News archive

Nano-sized membrane bubbles known as extracellular vesicles activate the immune system in mice and seem to render their tumours sensitive to a type of immunotherapy drug called a checkpoint inhibitor. This is according to a new study published in Cancer Immunology Research by researchers at Karolinska Institutet.

Following a hiatus of 3 years due to Covid-19, the KI Research Network Tissue and Motion rose to the occasion of hosting the 11th Tissue and Motion conference, which was held at the Djurönäset Hotel on 9th – 10th November 2022.

Cluster headache, sometimes known as “suicide headache”, have been described as a predominantly male disease. New research from Karolinska Institutet now shows that women who have the disease are more affected in their daily lives. They have longer periods of pain, a higher frequency of related symptoms, use more prophylactic medicine and take more sick leave. The results are published in two studies in the journal Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Researchers from the Division of Neurogeriatrics, NVS, has had an article published in EMBO Molecular Medicine. They have completed an active vaccination study in a mouse model with inherited small vessel disease called CADASIL with the aim to investigate whether vaccination can repair damaged vessels by clearing them from toxic protein Notch3 aggregates. These aggregates are present in CADASIL patients and in this mouse model.

Professor Nils-Göran Larsson, Roberta Filograna, Joanna Rorbach, and Annika Krüger at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics have recently been awarded research grants and fellowships for their research with the Division of molecular metabolism.

Suad Efendic, Stockholm, internationally recognized leading clinical researcher in diabetes, has died at the age of 85 after a long illness. He is survived by wife Mensura, sons Nedim and Enes with their families.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University have developed a new technology allowing simultaneous probing of several different histone marks in one individual cell and in thousands of cells at the same time. This new method allows to investigate in much greater detail how cells in the mouse brain acquire unique properties and specialize. The study is published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

The diagnosis exhaustion disorder accounts for the majority of all long-term sick leave in Sweden. However, a research review indicates that the scientific evidence behind the diagnosis is weak.

Critical illness myopathy (CIM) is a common complication affecting ventilator-treated intensive care patients, which can lead to increased mortality/morbidity, prolonged hospital care, impaired patient quality of life, and increased healthcare costs. reported molecular pathogenesis of CIM during prolonged ICU stay, and potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets. The study was recently published in Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle.

The origins of the serious cancer-like disease LCH have been identified by researchers from Karolinska Institutet in collaboration with Karolinska University Hospital. The findings presented in Science Immunology may lead to new, targeted treatments.

Laura Fratiglioni, Senior professor at Karolinska Institute is awarded the Great Gerontology Prize by the Swedish Gerontological Association for her contribution to Aging Research.

Missing Link presentation at the UK Stroke Forum 2022.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital and Cellevate AB, have received almost 5 million SEK from Vinnova, to investigate how stem cells interact with their environment. The goal is to develop more effective production of stem cell therapies, and eventually contribute to better treatment of public diseases such as heart failure and diabetes.

Patients with treatment resistant depression have a 23 per cent higher risk of death than other depressed patients. They also have twice as much outpatient care and spend three times the number of days in inpatient care. These are findings of a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry by researchers from Karolinska Institutet and elsewhere, who conclude that it is important to identify patients at risk of developing treatment resistant depression.   

We congratulate the research group Clinical Physiology at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, where a total of five researchers were granted millions from the Swedish Research Council and the Heart-Lung Foundation 2022.

From January 1st, 2023, KI Housing will become part of Karolinska Institutet instead of being an independent company.

The Cancer and Allergy Fund has awarded a grant of SEK 4.2 million to 23 patient-end projects on cancer and allergies. Of these, fifteen researchers at nine departments at Karolinska Institutet are to share SEK 2.5 million.

In its recent call, the Swedish Research Council has awarded in excess of SEK 19 million for six projects at KI. The project receiving the largest grant aims to study the long-term impact of the pandemic on the lifestyle and health of young adults.

Cluster headache is so painful that it is sometimes referred to as “suicide headache”. Thanks to a donation of SEK 35 million from financier and philanthropist Rune Andersson, research group leader Andrea Carmine Belin will very soon be setting up the world’s first research centre specialising exclusively in cluster headaches.

We congratulate Natalie Glaser and Ulrik Sartipy at the Thoracic Surgery group, Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, who receive research grants from the Swedish Heart Lung Foundation.

Associate Professor Volker Lauschke at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology (FyFa) receives a Consolidator grant of up to 1.2 million SEK per year over five years.

A new collaborative study from Karolinska Institutet, Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE), and Czech Technical University suggests a novel imaging marker of brain connectivity might be a very early indicator of pathological changes in Alzheimer’s disease. This imaging marker could be capable of detecting alterations when formal neuropsychological tests and even standard clinical image-based markers fail.

The nanomaterial graphene oxide—which is used in everything from electronics to sensors for biomolecules—can indirectly affect the immune system via the gut microbiome, as shown in a new study on zebrafish by researchers at Karolinska Institutet. The findings are reported in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Problems with managing anger can have severe consequences for the afflicted individual and their loved ones. A new study from the Centre for Psychiatry Research at Karolinska Institutet shows that four weeks of therapy delivered over the internet can help people with anger and aggression. The results have been published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

When Svante Pääbo talked about the importance of Neanderthals, the audience in Aula Medica listened carefully. The Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine explained, among other things, that we carry their genes and that they may have been more sensitive than we think.

