News archive

Benedict Chambers and Berit Carow left the world of elite sports to concentrate on their careers as immunologists at Karolinska Institutet. They are now returning to the limelight to help contestants in this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio avoid infection.

In the spring of 2016, KI researcher Tore Curstedt was nominated for a Lifetime Achievement Award by the European Patent Office for having devoted his life to Curosurf, a drug that has helped to activate the lungs of millions of preterm babies.

Charlotte Rolny and colleagues at the Department of Oncology-Pathology have discovered a new mechanism that could be the key to a new strategy to restrict breast cancer growth.

Over 2,000 rapes committed against children were reported in 2015. Now, Christoffer Rahm, a specialist doctor in psychiatry and a researcher at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge, is going to investigate whether medication can prevent a person with a sexual attraction to children from offending.

The growth factor IGF-2 can prevent the death of human nerve cells in the incurable disease ALS, according to a study by researchers at Sweden´s Karolinska Institutet and the University of Milan in Italy. The study, which is published in the journal Scientific Reports, demonstrates that degeneration-resistant oculomotor neurons can be used as a tool to identify factors able to prevent the degeneration of vulnerable neurons caused by this deadly disease.

The spinal cord has its own system for sensing changes in pH, according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet. The new findings, which are published in Current Biology, show that cells in the central canal of the spinal cord detect and regulate pH, if it deviates from normal levels. Such changes may in turn impair the function of the neural networks of the nervous system.

"Exposure Assessement - Challenges and Research Needs" is a new report written by a large number of IMM-researchers in different fields.

Broken-heart syndrome is linked to other diseases, but the risk factors for cardiovascular disease are normally lower in these patients. This according to a large registry study of Swedish patients made by Karolinska Institutet. The results, which are published in The Journal of American College of Cardiology, provide confirmation that the prognosis for a broken heart is comparable to that for myocardial infarction.

Susanne Nylén, in an interview about parasites in the stomach, on Vetenskapsradion Nyheter, Sveriges Radio, broadcast on 15 April 2016.

The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the winners of its prestigious ERC Advanced Grants 2015. Among a total of nine grantees from Swedish universities, four are researchers from Karolinska Institutet: Jonas Frisén, Thomas Helleday, Ole Kiehn and Klas Wiman.