News archive

Hi Petra Adebäck, PhD student at the Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care! On March 19 you will defend your thesis “To be a child and survive a natural disaster”. What’s the main focus of the thesis?

Variants of nine genes increase the risk of developing Addison’s disease, a rare disease in which the immune system attacks the adrenal glands. That is according to the largest genetic study to date on patients with Addison’s disease. The findings help increase knowledge about what causes the disease. The study was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and University of Bergen, Norway, and is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Neuroblastoma arises within the sympathetic nervous system and is the most frequent extracranial solid childhood cancer, exhibiting a high degree of clinical heterogeneity ranging from spontaneous regression to fatal progression despite intense clinical intervention.

Michael Axenhus, PhD student at the Division of Neurogeriatrics, NVS, receives the scholarship with the motivation "For the desire to research in confusion and the desire to convey warmth in health care".

For her research in HIV vaccine and design, professor Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology receives 1.8 million US dollar, multidisciplinary, long-term research program (P01) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In 2021, the Hagströmer Library will focus on art and artists. Beginning in the spring with an exhibition of illustrations in books and prints within the library's own collections, featuring some of art history's most famous figures, created by our curator Anna Lantz.

The success of the mRNA-based vaccines is a boost for the entire mRNA field and can lead to new treatments for completely different diseases. This is the view of Kenneth Chien, professor at Karolinska Institutet and co-founder of Moderna, one of the companies that has now developed a vaccine against COVID-19.

In a letter sent to Karolinska Institutet in December of 2018, the committee for the return of Finnish remains, a Swedish-Finnish activist group, demanded that Karolinska Institutet return the Finnish remains in KI's historical anatomical collection. KI has now responded to the committee's letter.

The Jussi Taipale Group is part of the 5-year research project whose goal is to discover novel diagnostic tools and effective drug combinations based on data from high-grade serous ovarian cancer patients. The project with 14 international and multidisciplinary partners will be coordinated from the University of Helsinki and has a total budget of 15 million Euros. 

Treating severe COVID-19 patients with the anticancer drug bevacizumab may reduce mortality and speed up recovery, according to a small clinical study in Italy and China that was led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden between February and April 2020. On average, blood oxygen levels, body temperature and inflammatory markers significantly improved in patients treated with a single dose of bevacizumab in addition to standard care. The research is published in Nature Communications.

KI is participating in a new EU project about using Real World Data (RWD) to improve post treatment in breast cancer, as well as shaping guidelines and best practices for researchers, public health and regulatory bodies throughout Europe to facilitate wider adaption of RWD in research and clinical practice.

It is necessary to develop additional COVID-19 vaccines, as different vaccine approaches have their advantages and disadvantages and may work synergistically. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now report that they have developed a prototype vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 using a DNA vaccine platform that is inexpensive, stable, easy to produce, and shows a good safety profile. A study published in Scientific Reports shows that the vaccine induces potent immune responses in mice.

The StratNeuro board has reviewed the neuroscience submissions to the SLL call “kliniska forskare” (2020) and decided to support the two researchers at Karolinska Institutet with SEK 500,000 each.

StratNeuro has awarded SEK 1,000,000 in start-up grant to Maya Ketzef receiving a 2020 VR 'starting grant and Sara Garcia-Ptacek receiving a 2020 faculty-funded Assistant Professor position.

Nearly 11 percent of people admitted to an intensive care unit in Sweden between 2010 and 2018 received opioid prescriptions on a regular basis for at least six months and up to two years after discharge. That is according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet published in Critical Care Medicine. The findings suggest some may become chronic opioid users despite a lack of evidence of the drugs’ long-term effectiveness and risks linked to increased mortality.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet and Gothenburg University have investigated a potential new drug target for the rare genetic disorder Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome that causes accelerated aging in children. The findings in mice are published in the scientific journal eLife and may aid in the development of more effective treatments for this fatal condition.

Dr Kung-Lee Liang, a pioneer in the field of biostatistics, gave a webinar via zoom with more than 100 attendees, including the President of KI, Ole Petter Ottersen. Dr. Liang spoke about how biostatistics contributed to medical science in the 20th century, and how we can rise to meet the current and future challenges in public health.

