News archive

In March 2022, André Thunberg had his ISP seminar at the Department of Global Public Health. His research focuses on the prevalence and management of severe paediatric illness in Malawi. Besides his doctoral studies, André also works at Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital as a resident doctor.

End-stage liver disease (ESLD), including advanced liver cirrhosis and primary liver cancer, is the final stage of long-standing injury to the liver due to risk factors such as chronic viral hepatitis and alcoholic liver disease. There is a high disease burden and mortality globally, especially in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries such as Ghana, where the primary cause of HCC and cirrhosis is infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV).

The number of places in KI and Region Stockholm's clinical research schools has been increased by 27 % from 2022.

The call covers up to 17 grants for partial financing of doctoral education at KI that shall be used to pay for doctoral student’s salaries.

Friday May 20, doctoral student Daniel Helldén had his halftime seminar at the Department of Global Public Health. Using a Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Synergies Approach and interviews with stakeholders, Daniel aims to investigate the views and perceptions on the linkages between SDGs, different sectors and child health in Cambodia. Through machine learning, he also investigates non-health risk factors of morbidity from infectious diseases.

Microscopic colitis is the most recently recognized inflammatory condition of the large intestine in which abnormal reactions of the immune system cause inflammation of the inner lining of the colon. At present, more than 10,000 people in Sweden are estimated to be living with the disease. Previously, insufficient awareness and knowledge of microscopic colitis have led to underdiagnosis of the disorder, leaving patients untreated.

Hi Pernilla Sönnerfors, PhD student at the Division of Physiotherapy, NVS. On June 17 you will defend your thesis ”eHealth support for physical activity and exercise training in people with COPD”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

Hi Richeng Jiang, PhD student at the Division of Neurogeriatrics, NVS. On May 30 you will defend your thesis ”Interplay between autophagy and amyloid beta metabolism in Alzheimer’s disease”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

Hi Andrea Porserud, PhD student at the Division of Physiotherapy, NVS. On June 3 you will defend your thesis ”Taking physical rehabilitation after abdominal cancer surgery further – by enhanced recovery and physical activity”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

Hi Minh Tuan Hoang, PhD student at the Division of Clinical Geriatrics, NVS. On May 25 you will defend your thesis ”Health Inequalities in care for persons with dementia”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

Doctoral students can now receive a residence permit for doctoral studies for up to four years directly, instead of two years as before.

In a new thesis, Rickard Strandberg, PhD student at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, lays the foundations for a new natural history model for breast cancer. By taking advantage of available detailed screening cohorts, Rickard’s work includes three diverse applications of this model.

This newsletter is primarily addressed to doctoral students. The purpose is to inform about news and practical details regarding doctoral education at KI.

Are you a doctoral student and want help finding a mentor, or are you interested in becoming a mentor to a doctoral student?

Since 2008, doctoral students at KI are invited, soon after their thesis defence, to complete an anonymous survey, the Exit Poll. The about 80 % response rate is high, making it an important and useful tool for identifying areas for further development of KI’s doctoral education.

The deadline for applying to the research school in family medicine and primary care is prolonged until 18th of March.

The Employment Protection Act (“lagen om anställningsskydd”, LAS) is expected to change, which will affect the possibility of employing doctoral students using the employment status ‘doctoral student-L’.

Welcome to NorDoc's annual PhD conference which this year focuses on sustainability in health. A digital research school for doctoral students is being arranged in connection with the conference.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive and complex disorder that affects multiple parts of the brain but also other organ systems. Symptoms start gradually, sometimes with a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand. Tremor is common, and the disorder also commonly causes stiffness and slowing of movements. More than 10 million people worldwide are living with PD and the incidence increases dramatically with age.

Hi Irene Brusini, PhD student at the Division of Clinical Geriatrics, NVS. On March 25 you will defend your thesis ”Methods for the analysis and characterization of brain morphology from MRI images”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

The Department of Global Public Health (GPH) has got two new doctoral student representatives; Soha el Halabi and Katrine de Angeles. They represent the students in meetings and committees at the department and work to help and support new and existing doctoral students.

On the 3rd of March, doctoral student Vanda had her half-time seminar online via Zoom and in Widerströmska huset. Vanda is a Mozambican healthcare practitioner specialising as a pediatric surgeon in Spain and is now using her experiences from clinical work into research in her thesis titled:
‘Acute pediatric injury in a low-resource African setting during the COVID-19 pandemic: Insight on injury epidemiology and care from the largest hospitals of Mozambique’

Depression is a common and serious mental health condition. It causes a wide variety of symptoms, such as feeling hopeless and sad, and losing interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities. To be diagnosed with depression, symptoms must last for at least two consecutive weeks. At its worst, this mental condition can lead to suicide. It is a worldwide psychiatric illness with a wide range of ages of onset, and it occurs about twice as often in women than men.

It is estimated that more than 10% of the world’s population live with a psychiatric disorder, with significant impacts on health as well as major social, human rights and economic consequences in all countries of the world.

This newsletter is primarily addressed to doctoral students. The purpose is to inform about news and practical details regarding doctoral education at KI.

