News archive

Inflammatory diseases have complex disease mechanisms that can differ from patient to patient with the same diagnosis. This means that currently available drugs have little effect on many patients. Using so-called digital twins, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now obtained a deeper understanding of the “off and on” proteins that control these diseases. The study, which is published in Cell Reports Medicine, can lead to more personalised drug therapies.

Child obesity is linked to increased risk of developing diabetes in adulthood, both autoimmune forms of diabetes and different forms of type 2 diabetes, a new study published in Diabetologia reports. The risk of developing the most insulin-resistant form of diabetes is, for example, three times as high in children with obesity.

An online anonymous cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) treatment program for individuals with a sexual interest in children showed good results in an English language pilot study. Now the CBT program for crime prevention also opens in Swedish, German, and Portuguese. The treatment program, which has been developed by researchers and psychologists at Karolinska Institutet, will be evaluated within the framework of an international research collaboration funded by the EU.

StratNeuro announces grants for Collaborative Neuroscience Research Projects.

The StratNeuro Visiting Scholars funding aims to attract outstanding scholars from non-Swedish universities for short-term visits (1-6 months long). This call aims to support new international collaborations and scientific exchange within the Karolinska Institutet Neuroscience community. We encourage applications for Visiting Scholars from our NeurotechEU partner universities. For the Visiting Scholar this is an opportunity to engage with neuroscientists at the Karolinska Institutet.

KI is launching a new podcast: The PAPERs podcast. Every week you will drop into the conversation between four hosts who discuss articles addressing health professions education. While the content is rigorous, the hosts offer accessible insights with lighthearted style, making this podcast regular listening for many scholars’.

A Swedish study which followed more than 450,000 individuals after lower or upper gastrointestinal biopsy, suggests that symptoms of IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) may start significantly before disease shows up on biopsy. The results were published in the open access journal PLOS Medicine on Feb 23.

Ole Petter Ottersen has been president of Karolinska Institutet for five and a half years. At the end of this month, February 2023, he will be leaving his office for the last time. Of all he has seen and done during this time, one day is particularly memorable.

As air pollution in Stockholm has decreased, so has the lung capacity of children and adolescents has improved, a new study published in the European Respiratory Journal reports. The researchers from Karolinska Institutet consider the results important, since the lung health of the young greatly affects the risk of their developing chronic lung diseases later in life.

Women with rheumatic diseases are at greater risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, but for women with axial spondyloarthritis the risks have decreased over the last ten years, according to a register study from Karolinska Institutet. This decrease coincided with an increased use of biologic drugs during the same period. The study was published in The Lancet Rheumatology.

The first detailed description of the microbiota and immune cells among asymptomatic Helicobacter pylori-infected individuals has been published by researchers at Karolinska Institutet. The results of the study will be instrumental to understand the complex microbiome and immunity network and provide new insights for asymptomatic Helicobacter pylori infection.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been looking at how movement shapes our senses and how sensory and motor processes are both affected in Parkinson’s disease. In a study published in Nature Communications, de la Torre-Martinez et al, show that movement reduces the responses to sensory input and that both sensory and motor processes are altered in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease.

The regulations for which categories of international students and researchers can be offered accommodation from Swedish universities have recently changed. A new ordinance gives all universities the opportunity to offer housing to selected groups of students and researchers. However, this means that KI does not have the opportunity to offer housing to the same extent as before.

Marie Arsenian Henriksson has been named the new academic vice president for research and chair of the Committee for Research at Karolinska Institutet as of March 1, following a decision by KI's president on February 21.

Professor Molly Stevens at Karolinska Institutet and Imperial College London has been awarded the 2023 Novo Nordisk Prize for her pioneering work in innovative bioengineering approaches. One of her goals is to democratise access to healthcare using nanotechnologies.

Three questions to Karin Grahn, Unit of Occupational Medicine at the Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM)

On the international news site The Conversation you can read an article by Logan Pendergrast and Juleen Zierath, of the Integrative Physiology research group, where they explain their latest findings on “Morning exercise burns more body fat, mouse study shows".

