News archive

65 researchers at Karolinska Institutet received KID-funding in the call 2024, and twleve of these are active researchers at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH).

We are diving into a new season of NeurotechEU events for students and staff at the Karolinska Institute.

Are you a programme student at Karolinska Institutet and want to help shape the image of KI for future students? Participate in a short online interview and receive a cinema ticket as compensation.

The location for incoming and outgoing post has been moved and there are new delivery points for packages in Neo.

Professor Eleni Aklillu, GH-Pharma research group leader at the Department of Global Public Health, is leading the coordination of the EU MAV+ project in Rwanda. Sweden is part of the Team Europe initiative with a total budget of €10 million, managed by Sida.

On 29 November, University Director Veronika Sundström held a digital staff meeting for KI's operational services (PS). The meeting covered developments within KI's prioritised focus areas, risk and impact assessments of the decision to reorganise PS, and the status of the project to modernise the PS workplace and working methods. Below is a summary of the information shared.

We congratulate Johan Bjureberg on receiving almost SEK 20 million from VR Behandlingsforskning for the study Preventing Suicide With Safe Alternatives for Teens and Youths (SAFETY): A Randomized Clinical Trial of a Psychosocial Intervention.

The Committee for Doctoral Education at Karolinska Institutet has granted five KID grants to the Division of Neuro (Department of Clinical Neuroscience) for projects focusing on multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease.

The Committee for Research at Karolinska Institutet has granted a total of SEK 1.8 million to the Karolinska Neuroimmunology and Multiple sclerosis network (KNIMS), a consortium of preclinical and clinical scientists who share a common aim to improve the understanding, treatment and healthcare of neuroinflammatory diseases with a special focus on Multiple Sclerosis.

Our goal is for RESPI to continue improving to provide the best possible support. Therefore, we now want to hear our users' opinions on the website, which can give us valuable input for the continued development of RESPI.

Two researchers at the Aging Research Center (ARC) are recipients of the Swedish Research Council’s Project Grant 2024 and will receive funding for the period 2025-2027.

Researchers in Israel have found that (HBOT) may alleviate PTSD, a mental health condition affecting many after traumatic events.

On 24 January 2025, we are organising KI:s Welcome Day. As a KI student, you can apply for the job of Event Host. You will work during the Welcome Day ceremony and fair.

The first annual consortium meeting of the BREEDIME project was recently held in Zanzibar, attracting around 40 participants. Over the two-day event, attendees discussed project milestones, achievements, challenges, and future plans.

Last week, several members of FyFa attended the Metabolism in Action conference, hosted by Novo Nordisk and organized by the Novo Nordisk Foundation Science Cluster. The event brought together leading cardiometabolic researchers and junior scientists to discuss groundbreaking advancements in the field.

Tips from Grants Office regarding current calls

Following a decision taken by KI president Annika Östman Wernerson on 26 November, the Medical History and Heritage Unit (MHK) will be integrated with the Karolinska Institutet University Library (KIB) on 1 January, becoming its own division and with the same management as before.

KI professor Carl Johan Sundberg has been awarded the newly instituted FFF Hall of Fame Prize for his efforts to make science accessible to the public and develop science communication.

IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD) is a rare autoimmune disease. A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine by the MITIGATE study team found that the drug inebilizumab reduced disease activity and was effective in preventing flares. The drug may therefore be a promising treatment option for the disease.

The Swedish Research Council has decided which applications have been awarded grants in clinical therapy research. In total, more than SEK 233 million will be granted for the years 2024-2027, of which SEK 98.5 million will be awarded to 13 researchers at Karolinska Institutet.

Karolinska Institutet was honoured in October by a visit from Professor Brian Hodges, the 2016 KIPRIME recipient. The award, which is given in recognition of achievements in medical education research, has been of profound significance to him, and now he was in Sweden to open next year’s KIPRIME Fellows, an initiative devised to cultivate the next generation of prize-winners.

Emotional body odors may have the potential to enhance the anxiety reducing effects of mindfulness. This is shown by a pilot study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, co-authored by researchers from Karolinska Institutet.

New research from Karolinska Institutet shows that long-term sex hormone treatment in transgender individuals can lead to significant changes in body composition and risk factors for cardiovascular disease, particularly in transgender men. The study is published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

The Board of Sven and Ebba-Christina Hagberg's foundation has decided to award Bahira Shahim and David Marlevi the foundations personal prize and a research grant, for a total of SEK 650,000 each. The prize will be awarded at the annual Installation Ceremony at the Karolinska Institutet in October 2025.

Clarivate has unveiled its 2024 list of Highly Cited Researchers, recognizing individuals whose work has had significant global influence in their fields. Petter Brodin is one of them.

Welcome to Shizhen He's presentation of his thesis ”Biological mechanisms behind health effects of air pollution exposure from childhood to adulthood”.

The August Prize in the non-fiction category goes to Christian Rück, professor of psychiatry, for “Ett liv värt att leva. Varför självmord blev människans följeslagare” (A life worth living. Why suicide became man's companion). According to the jury, the book is written with ‘a liberating self-evidence’.

