News archive

As the buds have burst and the traditional Swedish spring songs have been sung, we are approaching graduation. On Thursday and Friday, May 30 and 31, the graduation ceremonies for all KI’s study programmes will be held. Get inspiration from four of the graduating students’ memories and plans.

In 2023, the Strategic Research Area in Health Care Science (SFO-V) launched an initiative aimed at future researchers in health care science through an open call for funding for postdoctoral positions. The aim of the initiative, SFO-V Fellows, is to promote high-quality health care science research and to ensure the regrowth of researchers in the field.

Three researchers at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH) have been awarded grants from the Dr Åke Olsson Foundation for research in haematology. The foundation supports haematology researchers at Karolinska Institutet, who are at an important but early stage of their research.

Jan Sjövall passed away on 2 May 2024, at the age of 95. Jan was professor emeritus at Karolinska Institutet having moved to Stockholm from Lund in 1958 as part of Sune Bergström’s group. Besides his family, Jan had two great loves - bile acid analysis and golf, being good enough at golf to regularly represent Sweden in age group competitions. With respect to bile acid analysis he was “simply the best”.

The hall at the Swedish Society of Medicine in Stockholm was buzzing with people and conversations when the Association, along with the Centre for Health Crises at KI, organised a seminar on attacks on healthcare in conflicts and war on Thursday 2 May 2024. Those who could not make it to the capital participated online. Presentations and panel discussions with experts and health professionals working in war zones highlighted the important issue from various perspectives.

During the Educational Congress 2-3 October 2024 we will delve into the profound theme of "Exploring the Human Dimensions of Education." Call for abstract is now open.

This is a summary of the digital information meeting that prof Maria Eriksdotter, head of the project steering group, together with the departmental head of MedH and the Director of Doctoral studies at MedH held on 7 May addressing all staff at BioNut and MedH.

It’s time once again to vote for faculty representatives for the Karolinska Institutet Board, the university’s supreme decision-making body. All staff, students and affiliates of KI are invited to nominate candidates between 14 and 28 May. Here, sitting faculty representatives give some tips on what to expect and hope to inspire their successors.

The first-ever GPH PhD conference took place on 11 April 2024 under the theme “Mastering research methods and creating opportunities for the future”. Approximately 40 PhD students and 40 researchers from GPH participated in the event, making it a vibrant platform for academic exchange and networking. The conference featured parallel workshops focusing on specific aspects of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research.

Danuta Wasserman, professor of psychiatry and suicidology at the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention (NASP) and chair of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), participates in an interview with the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais – in a discussion about the increasing mental health problems, suicide, and the global challenges we face.

MFS is a Sida-funded scholarship programme for undergraduate and graduate students who wish to conduct field studies in low- and middle-income countries to gather material for their theses.

The organization in the ANA Futura freezer facility needs improvement.

Photographer Lennart Nilsson became world famous for his images from the inside of the body. Foetuses during different stages of development and microscopically small cells could be photographed thanks to his electron microscope. Lennart Nilsson's pictures are now historic and many were taken when he worked at Karolinska Institutet.

The Global Child Health and SDGs research group is currently hosting three researchers from the HoliCare project’s African partner institutions, namely Senegal, Ethiopia and Uganda. The aim of the exchange is research capacity building of local researchers in partnership with Africa-based research institutions that are project partners.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet, together with Pixelgen Technologies, have developed and applied a technique that makes it possible to map proteins in individual cells in a completely new way, according to a new study in Nature Methods. Not only is it now possible to measure the amount of proteins, but also how they are distributed in the cell's membrane and how they interact with each other.

Welcome to Jessica Edstorp's defence of her doctoral thesis "Infections, antibiotics, tobacco, genetic factors and risk of LADA - latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, and type 2 diabetes" at Karolinska Institutet on 17 May.

Friday, the 26 April, 150 new KI doctors and two honorary doctors were presented with their academic awards at a formal ceremony in Stockholm City Hall.

Reumatikerförbundet allocates over 15 million kronor for research on rheumatic diseases in 2024. Out of a total of 98 approved projects, 34 are located at the Karolinska Institutet, sharing six and a half million kronor.

Elena Rafetti joined the Department of Global Public Health and the PRIME group in October 2023. She has a rich experience from previous roles at the University of Cambridge, Uppsala University and PhD at KI. Elena's research focuses on the effects of climate extremes on population health. This addition to the Department brings a new perspective to the Global Public Health research.

For security reasons, a password change by the user is now required every three months.

On April 23, it was time for the new KI university management to visit NVS. They are currently on a tour visiting all departments during the late autumn 2023 and spring 2024.

Researchers from the Vascular Surgery Group at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, have teamed up with 20 clinical research centres, universities, professional associations, SMEs and non-profit representative organisations of civil society in a new EU Horizon Europe project NextGen, aiming to develop the next generation tools for genome-centric multimodal data integration in personlised cardiovascular medicine.

The course “Medicinpedagogiskt utvecklingsprojekt: en fördjupningskurs” supports teachers’ professional development and stimulates an academic approach to the scholarship of teaching and learning.