Application is now open for a new global leadership programme; Leadership for Transformative Change. The programme targets leaders from all over the world who are working to contribute to transformative social development in their countries. It is offered by Uppsala University in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Business Sweden, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and SALAR International.

The Centre for Health Crises at KI is expanding its group of expert coordinators. This time it is the area of expertise is health systems resilience, and it comes in the form of Helena Nordenstedt, associate professor and medical doctor, with an extensive experience. Her research interests span the area of global health and resilience to crises on a systems level.

The government decided on Thursday 16 February to appoint Annika Östman Wernerson president of Karolinska Institutet. She will assume office on 1 March 2023.

Thanks to donations from numerous actors, Karolinska Institutet is now able to create a new professorship in prevention medicine. The professorship is named after its patron, HRH Prince Daniel.

Many patients with the autoimmune disease ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) suffer a high risk of disease relapse despite treatment. KI researchers have now identified T cells that contribute to the destruction of kidney tissue in patients with AAV and suggest the possibility of T cell screening to identify individuals at high risk. The study was published in Kidney International.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet have discovered that the genes encoding our T cell receptors vary greatly between persons and populations, which may explain why we respond differently to for example infections. The findings, presented in the journal Immunity, also demonstrate that some gene variants are inherited from Neanderthals.

Aristeidis Grigoriadis, from the Gastroenterology and Rheumatology Unit at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH) will defend his thesis "Magnetic resonance imaging as a tool for diagnosis, evaluation and prognosis in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis" on February 17, 2023. Main Supervisor is Annika Bergquist (MedH).

When Harriet Nakigozi heard about the course “Managing innovation for sustainable health”, she was in the middle of her postgraduate studies. Despite that, she applied to join the course. It soon turned out to be the right decision as the two courses supported each other.

Following a request from KI's President, the Centre for Health Crises has produced the report Improved preparedness for the next health crises – lessons learned at KI during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report outlines the changes that were made and the lessons learned from the work KI did during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now available to read online in its entirety.

The Centre for Health Crises at KI has published its first annual report, covering activities at the Centre during 2022. Since it is the centre's first year in operation, the report also outline the background to the establishing of the centre, the centre's organisational structure and introduces the staff.

The Swedish government is strengthening the work with dementia by allocating SEK 8 million in a new investment for strengthened elderly care. In this initiative, SveDem will be granted SEK 2.5 million in 2023 to develop the Swedish Register for Cognitive Diseases / Dementias (SveDem) and support the municipalities' improvement work in healthcare and care for people with dementia.

When Tewodros Seyoum wanted to improve his competence and leadership skills as a midwife, a KI education was the obvious choice. The training opened the door to a more active leadership style and knowledge that contributes to improving the Ethiopian healthcare system.

Patients with heart failure often suffer from co-morbidities, which places a great strain on the healthcare services, a multinational study published in Heart reports. The researchers, who are based at Karolinska Institutet, identify an urgent need to improve risk management of the disease.

Physical activity at the right time of the day seems able to increase fat metabolism, at least in mice. A new study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark shows that mice that did exercise in an early active phase, which corresponds to morning exercise in humans, increased their metabolism more than mice that did exercise at a time when they usually rest. The results are published in the journal PNAS.

Type 2 diabetes is a common disease, affecting 10 % of the adult world population, in which heredity and overweight are known risk factors. In a new study at Karolinska Institutet, researchers show that women and men with a predisposition to diabetes have different risk factors forecasting type 2 diabetes and prediabetes. The results were recently published in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology.

The StratNeuro Bridging Grant at the consolidator level is a funding initiative where StratNeuro awards outstanding researchers in the field of neuroscience at Karolinsk Institutet, who have not been awarded the KI consolidator grant or equivalent, giving them the opportunity to consolidate their research.