Following a reorganisation of the recycling bins in the Neo lunchroom, the amount of residual waste has been halved. This means that less waste is incinerated and more is recycled.

Hi Giulia Lorenzon, doctoral student at the division of clinical geriatrics. On December 18 yu will defend your thesis ”Brain heterogeneity within aging and cognitive impairment : implications for precision medicine and prevention”. What is the main focus of the thesis?

This year’s KI Christmas card is now available for download as a PDF. You can fill in a personal message and send it via email.

Clarivate has unveiled its 2024 list of Highly Cited Researchers, recognizing individuals whose work has had significant global influence in their fields.

Laura Covill from the Hematology Unit/HERM, at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH), is defending her thesis titled "Genetic and epigenetic diagnostics of viral susceptibility and inborn errors of immunity", on 29 November, 2024. Main supervisor is Yenan Bryceson (MedH).

Karolinska Institutet collaboration with Rockefeller University, which includes short-term staff and postdoc training exchanges, as well as the Nicholson Lecture. Calls are now open and Nicholson Lecture with Professor Luciano Marraffini will be held on Thursday.

Two roads on the Solna campus were renamed in September. Retzius väg is now Blombäcks väg after Margareta Blombäck and Birger Blombäck. Von Eulers väg is now Liljestrands väg, in honour of Göran Liljestrand. The change of name is part of the general review of the names of roads, halls and monuments that began at KI a few years ago.

Women who suffer severe complications during their first pregnancy or delivery are less inclined to have more babies, a study published in JAMA by researchers at Karolinska Institutet reports. Given the recent steady decline in birth rate in Sweden, the researchers propose monitoring in antenatal care to address the problem.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been granted SEK 5.6 million from the Swedish Research Council for a research project to improve person-centered care, patient safety, teamwork and communication in maternity care.

A new thesis from Karolinska Institutet shows the effectiveness of flexible parametric survival models in modelling multiple time-scales, providing a robust tool for complex time-to-event data analysis. The models were tested in the context of myeloproliferative neoplasms, a group of chronic hematologic malignancies in which the bone marrow makes too many red blood cells, white blood cells, or platelets.

The agreement with the occupational health service Avonova is now finalised and valid from October 1, 2024, to October, 1 2028, with the possibility of two extensions of two years each. For questions about the agreement, please contact Ia G Wallgren at the central HR Office.

We look forward to a long-term collaboration with Avonova, where the health promotion work is in focus.

Apply for a fun and paid extra job as a blogger for the Study Abroad Blog, where you share your journey and experiences on the blog and on Instagram.

More and more students are leaving school with incomplete grades or without qualifications for upper-secondary education. This trend needs to be broken, but how? One way could be through creativity, which was the topic of lectures and discussions at a recent conference in Aula Medica for researchers and decision-makers in the field of education and school development. Minister for Education Johan Pehrson spoke on the importance of teaching methods that reflect pedagogical research.

Karin Belander Strålin from the Hematology Unit/HERM, at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH), is defending her thesis titled "Hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell fate decisions during fetal development", on 29 November , 2024. Main supervisor is Sten Eirik W. Jacobsen (MedH).

Congratulations to Anna Lundh, who has been awarded the Matts Halldin Prize 2024. The prize is presented by the Opuscula Medica association at Södersjukhuset, which aims to promote research, development, education, and innovation.

Makerere University in Uganda and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have been collaborating for nearly 25 years. On November 11th 2024 they celebrated their successful partnership during an alumni event at Makerere University's College of Health Sciences in Kampala, Uganda. The event highlighted their achievements, including a joint doctoral program that has supported nearly 50 Makerere doctoral students, many earning double degrees, and the publication of over 500 peer-reviewed articles.

Karolinska Institutet awards grants from a large number of foundations and from donations. The foundations & donations award research and travel grants.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital have developed a microscopy method that enables detailed three-dimensional (3D) RNA analysis at cellular resolution in whole intact mouse brains. The new method, called TRISCO, has the potential to transform our understanding of brain function, both in normal conditions and in disease, according to a study in Science.

Welcome to Lara Stucki's presentation of her thesis ”Multiple environmental factors and cardiovascular disease”.

Tips from Grants Office regarding current calls

Doctoral students and others showcased their achievments during the Advances in Health Care Sciences 2024 conference held at ANA23, campus Flemingsberg on November 14-15.

Tobias Alfven attended session on COP29 in Azerbaijan focusing health and climate action, to present a report on the effects of climate change on child health and well-being. The session emphasized the urgent need to recognize the climate crisis as a health crisis, particularly for children, who are disproportionately affected due to their unique vulnerabilities from pregnancy through adolescence

After severe heart failure, the ability of the heart to heal by forming new cells is very low. However, after receiving treatment with a supportive heart pump, the capacity of a damaged heart to repair itself with new muscle cells becomes significantly higher, even higher than in a healthy heart. This is according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in the journal Circulation.