A new study conducted in Nepal, offers some first local evidence to inform local decision-making and contribute to setting a research agenda for the use of menstrual cups in low- and middle-income countries. First author is Diksha Pokhrel, Kathmandu Medical College, Nepal, and corresponding author is Olivia Biermann, Karolinska Institutet. The results of the study were published in Reproductive Health.

Mattias Günther is the new Principal Investigator of the research group Experimental Traumatology, at the Department of Neuroscience, taking over from Mårten Risling, who will continue to work in the field of neurotrauma.

KI and Makerere University have signed an agreement to establish the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health (CESH), a centre to promote partnerships and develop capacity, resources and tools for researchers and policy makers globally. The agreement is the next step in the deepening of the collaboration between the institutions.

New professors Eric Westman and Dorota Religa, both Division of Clinical Geriatrics, head and deputy head of division respectively, gave their lectures as new professors at NVS on Wednesday January 20.

Helena Salminen, docent at the Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care, has received a private donation of 2.75 million SEK for a research project. The donation was finalized just before Christmas, 2020.

Purchasing and procurement, a sub-project within the project Harmonised professional services, has come to coordinate and centralize the purchasing coordinator organisation. Six to seven full-time positions within the organisation are being reorganized and will now be incorporated in the Central Administration.

Alex Moreno, Ana Coelho and Alexander Krämer were awarded a prize for best podcast episode by the European consortium “Combatting Disorders of Adaptive Immunity with Systems Medicine”, COSMIC. Out of the five recorded podcast episodes, the PhD students' episode with the title “The ethics behind the use of animal models in biomedical research” won the consortium’s prize.

How do cis-regulatory genome elements regulate gene expression, what are the critical components involved, and can we therapeutically target them? By investigating how corepressors modulate enhancers and silencers during inflammatory macrophage activation, BioNut researchers have found some unexpected answers to these fundamental questions. The study is published today in Molecular Cell.

Individual variations in how the immune system responds to SARS-CoV-2 appear to impact the severity of disease. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now been able to show that patients with severe COVID-19 have significantly elevated levels of a certain type of immune cells in their blood, called myeloid-derived suppressor cells. The study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation may bring an increased understanding of how early immune responses impact disease severity.

The cause of the inflammatory lung disease sarcoidosis is unknown. In a new study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have investigated whether a type of immune cell called a monocyte could be a key player in sarcoidosis pathogenesis and explain why some patients develop more severe and chronic disease than others. The study, which is published in The European Respiratory Journal, opens new possibilities for future diagnostic and therapeutic methods.

A subset of immune cells called gamma delta T cells are associated with increased survival in patients with advanced ovarian cancer, researchers at Karolinska Institutet report in the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine. The findings suggest that promoting gamma delta T cell responses may be a therapeutic option for ovarian cancer, researchers say.

A fundamental process by which cellular components are degraded is Autophagy. Defects in Autophagy pathways are strongly associated with multiple human diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders and cancer. Despite their importance, to date, a comprehensive characterization of the extent and selectivity for Autophagic degradomes has remained largely uncharacterized. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have in two studies published in the journal Autophagy mapped out how this happens.

Medicinska Föreningen and Odontologiska Föreningen are Karolinska Institutet's two student unions that work with educational issues and for an active student life for KI students. Every year, the student unions appoint new presidents. For 2021, we wish Alexander Klaréus welcome as new president for Medicinska Föreningen and Dana Samiean as new president for Odontologiska Föreningen. Get to know them and what they want to work for during the upcoming year.

Martin Engvall at the research group Inborn errors of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend his thesis "Identification of disease genes in rare neurological conditions" on January 22nd, 2021. Main Supervisor is Anna Wedell.

According to a new doctoral thesis from Karolinska Institutet, misinformation about infectious diseases can be debunked most effectively by first stating the false information and then correcting it with the correct information. All studies in the thesis about risk communication and misinformation in infectious disease outbreaks were conducted in Sierra Leone, focusing on Ebola, Typhoid and Malaria.