The interplay between sex steroid hormones, psychiatric- and neurodevelopmental disorders and adverse behavioral outcomes is in focus in a new thesis from Karolinska Institutet.

Infants whose mothers have used snus (a moist oral tobacco product) during pregnancy run three times the risk of sudden infant death, according to a comprehensive registry study from Karolinska Institutet published in the journal Pediatric Research. The risk was much lower if the mother had stopped taking snus before the first antenatal visit. The researchers conclude that all types of nicotine products should be avoided during pregnancy.

A new semester means new plans for the student unions at Karolinska Institutet. The focus will, among other things, be to renovate the premises, expand the introduction weeks, and continue their work to make members feel at home.

The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs has decided on new appointments for all 14 members of the Government's Council on Geriatric Research and appointed Mats Thorslund as a new member. This means that NVS has four representatives on the council.

Are you interested to know what it's like to study abroad? Then you should check out the Study Abroad blog, where KI students share their lives as exchange students. New Zealand, London, and Spain are some of the places where the current KI students are spending this spring semester.

This year's first edition of Barnläkaren, the Swedish Paediatric Assosiaction's magazine, is published. The theme of the latest issue is global health and the Global Child Health and Sustainable Development Goals research team leader Tobias Alfvén was the guest editor. Download the paper to read about the research from the child health team members.

Minister for Education Mats Persson met researchers and students when he visited Karolinska Institutet on 1 February. Topics of discussion with the students included the conditions relating to clinical placements, student funding rules and the situation for overseas students and doctoral students. The researchers, for their part, talked about the progress being made in areas such as precision medicine and about KI’s preparedness for new health crises.

CAR T-cell therapy, a certain kind of cancer treatment in which the immune system’s T cells are programmed to attack tumour cells, is effective in mice with ovarian cancer, according to a study published in The Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. The researchers, who work at Karolinska Institutet, hope that the discovery will pave the way for a clinical trial to see how effective the treatment is for women with the disease.

PhD student Pradeepa Pushparaj, in Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam’s group at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, is the first author of a study recently published in Immunity. The study explains how antibody genes can influence the ability to make neutralizing antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.

There is currently no drug for treating non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which affects many people with type 2 diabetes and which can result in other serious liver diseases. A study led by researchers from Karolinska Institutet has now identified a drug candidate for the treatment of fatty liver. The preclinical study, published in the Journal of Hepatology, indicates that an antibody that blocks the protein VEGF-B presents a possible therapeutic option for fatty liver disease.

Patients can experience 30 per cent fewer serious adverse reactions if their drugs are tailored to their genes, reports a study published in The Lancet. A European collaboration involving researchers from Karolinska Institutet suggests that a genetic analysis prior to drug therapy could significantly reduce suffering and healthcare costs.

ARFID is strongly influenced by genetic factors, according to a twin study examining this relatively new type of eating disorder. The study has been published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry by researchers at Karolinska Institutet.

Dariia Chernovska was following her dream, studying medicine at Bogomolets National Medical University in Kyiv, when Russia invaded Ukraine and she was forced to flee. Now she is carrying out an internship at the department of physiology and pharmacology in Daniel Andersson's lab and has her sights set on studying medicine at Karolinska Institutet in the autumn.

You can drown in someone's eyes, or they might burn a hole right through you. The gaze is a shortcut to people's inner world, something researchers try to exploit to learn more about, for example, autism.

Frailty can be defined as an aging-related syndrome of physiological decline, characterized by marked vulnerability to adverse health outcomes. It is becoming an important public health concern as the aging population increases.

Beta blockers, which are widely used to treat heart conditions and high blood pressure, are associated with a lower risk of being charged with a violent crime, according to a new register-based study from Karolinska Institutet and the University of Oxford. The results have been published in PLOS Medicine.

Hi Yang Gao, PhD student at the Division of Neurogeriatrics. On February 24 you will defend your thesis "Alzheimer Disease: Subcellular Aβ mechanisms and treatment strategies", what is the main focus of the thesis?