News archive

The KIPRIME Podcast provides a broad and evidence-based panorama over the global cutting-edge research in medical education. During Autumn 2022 new episodes are launched.

Hepatitis A is an acute liver disease caused by the hepatitis A virus (HAV) and transmitted via the faecal-oral route through person-to-person transmission, contaminated food or water. While hepatitis A infection is mostly asymptomatic in children, the frequency and severity of symptoms increases with age, with the elderly and patients with other liver disease at risk of hospitalisation, acute liver failure and death.

To want to save lives. To inspire the next generation of students. And be extremely tempted by the buffet outside the auditorium. All emotions came forth when a group of new professors were installed at KI.

During a visit to Sweden this week, WHO Europe’s director Dr Hans Kluge had time for a brief, but cordial, visit to KI. Dr Kluge met with Vice President Anders Gustafsson and the director of the Centre for Health Crises, Professor Johan von Schreeb, along with the centre’s strategic process leader Dr Anna Zorzet. The quartet talked about matters of common interest and about initiatives related to health crises in particular.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have in a new study used cellular reprogramming to create human three-dimensional brain models and infected these models with SARS-CoV-2. In infected models, the brain immune cells excessively eliminated synapses and acquired a gene expression pattern mimicking what has been observed in neurodegenerative disorders. The findings could help to identify new treatments against persistent cognitive symptoms after a Covid-19 infection.

Two researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded the Athena prize for an AI-based image analysis in precision medicine for risk classification of breast cancer patients. The Athena Prize is Sweden's largest prize for research and innovations that have been produced through collaboration between healthcare, academia and industry.

Karolinska Institutet hosted the annual meeting with the Swedish national Network in Epidemiology and Nutrition (NEON). The theme for this year’s meeting was: ”Digital lifestyle interventions and BigData in nutritional research”. Around a hundred researchers and practitioners in nutrition and epidemiology from all over Sweden met in Flemingsberg.

Through the Horizon Europe programme, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been granted large financial grants for approximately 20 different projects aimed at solving various societal challenges in health. One of the projects will explore the possibility of creating a common system for the reuse of already approved medicines to treat various diseases.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet and the Karolinska University Hospital indicates that only a rather small proportion of individuals attending a specialized memory clinic have an Alzheimer’s disease-type biomarker profile and could be considered eligible for novel disease-modifying treatments targeting amyloid.

Among patients with kidney cancer, the activity of four specific genes in the cancer cells seems to be able to predict the risk of the tumour spreading and the patient’s chances of survival. This is shown by researchers from Karolinska Institutet in a preclinical study published in Nature Communications.

Approximately 9,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in Sweden, a number that has been steadily increasing since the 1990s. However, the prognosis for breast cancer has improved, more and more women can now be cured with a combination of surgery, radiotherapy and medical treatment.

At Karolinska Institutet's Inauguration Ceremony in Aula Medica on October 13th, 2022, KI's new professors were presented and academic prizes were awarded. The Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery was represented at the celebration by two new professors and one academic award.

“Our planet, our health – an intergenerational dialogue” – the title of this year’s Rosling Seminar at Karolinska Institutet. The seminar, which was held 5 October, was jointly arranged by KI and the WHO with participants attending on site and online.

Andrew Buckler at the research group Vascular Surgery, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend his thesis "Linking quantitative radiology to molecular mechanism for improved vascular disease therapy selection and follow-up" on October 21, 2022. Main Supervisor is Ulf Hedin.

Marie Löf, at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, is a new Professor in Nutrition as of February 1st, 2022. Yesterday, October 13th, 2022, the inauguration of new professors at Karolinska Institutet took place with an installation ceremony in Aula Medica.

Four research projects coordinated from Karolinska Institutet have been awarded project grants by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) in 2022. This means that, over SEK 135 million are allocated to KI research in the fields of immunology, neuroscience, and stem cell biology.