The Charlson co-morbidity index (CCI) is a disease index that was originally created to predict short-term mortality but is increasingly used as a proxy for comorbidity burden, and is often used as a co-variate, for instance in regression models. There are currently several available versions of the CCI. The existence of multiple morbidity indices creates confusion, increases the risk of mistakes and requires individual researchers to spend considerable time examining included codes.

The ability of our skin to protect us from chemicals is something we inherit. Some people are less well-protected which could imply an increased risk of being afflicted by skin disease or cancer. A new study from Karolinska Institutet that has been published in Environmental Health Perspectives shows how the rate of uptake of common chemicals is faster in people with a genetically weakened skin barrier.

A week before Christmas Eve, the Government presented the so-called Research Policy Bill, the document that points out the direction and the priorities of research over the next four years. “The Bill is in line with KI's strategy,” says Vice-Chancellor Ole Petter Ottesen.

In a new study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have used a urine test to identify and verify a patient’s type of asthma. The study, which has been published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, lays the foundation for a more personalized diagnosis and may result in improved treatment of severe asthma in the future.

Hi Juraj Sečník, PhD student at the Division of Clinical Geriatrics! On January 29 you will defend your thesis “Diabetes mellitus in patients with dementia : clinical care and pharmacological treatment”. What’s the main focus of the thesis?

What are the microbial triggers of peri-implantitis? George Belibasakis and Daniel Manoil from Karolinska Institutet tackled the question in a recent review.

Congratulations to Peter Zaphiropoulos, at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, who received 1 million SEK in project grants from the Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation 2020 for a project on Circular RNA in medulloblastoma.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed, in collaboration with researchers in Germany and the U.S., new small antibodies, also known as nanobodies, which prevent the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus from entering human cells. The research study, published in Science, shows that a combined nanobody had a particularly good effect – even if the virus mutated. According to the researchers, the nanobodies have the potential to be developed into a treatment for COVID-19.

KI researcher Professor Lars Terenius, in collaboration with two US groups, has been awarded a 5-year Prime Project Grant of 2.8 million US dollars from The National Institutes of Health, USA, to study how selected drugs affect the dynamics of opioid systems in Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD).

A new study by researchers from Karolinska Institutet and Makerere University reveals that children with cerebral palsy in rural Uganda have 25 times higher risk of premature death. The main causes of death were malaria and anemia. The study is to this date the largest study conducted on cerebral palsy in Africa and was published in PLoS One.

In countries with a severe shortage of surgeons it is common for some operations to be carried out by medical staff with lower formal qualifications. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have led an international study on the safety and efficacy of a common surgical procedure. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, shows that inguinal hernia operations performed by associate clinicians at a hospital in Sierra Leone were just as safe and effective as those performed by doctors.

The Swedish Cancer Society has awarded the prestigious title Cancer Researcher of the Year 2021 to Anna Martling, professor of surgery at Karolinska Institutet and senior consultant colorectal surgeon at Karolinska University Hospital, as well as dean of KI Nord.

Stem cell research is the prerequisite for regenerative medicine, which with the help of the body's cells recreates and heals important organs. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet, SickKids in Canada and KU Leuven in Belgium have found a method for defining the most general type of stem cells, that can develop into all cell types in the body. The study of totipotent stem cells in mice has been published in Nature Cell Biology.

Episode #58 of Medicinvetarna, a podcast on Karolinska Institutet’s research, is mainly about ADHD. Another question raised in the episode is what a thought really is.

Martin Slettengren at the research group Thoracic Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend his thesis "Evaluation of an automatic urinometer including use of silicone oil to decrease biofilm formation due to proteinuria, hemoglobinuria and bacterial growth" on January 14, 2021. Main Supervisor is Jan van der Linden.

The Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund’s largest research grant of the year has been awarded. A total of SEK 146 million will be distributed, a new record in the fight against childhood cancer. SEK 51.6 million of this will go towards research at Karolinska Institutet.

One woman in eight develops breast cancer during her lifetime in the Western world and although mammography screening reduces mortality by early detection, approximately one fourth of the women who develop breast cancer are diagnosed within two years after a negative screen.

KI-researcher Georgios Sotiriou has been awarded the European Research Council Proof of Concept Grant (ERC PoC) 2020. The grant is worth up to 150.000 Euro for a period of 18 months.