Prof. emeritus Rudolf “Rulle” Rigler, an excellent scientist in medical physics and long time member of the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics passed away on October 5, 86 years old.

The autumn semester of 2022 saw a new cohort of students arriving at KI to study the part of the Erasmus Mundus Master’s programme Public Health in Disasters, which is conducted by the Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters. One of the students who came to Stockholm is Bahaa, who is really enjoying his time at KI and in Stockholm.

In this year's announcement of project grants from Radiumhemmets Forskningsfonder, OnkPat received a total of 33 million SEK. 32 researchers were granted funding.

We warmly welcome Professor Marcus Carlsson to the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery. Marcus Carlsson was appointed Professor of Clinical Physiology on November 7, 2022 and he combines the professorship with a position as senior consultant at the Department of Clinical Physiology, Karolinska University Hospital. Marcus Carlsson was nominated to KI from the National Institutes of Health, USA, where he led the research group "Clinical Physiology".

Debora Rizzuto, principal researcher and research group leader at the Aging Research Center (ARC), Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society at Karolinska Institutet, has received a project grant for a project entitled "SoundMIND – effects of noise on cognition and mental health", from Forte.

Losing too much weight when infected with COVID-19 has been linked to worse outcomes. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have discovered that SARS-CoV-2 infection fuels blood vessel formation in fat tissues, thus revving up the body’s thermogenic metabolism. Blocking this process by using an existing drug curbed weight loss in mice and hamsters that were infected with the virus, according to the study published in the journal Nature Metabolism.

The risk of complications in assisted reproduction is higher when two embryos are transferred, instead of one embryo. This has been shown in a study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, which included all births in Sweden 2007-2017.

Meet Maria Bradley, research group leader at the Division of Dermatology and Venereology at the Department of Medicine, Solna.

Antiviral drugs almost completely reduce the risk of mothers passing on HIV infection to their children, even in a low-income country with a high HIV incidence such as Tanzania, according to a new study in The Lancet HIV by researchers from Karolinska Institutet. The discovery raises hopes of achieving the World Health Organization’s goal of eliminating the spread of infection from mother to child.

Publication in PloS ONE about tobacco cessation by Tanja Tomson et al., Prevention-Policy and Practice at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics (LIME) coincides with Tobacco free week.

Linus Jönsson, affiliated researcher at NVS, Division of Neurogeriatrics, receives EUR 11 million in EU funding for his project "PROMINENT - Precision Medicine in Neurodegeneration". Of this grant, EUR 1.8 million go to KI.

Svante Pääbo hasn’t even collected his 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine yet. Still, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology is already dreaming of making new ground-breaking discoveries.

Breathing in common workplace dust and fumes may increase the risk of developing severe rheumatoid arthritis, especially in combination with smoking and genetic susceptibility to the disease, suggests a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in The Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

When cancer is detected at an early stage, the rates of survival increase drastically, but today only a few cancer types are screened for. An international study led by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology and affiliated with Karolinska Institutet shows that a new, previously untested method can find multiple types of newly formed cancers at the same time – including cancer types that are difficult to detect with comparable methods. The results are published in the journal PNAS.

The Covid pandemic was the starting point for this year’s Stockholm Life Science Conference - Life Science 2.0 where discussions centred on both the mistakes made and lessons learned from the handling of the pandemic and the rapid development of vaccines.

Seven researchers at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics have been granted project funds from the Swedish Research Council. Together the department receives SEK 43.6 million.

Researchers from the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society (Eriksdotter group) in collaboration with the Departments of MEB (Carrero group) and Clintec (Bruchfeld group) at KI have recently had their study published in Kidney International (IF 19). This paper is the first study linking activation of cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathways to kidney damage in humans.

New faculty representatives for and members of the Faculty Board, its three committees and of the Faculty Council for the term of office commencing 1 Jan 2023 and ending 31 Dec 2025.

B cells are critical to the proper functioning of the immune system. However, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have shown that they can sometimes do more harm than good, as their numbers greatly increase after bowel damage, preventing the tissue from healing. The results, which are presented in the journal Immunity, can be of significance to the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease.

The answer to this question is not just interesting to know. It also offers clues to the mechanisms behind schizophrenia, explains Konstantina Kilteni, researcher at the department of neuroscience.

The Board of Sven and Ebba-Christina Hagberg's foundation has decided to award Cristiana Cruceanu and Hugo Zeberg 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 2023.

Researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and Karolinska Institutet are part of a collaborative study that has made progress in the testing of an innovative contraceptive method, a vaginal gel, that preclinical studies have shown prevents sperm from reaching the egg. The results are described in a paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have conducted a pioneering study analysing internet-delivered anonymous cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for people who view images or videos of children being sexually abused. The participants, who were mainly recruited via forums on the encrypted part of the internet called Darknet, reported less use of such material after therapy. The study is published in the journal Internet Interventions.

Volunteer so-called SMS lifesavers in Sweden, who are alerted to cardiac arrests nearby using a mobile app, perform a large part of life-saving efforts before the ambulance, police or emergency services arrive, regardless if they are instructed to collect the nearest defibrillator or not. This is according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in JAMA Cardiology.

To improve understanding of mental health, today’s symptom-based diagnoses need to be complemented with biological criteria accounting for differences between individuals and the sexes. A major EU-funded research project, coordinated by Uppsala University, will pursue an interdisciplinary path towards better strategies to protect vulnerable individuals from mental illness. Three research teams at Karolinska Institutet participate in the project.