The StratNeuro Start-up Grant is intended to support outstanding Neuroscience researchers at the beginning of their careers. StratNeuro will allocate in total SEK 6,000,000 to fund this initiative, each project receiving SEK 500,000/year for a period of two years.

On behalf of the Swedish Gender Equality Agency, researchers Lena Dahlberg and Mariam Kirvalidze have done a scoping review of informal caregiving and loneliness. More specifically, the report examines loneliness in spousal carers aged 65 years and older, the factors that increase the risk of loneliness in this group, the consequences of loneliness, and how they themselves experience loneliness.

KI, Karolinska University Hospital and AstraZeneca are entering into a tripartite collaboration to promote the development of precision medicine in Sweden. The ambition is that patients throughout the country will have access to tailored prevention, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.

As the numbers of pediatric brain cancer survivors continue improving, the numbers of individuals developing life-long neurocognitive impairments are consequently expected to rise.

This training is provided by the HR Office at the Professional Services and is aimed for those who are salary-setting managers in both research, education and administration.

We want to welcome Jialiang Sun Wang to our lab. Jialiang is a PhD student from University of Barcelona. He is coming to our lab for a short stay to learn the ChIPseq technique. We are looking forward to a great discussion and collaboration ahead. Welcome Jialiang!

Fixed malfunction in all Ladok environments
The work to deal with the disturbances of the last few days in Ladok has now been completed. The support services for Ladok that were shut down to protect IT systems at Umeå University in connection with the cyber attack have now been started.

Events for integrations sent via the LIS adapter while it was closed have been queued and are now running. Some delay may therefore occur in Canvas and Inspera for a while.

Ladok consortium

/KI IT-department.

A preclinical study from Karolinska Institutet offers hope for treating severe neurodegenerative diseases with an existing drug. The study suggests that the leprosy drug clofazimine may be effective in the treatment of Huntington’s disease.

On May 7 between 19 - 21 the IT department performs maintenance work on the wireless network in Flemingsberg and Solna. Disturbances may occur.

In an article published in Nature, researchers from Karolinska Institutet present an atlas of the early development of the brain. The atlas can be used, among other things, to find out what went wrong in the development of brain tumors in children and also to find new treatments.

Last Friday, 150 new KI doctors and two honorary doctors were presented with their academic awards at a formal ceremony in Stockholm City Hall. The evening was one of stirring entertainment, academic tradition – and an academic vice president in a Barbra Streisand wig.

A pilot study is ongoing to evaluate how MEB can collaborate effectively or benefit from the central services offered by ITA. The university director has decided that all departments must be included in the Coordinated IT (Samordnad IT), and currently, 16 departments are fully integrated. MEB already utilizes several central services, such as the network, Office 365, and some storage.

On 16 May 2024 (morning), the quarterly test and maintenance of the fire detection and alarm system in Neo will take place.

We will take this opportunity to have an evacuation drill.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet may have found a new way to treat obesity and related disorders by targeting the cells’ powerhouses, the mitochondria. A study published in Nature Metabolism shows that a specific class of drugs that block mitochondrial function can reverse diet-induced obesity, fatty liver and diabetes in mice.

The Internationalisation Board has set aside SEK 200,000 for activities or projects that promote internationalisation at home for education at the undergraduate and advanced level.

Karolinska Institutet (KI) and Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité) have entered into a bilateral agreement. The Internationalisation Board at KI is pleased to announce the availability of limited competitive funds for KI faculty and staff for grant applications to strengthen collaborative interactions within research and education.

We are looking for students to join us in welcoming all new students starting at KI this fall semester of 2024. There are many roles and shifts available for you to get involved. Take this opportunity to meet new people and at the same time earn some extra money. Read more about the different opportunities and how to apply below.

How is the University Alliance Stockholm Trio working to influence the EU's research agenda and what potential impact will the EU election have on research and education in Europe? We asked three questions to Dan Andrée, senior advisor at the university alliance's office in Brussels.

Researchers at the Thoracic Surgery research group, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, have performed a study of patients who underwent bioprosthetic aortic valve replacement in Sweden between 2003 and 2018.
The study is published in JAMA Network Open and shows varying performance between different mechanical cardiac valves.

New parents were in focus when the KI Impact Challenge was arranged on a weekend, a student event to promote innovation. More than 40 students worked over two days on the challenge of improving parents' health and well-being.

For the 12th Tissue and Motion Conference, Karolinska Institutet researchers returned to Djurönäset Hotel on 16th-17th April 2024 to discuss research, network, and enjoy Stockholm’s archipelago.

Around 200 people from near and far gathered to celebrate FyFa 75 years on Tuesday 23 April. The day was characterised by togetherness, strategic and visionary talks, good food, and a positive outlook on the future.

Tips from KI Grants Office regarding current calls

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a web-based platform that provides a whole new insight into the human body at the cellular level. The aim is to create an invaluable resource for researchers worldwide to increase knowledge about human health and disease. The study is published in Genome Biology.