Professor Kevin Eva of the University of British Columbia, Canada, is this year’s winner of the Karolinska Institutet Prize in Medical Education. He received his accolade in KI’s Aula Medica in conjunction with the university’s installation ceremony on 13 October. Among its many consequences, his research has helped to improve the admission processes at medical universities.

A study at Karolinska Institutet shows that the coronavirus variant BA.2.75.2, an Omicron sublineage, largely evades neutralizing antibodies in the blood and is resistant to several monoclonal antibody antiviral treatments. The findings, published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, suggest a risk of increased SARS-CoV-2 infections this winter, unless the new updated bivalent vaccines help to boost immunity in the population.

The multiple sclerosis (MS) research consortium at Karolinska institutet is
further strengthened by the recruitment of the distinguished MS scientist, Roland
Martin.

Congratulations to the winners of this year’s KI Lifestyle4Health Best paper award for junior researchers. In this occasion, two, of many fantastic publications that were nominated, shared the first place:

For two days in the first week of October, Karolinska Institutet for the first time invited members of the public to partake in guided tours of the Nordic region’s largest zebrafish facility. More than 40 people took the opportunity, offered as part of Nobel Calling 2022, to visit more than 20,000 tropical freshwater fish that are helping to solve medical mysteries.

KI is still the Nordic Region’s highest ranking university, but has dropped ten places from 39 to 49 in this year’s Times Higher Education (THE) overall rankings over all subject fields. Other EU universities have also dropped, while those in Asia, especially China, have advanced. The UK and USA remain relatively stable. Universities with a technological profile have also fared better than the average.

Screening programmes for childhood hearing loss need to become better at collecting data and measuring outcomes in order to increase quality, such as improving the percentage of follow-ups, a new thesis from Karolinska Institutet reports.

We recognise the images of health care and medical staff in PPE. Maybe we have even experienced an outbreak of the disease where we have lived. But what is it actually like to work in an ongoing Ebola outbreak? Anneli Eriksson, specialist nurse and research specialist at KI, answers three questions about working in the ongoing outbreak in Uganda.

A randomized study, known by the acronym NordICC – Northern - European Initiative on Colorectal Cancer - shows colonoscopy screening reduces the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent. The reduction is much smaller than experts previously assumed. The NordICC study is now published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to K. Barry Sharpless, Morten Meldal and Carolyn R. Bertozzi for the development of click chemistry, a quick and efficient way to build molecules. Several KI researchers use the technology in their daily research, one of which has co-authored a study with one of this year's prize winners. Here, they comment on the prize.

At KI's Culture Day on October 19, Ina Schuppe Koistinen, researcher at the department of microbiology, tumor and cell biology, presents her new book "Vulva: facts, myths and life-changing insights".

The Docent Committee decided on the 22 of September 2022 to admit Milan Chromek as a docent in paediatrics.

Milan is affiliated to the Division of Paediatrics at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology - CLINTEC.

Professor Martin Bergö is re-appointed Academic Vice President for Research as well as Chairperson of the Committee for Research at Karolinska Institutet. On October 4th the president of Karolinska Institutet, Ole Petter Ottersen, appointed the academic vice presidents and deputy chairpersons for the three committees that report to the Faculty Board.

The two-day conference, Collaboration in Science 2022, is held on 6 and 7 October at KI’s Campus Flemingsberg. During the conference, participants will learn about the extensive research being conducted at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital.

During the Annual pediatric IBD meeting in Örebro on September 29-30, Jonas F Ludvigsson received this year’s honorary award "the Gut Feeling" SPGHN, the Swedish Association for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, amidst the cheers of the audience. The prize is awarded after voting by pediatricians in Sweden.

”Our study examines the association between older persons perception regarding satisfaction, treatment by staff, and sense of security in home care services (HCS), and factors in the working conditions of the HCS staff” says Anne-Marie Boström, docent at Karolinska Institutet, responsible for the study together with her research group. The results show strong associations between older persons' level of satisfaction with their care, and the level of satisfaction with working conditions reported.

