Karolinska University Hospital. The theme this year was prevention, with particular attention directed to scientific advances and remaining challenges, as well as to how involving patients in prevention enhances quality of care.

The Berzelius Medal in gold from the Swedish Chemical Society is 2024 awarded to Roman Zubarev, professor of medical proteomics at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Karolinska Institutet.

Davide Liborio Vetrano has received EU funding in the context of Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Networks for his project entitled "UnderstandiNg fraIlty tOwards a future of healthy ageing (UNION)". The European Commission funds research and innovation projects to boost top researchers' careers through mobility and innovative doctoral and postdoctoral training. The project will start in 2025 and Davide Liborio Vetrano is the Principal Investigator at Karolinska Institutet.

From 15.00 on April 30 and on May 1, the KI Housing office will be closed for the celebration of Walpurgis and the 1st of May Holiday.

The large hall at Münchenbryggeriet in Stockholm was buzzing with life on Friday morning 12 April when general physicians from all over Sweden practiced mass casualty management and triage, using the simulation exercise AnTriEx, which is developed and instructed by the research group Global Disaster Medicine - Health Needs and Responses at KI.

The Department of Physiology and Pharmacology is celebrating 75 years since its royal inauguration on the Solna campus. But FyFa's history goes further back than that - and looks forward to many years of community and outstanding research and teaching. On 23 April, the department celebrates with a full day of lectures and a Dragons’ Den.

Region Stockholm and Karolinska Institutet (KI) have the common goal of improving dental care in the Stockholm County through research and development. The steering group KI/Region Stockholm for dental research (SOF) announces funding for clinical dental research.

The Swedish Government has decided that Karolinska Institutet may return the Finnish remains in KI's anatomical collection. The issue of returning the Finnish remains was raised by the committee for the return of Finnish remains in 2018. KI has been working towards this possibility for a long time.

During Kulturnatt Stockholm (Culture Night) on 20 April, The Cell opened to visitors. The Cell is a place where art helps to explain the complex world of life science. The National Museum of Science and Technology is responsible for the initiative and Karolinska Institutet is involved as a knowledge partner and a bridge between the world of research and the public events at The Cell.

Tips from KI Grants Office about current calls.

Are you tormented by an exaggerated fear of harming your child? Relax – it’s common and research shows that it’s also treatable.

Following extensive investment in custom-built facilities, the Small Molecule Mass Spectrometry Core Facility (KI-SMMS), is operating at full speed as of Fall 2023.

This is a summary of the digital information meeting that prof Maria Eriksdotter, head of the project steering group, together with the departmental heads of MedH and BioNut held on 16 April addressing all staff at BioNut and MedH. President of KI, Annika Östman Wernerson and University Director, Veronika Sundström also joined the meeting for dialogue and questions.

After 4 semesters with committed participants, the leadership development program FAL Nord (Future Academic Leaders Nord) has now ended. Kristiina Tammimies from KBH participated and has brought valuable knowledge with her to her current and future leadership.

April 15 was the last day to apply for programmes starting in the autumn term 2024. By the end of the day, more than 23 000 people had applied for a programme or independent course at Karolinska Institutet. KI also achieved high rankings in a new survey on students' dream workplace.

Last Friday, 12 April, the internal investigators looking into the freezer malfunction that occurred in the Neo building over the 2023 Christmas break presented their report. The researchers and personnel most affected were invited to a staff meeting where, among others, Dean of KI South Matti Sällberg and Chief Security Officer Magnus Håkansson, who led the investigation, gave an account of their findings.

Hi Malin Aspö, doctoral student at the Division of Clinical Geriatrics. On May 3 you will defend your thesis "Life changing moments - transitions and critical points in young-onset dementia". What is the main focus of the thesis?

Bacterial meningitis is a devastating infectious disease because, even when cured, most survivors live with permanent neurological disabilities such as motor impairment, cognitive delay, hearing and vision loss, seizures, and psychiatric disorders, due to neuronal damage caused by the infection. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now revealed new insights into the mechanisms of bacterial brain invasion and neuronal damage during bacterial meningitis.

The SciLifeLab bioinformatics platform (NBIS) arranges weekly drop-in sessions, open for anyone doing academic research with questions about bioinformatics.

The theme was sustainability.
Deans of dental programmes, education and research managers from universities in Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland gathered for the second Nordic Dean Meeting here in Sweden. The programme included lectures on sustainability and group discussions that resulted in cross-border collaborations.

Professor Emeritus Gunnar Bjursell received the Bernadotte Award on 10 April. He is awarded the prize for his many years of research and major educational efforts on cultural engagement and its effects on the brain, well-being and health.

On April 1, Mattias Carlsten and his research group moved from Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH) to the Department of Laboratory Medicine (Labmed).

Microsoft recently adjusted the storage volume included in the user licences that apply to Swedish higher education institutions.

Several of KI’s programmes include on-site training as one of the teaching methods. On-site training is sometimes called VFU, which is the abbreviation of the Swedish term, and was previously known as clinical education. We asked two KI students, physiotherapy student Elin and psychology student Jonas, what it’s like to do on-site training and what to think about before going on your first placement.

Time flies and we are already halfway through the spring term 2024. Courses run as usual, although there is a new, minor involvement for MBB in the three-week course Medical Scientific Theory and Methodology in term 6 of the medical programme (Björn Högberg).

As the current Director of doctoral education at NVS, Erik Sundström, chooses to step down as Director, in connection with his retirement in August 2024, a new Director of doctoral education has now been appointed. It will be Ulrica Nilsson, professor at the Division of Nursing - who has been the deputy Director of doctoral education in recent years - who will now take on the role of Director of Studies. By her side, she will have Grégoria Kalpouzos, docent at the Department of ARC.

A lorry explodes on the E4 motorway, there is a fire at the Hovet arena, someone takes hostages at Tom Titts, there's an explosion at Arlanda - it all happens at the same time and the medical services in Region Stockholm have to deal with a large number of injured patients at once. Fortunately, it was all just an exercise. The exercise, which is part of the TKS course, now aims to be developed into a national course concept.