News archive

The Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation is awarding more than SEK 80 million to Karolinska Institutet for paediatric oncology research in 2024. The allocation includes 29 projects run by researchers at KI.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet shows that long-term exposure to air pollution contributes to millions of deaths in India. The research, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, emphasises the need for stricter air quality regulations in the country.

The Bergendorff scholarship was founded in 2022 in honor of Anders Bergendorff, the former program director of the master programme in Toxicology at IMM. This scholarship supports summer internships for students at the program, and the awardees present their projects at the annual Bergendorff seminar.

Advanced Medicinal Therapy Products, ATMP, span broadly over medical fields and the aim of this symposium is to enhance networking within ATMP and to get a flavor of academic and commercial development of ATMPs in Stockholm and Sweden. NextGenNK and CCRM Nordic are inviting you to a mini-symposium with the focus on ATMP on January 22, 2025.

Moon landings, worms and micro-RNA are just three shared interests held by Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, who told the story of how they first aimed for the stars and achieved a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in their Nobel lectures with humor and erudition.

Max Kleijberg, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Nursing, and Markus Saarijärvi, lecturer at the Department of Nursing, receive a total of 3.3 million SEK in grants from Forte.

For the first time, the course 'Sustainable Health and Agenda 2030' is being offered here at KI. It is part of the Doctoral Programme in Health Care Science (PUF-V).

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) have developed AI-driven warning technology capable of detecting infections up to 24 hours before symptoms appear.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the University of Gothenburg have identified two types of metabolic-associated fatty liver disease – a liver-specific type and a systemic type that affects other organs and tissues. The discovery could lead to improved diagnosis and treatment of this growing patient group. Two studies are published back-to-back in Nature Medicine.

Call for scientific proposals for the Swedish Suicide Research Conference 2025 is open. The conference will take place on May 6–7 in Stockholm. The submission deadline is January 10.

One in ten adults in society suffer from chronic kidney disease (CKD), a disease characterized by progressive loss of kidney function. Altered kidney function can impact on the risk/benefit of many medications. People with advanced chronic kidney disease have to be careful about the medications they take because their kidneys don't work as well as they should. Some medications are not safe for them to take at all while others require dose adjustments or strict monitoring for safety.

As a member of the Cochrane Governing Board, Emma Persad represents Sweden and the Nordics, advocating for open science, international collaboration, and access to reliable research. Through her work, she aims to make healthcare more evidence-based and improve outcomes for the most vulnerable populations.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have discovered how the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, manipulates human proteins to replicate and evade the immune system. The results have been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

Amaia Calderon-Larrañaga and Weili Xu are recipients of the Elderly and Ageing 2024 Grant from Forte and will both receive funding for the period 2025-2027.

Professor Camilla Björkegren at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Karolinska Institutet, is awarded a distinguished professor grant within natural and engineering sciences by the Swedish Research Council. Out of 83 applications, four grants are awarded to four different universities.

During November and December, KI's bachelor programmes representatives participated in three fairs across the country: the Kunskap & Framtid fair in Gothenburg and the Saco Student fair in Kista and Malmö. Tens of thousands of high school graduates attended to get inspiration for their future careers.

Congratulations to the researchers at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (MEB) who received a total of nearly 120 million SEK from the Swedish funding agencies (FORTE, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Cancer Society and the Erling-Persson Foundation)!

Over the past decade, the proportion of residents in Stockholm County who identify as bisexual has nearly doubled. The younger generations are driving the trend and many of them have previously identified as heterosexual. This is according to a study published in JAMA Network Open by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in collaboration with the Centre for Epidemiology and Community Medicine within Region Stockholm in Sweden.

PhD student Birte Schmid from the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Karolinska Institutet reflects on her enriching experience at the BonnBrain3 Meeting on "States – Behavior, Neural Circuits and Codes."

Many of KI’s students have similar lives. Studying, hanging out with friends, exercising, and perhaps being involved in the student union or section. For some, the factor of having children is added to the equation. What is it like to study full-time and be a parent at the same time?

New research from Karolinska Institutet and Columbia University shows that the heart has a mini-brain – its own nervous system that controls the heartbeat. A better understanding of this system, which is much more diverse and complex than previously thought, could lead to new treatments for heart diseases. The study, conducted on zebrafish, is published in Nature Communications.

When you hear the words mucus and snot, you might think of colds, snails or drooling babies. But the runny, sometimes sticky substance often plays a vital role in our lives. And mucus also has potential to be a medicine.

Today, women with oestrogen-sensitive breast cancer receive anti-hormonal therapy. Researchers now show that postmenopausal women with low-risk tumours have a long-term benefit for at least 20 years, while the benefit was more short-term for younger women with similar tumour characteristics who had not yet gone through the menopause. The results are reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI).

Patients with frontotemporal dementia often lack the ability to empathize. A study at Karolinska Institutet has now shown that these patients do not show the same brain activity as healthy individuals when they witness the pain of others, a finding that it is hoped will increase understanding of this specific dementia disease.

The Swedish Research Council has awarded seven different grants, including doctoral programme grants within register-based research and project grants for research on antimicrobial resistance. The grant decisions apply to eleven researchers at KI.

The Swedish Heart Lung Foundation (Hjärt-Lungfonden) has awarded Jonas F. Ludvigsson a 3-year-grant for the project ”Inflammatory bowel disease, inflammation and risk of cardiovascular disease”.

On 26 November an experiment in a sounding rocket was launched at Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden by a research group at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology (MTC) at Karolinska Institutet. The researchers aims to collect data for a study that examines how a type of immune cell, T cells, are affected by lack of gravity, called microgravity.

KI researchers Emma R. Andersson, Volker Lauschke, Gustaf Edgren and Alireza Salami have been awarded the European Research Council’s prestigious consolidation grant and a total of approximately EUR 8 million (about SEK 90 million) for their research.

A new thesis from Karolinska Institutet shows the significant societal economic burdens posed by two chronic inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases; eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) and microscopic colitis (MC). Both diseases cause long-term inflammation in the digestive system and can lead to additional health problems.

Stockholm continues to be an important center for Swedish Parkinson's research. For 2025, the Parkinson's Foundation has decided to provide funding for more than 40 new projects that can help Swedes with Parkinson's disease, of which 14 research projects are conducted at Karolinska Institutet.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.