The Horizon Europe grant programme for innovations has awarded the consortium DELIVER (DELiberative ImproVEment of oRal care quality five million euros to improve oral health.

On October 4, the president of Karolinska Institutet appointed academic vice presidents and deputy chairpersons for the three committees that report to the Faculty Board: The Committee for Higher Education, the Committee for Doctoral Education and the Committee for Research. The appointees’ term of office runs from 1 January, 2023, to 31 December, 2025.

Professor and senior physician Lars I Eriksson at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology receives the Franz-Koehler Inflammation Award 2022. Lars is awarded the prize for successful research into the pathophysiology, prophylaxis and treatment of inflammatory conditions in perioperative medicine.

Where do we originate from? And who are we? Thanks to Svante Pääbo, 2022 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, we know more about what make us uniquely human. We also know what we have in common with our, now-extinct, closest relatives.

On October 4, 2022, research group leader Niaz Ahmed was employed as an adjunct professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience (CNS), the Division of Neuro.

From pregnancies and depression to COVID-19. Neanderthals are physically extinct, but their genes live on. For better or worse, they still affect our health today. We are publishing this timeline, previously published in the magazine Medicinsk Vetenskap, due to the fact that researcher Svante Pääbo has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2022.

The Swedish Society for Medical Research (SSMF) has awarded grants to five KI researchers. The grants give both prominent researchers the opportunity to strengthen their position and provide establishment support for younger researchers.

Professor Mikael Landén was awarded the Swedish Society for Medical Research (SSMF) Jubilee Prize for his valuable findings within psychiatry research. This prestigious prize is SEK five million, intended for research. He will also be awarded a medal at the prize ceremony on 21 October.

Many people were delighted to hear that Professor Svante Pääbo has been awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, particularly so Hugo Zeberg, researcher at Karolinska Institutet. He has collaborated with Svante Pääbo for years, not least on the work to find Neanderthal genes that can influence how ill different people become after contracting the COVID-19 virus.

The research team Global Child Health and the Sustainable Development Goals in collaboration with the Nobel Prize Museum hosted a seminar on global child health as part of the Nobal Calling Stockholm week. Juliet Mwanga-Amumpaire from Mbarara University in Uganda and Tobias Alfvén, associate professor at the Department of Global Public Health, discussed why five million children die every year and what is needed for more children to survive.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2022 has been awarded to Svante Pääbo for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.

Anneli Eriksson, research specialist at the Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters and a specialised nurse with extensive field experience, was on her way to Spain when she turned on her heel and instead headed straight to Uganda, to work in a coordinator role for Médecins sans frontières (MSF) Sweden in their efforts to assist in the current and ongoing Ebola outbreak in the country.

Intravenous treatment with omega-3 fatty acids in elderly hospitalised patients in intensive care due to COVID-19 seems to have positive effects on the ability of the immune system to cope with the virus, according to a study from Karolinska Institutet. In the future, the study, published in the journal Clinical and Translational Medicine, could lead to a complementary, cost-effective treatment for COVID-19.

Mariam Shahata is new Research assistant in Team Melican from July 2022! We have asked Mariam some questions about what she will do at AIMES and her expectations of the new position.

Various health care interventions can, to put it in simplified terms, yield different amounts of health per invested Swedish krona. But how can subjective experiences, such as quality of life, be brought into these calculations? Researchers at Karolinska Institutet find ways to make health economic decisions.

A study by researchers at Institute of Environmental Medicine shows that in vitro new approach methodologies (NAMs) can be a useful tool to improve cancer risk assessment (CRA) strategies in the context of complex environmental mixtures as such air pollution.

The core facilities at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics and the SciLifeLab infrastructure contribute to the REMEDi4ALL project that kicks off with the ambition of establishing a European research and innovation eco-system facilitating fast and cost-effective patient-centric development and access to repurposed medicines.

Hi Linda Eriksson, PhD student at the Division of Nursing, NVS. On June 3 you will defend your thesis "Let's work it out : aspects of the occupational situation of survivors of allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation", what's the main focus of the thesis?