Places are advertised within the clinical research schools in family medicine and primary care, epidemiology, clinical therapy research and molecular medicine.

A research residency (forskar-ST) provides financial support for a period of research during a clinical residency, and can be applied for by doctoral students at KI on a residency programme within Region Stockholm.

Hi Malin Freidle, PhD student at the Division of Physiotherapy, NVS. On February 11 you will defend your thesis ”Motor and cognitive abilities in Parkinson’s disease with a brain activity perspective: performance at baseline and the effects of a balance training program”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

Welcome to Natalia Stathakarous's half-time seminar on Wednesday, 26 January 2022.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with its two main disease entities Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, is a chronic and relapsing inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. The highest prevalence of IBD is found in the Western world, and the lowest in developing countries.

Hi Emilia Schwertner, PhD student at the Division of Clinical Geriatrics, NVS. On January 21 you will defend your thesis ”Factors associated with behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

Mood and anxiety disorders are some of the biggest contributors to morbidity worldwide, and may be lethal. Appropriate treatment is therefore paramount and antidepressants is the first choice of pharmacological treatment for these disorders, with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) as the most common type in the Western world.

Hi Linn Öijerstedt, PhD student at the Division of Neurogeriatrics, NVS. On January 20 you will defend your thesis ”Biomarkers in frontotemporal dementia : findings from the GENFI study”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

Schizophrenia and eating disorders (EDs) are complex traits with considerable somatic and psychiatric morbidity, affecting 0.4-1% and 9% of the population, respectively. Risk for both is predominantly from genetic sources – 64-81% for schizophrenia and 41-83% for EDs. Despite distinct diagnostic criteria and few common symptoms, significant genetic correlations between schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa (AN) have been identified in several recent genomic studies.

This newsletter is primarily addressed to doctoral students. The purpose is to inform about news and practical details regarding doctoral education at KI.

Hi, Riccardo Lo Martire, PhD student at the Division of Physiotherapy, NVS. On January 14 you will defend your thesis ”Sickness absence among patients with chronic pain in Swedish specialist healthcare”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

Hi Anja Gebhardt, PhD student at the Division of Nursing. On December 15 you will defend your thesis ”Beyond exhaustion and pain: the intertwinement of health and suffering among women and mothers”. What is the main focus of the thesis?

Kidney function plays an important role in drug safety and effectiveness. As many medications are excreted by the kidneys, patients with reduced kidney function are at a higher risk of toxic drug levels. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) has been recognized as a leading public health problem worldwide with a global estimated prevalence over 9%.

If you began or will begin your doctoral education at any Swedish university between approximately January 2021 and April 2022 you are eligible to apply.

Pancreatic cancer forms in the cells of the pancreas, an organ in the abdomen that releases enzymes that aid digestion and produces hormones that help manage our blood sugar levels. Pancreatic cancer is a rare disease with poor survival – it causes some 466 000 deaths internationally per year. The number of cases is increasing and the prognosis is that this disease will become the 8th most common cause of cancer deaths by 2040.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, NPC, is a rare tumor of the head and neck, which originates in the nasopharynx at the very back of the nose. NPC has a particularly high incidence in southern China, Southeast Asia, and North and East Africa and is rare in the rest of the world. Little is known about its etiology but it is believed that genetic predisposition, environmental factors, and infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) are involved.

There is a global trend of population aging and Xia Li has studied the phenomena from a molecular epidemiological point of view, with a focus on biological aging. As the number of elderly increases worldwide, there is a need for better data on assessment and prediction of aging risks independent of chronological age. This kind of data is needed together with genetic assessments in order to allow the use of precision medicine.

Behavioral Informatics Team Leader Aleksandra Sjöström-Bujacz will be teaching a doctoral course on Multilevel Data Analysis in Spring 2022.

This newsletter is primarily addressed to doctoral students. The purpose is to inform about news and practical details regarding doctoral education at KI.

National restrictions are now lifted, and a transition is in progress from a pandemic situation into the “new normal”. The new normal is to combine being on campus with the experiences gleaned from remote working.

Eleven of the seventy reseachers that were granted funding in the 2021 KID Call at Karolinska Institutet are active at the Department of Medicine in Huddinge - Congratulations to all of you!

The course catalogue for the spring semester of 2022 is open for application until 15 November. As before, postdocs are also welcome to apply, and will be accepted if space is available.

Dr Nicolas Pejovic has been awarded this year’s Rolf Zetterstöm prize for best thesis in pediatrics. The award was presented at Karolinska Institutet during Barnveckan. In his doctoral thesis No cry at birth. Neaonatal resuscitation in low resource setting: role of the laryngeal mask airway, Dr Pejovic investigates how midwives in low-resource settings could safely resuscitate newborns more effectively using a laryngeal mask instead of a conventional facemask.

Chair of the doctoral course and programme committee Erika Franzén share her thoughts about the impact on doctoral education at KI when national pandemic restrictions are lifted on 29th September.

Academic Vice President for Doctoral Education Robert (Bob) Harris and chair of the doctoral course and programme committee Erika Franzén share their thoughts about the impact on doctoral education at KI when national pandemic restrictions are lifted on 29th September.