News archive

Worry about COVID-19 dominates some people’s lives in a way that has an impact on their health. A group of researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has developed a digital CBT programme that significantly reduced the participants’ unhelpful worry about the pandemic. The study is published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics and the programme is available through 1177 Vårdguiden.

Women with breast cancer whose eggs or ovarian tissue were frozen had more children after their diagnosis than women who did not undergo fertility preservation using those methods before start of cancer treatment. That is according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in JAMA Oncology. According to the researchers, the result highlights the importance of reproductive counseling and fertility preservation for women who are diagnosed with cancer at a young age.

Hi Axel Leppert, PhD student at the Division of Neurogeriatrics! On December 11 you will defend your thesis “Molecular basis for chaperone activities of the BRICHOS domain against different types of clumpy clients – a route to prevent amyloid toxicity”. What’s the main focus of the thesis?

The global shutdown during the pandemic is particularly harmful to children and teenagers in the poorer parts of the world, said Professor Anna Mia Ekström during an ethics seminar held at KI in November. Also participating at the seminar was state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.

Thirteen researchers connected to Karolinska Institutet are on the 2020 list of highly cited researchers presented by Clarivate, the company behind Web of Science.

Knowledge about the influence of lifestyle and environmental factors on diabetes risk is important as these factors are potentially modifiable and may be targeted in the prevention of diabetes.

Recent data suggest that adults may experience long-term symptoms after COVID-19 infection, but if such symptoms also occur in children is still unknown. Children tend to have milder COVID-19 than adults, but in a case-report from Sweden, Professor and pediatrician Jonas F Ludvigsson describes five children with potential “long COVID”. These findings, together with a systematic review of long COVID in children, are published in the journal Acta Paediatrica.

Karolinska Institutet have been awarded a grant of SEK 290 million from the Swedish Cancer Society. NVS researchers Maria Hagströmer and Linda Björkhem-Bergman are among the recipients.

One of the researchers who received fundings from the Swedish Cancer Society on November 10, 2020 is Professor Anna Martling at the research group Colorectal Surgery, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery. The Cancer Foundation contributes a total of SEK 18 million to two research projects concerning colorectal cancer.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden report promising results from an in vitro combination therapy against COVID-19. In a study published in EMBO Molecular Medicine, the researchers show that a combination of remdesivir, an approved drug against COVID-19, and hrsACE2, a medicine currently in phase II trials for COVID-19 treatment, reduced the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 and inhibited viral replication in cell cultures and organoids.

Together with Stiftelsen Silviahemmet, Karolinska Institutet has developed a new online course on dementia; “Dementia from Cell to Society”. The course offers a unique multi-professional perspective on caring for people with dementia.

Next autumn KI will launch a new medical programme to gradually replace the current one. The Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) has now granted Karolinska Institutet degree-awarding powers for the new programme, making KI one of seven Swedish universities authorised to issue medical degrees.

What does the defense against bacterial infections have in common with hearing or fertilization? Key players in these and many other crucial biological processes belong to a large family of extracellular proteins using a common polymerization engine known as “zona pellucida (ZP) module”. Detailed information on how ZP module proteins look like in their functional polymeric state has so far remained elusive. Now researchers at KI have finally shed light on this long-standing question.

We congratulate Dr. Magnus Dalén, at the Thoracic Surgery research group, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, who has been awarded Ingegerd and Viking Olov Björk Memorial Scholarship 2020.

The rheumatoid arthritis drug baricitinib can block viral entry and reduce mortality in patients with moderate to severe COVID-19, according to translational research by an international team coordinated by researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, support the continuation of ongoing randomized clinical trials.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded a grant of SEK 290 million from the Swedish Cancer Society, meaning that over one third of the total grant of SEK 709 million, divided amongst eleven universities, is going to cancer research at KI. Two of the recipients are associate professor Mattias Rantalainen and Professor Fang Fang.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet shows that 1 in 5 patients admitted for acute myocardial infarction are infected with Helicobacter pylori and that it is possible to introduce screening for this bacterium in routine care. The results are published in the American Heart Journal. The researchers are now planning a large randomised trial to find out whether screening and treatment of the infection reduces the risk of stomach bleeding and improves cardiovascular outcomes in this patient group.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet receive SEK 290 million from Cancerfonden. Three of these researchers who receive the grants are Rimma Axelsson, Rainer Heuchel and Magnus Nilsson - all belonging to CLINTEC

The Swedish cancer society has on November 11th awarded 709 million SEK to cancer research in Sweden. Among them were ten researchers from the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition (BioNut) at KI, who were granted a total of 45.2 million SEK. The grants cover the years 2021- 2023.

We wish to congratulate all our researchers to the grants received!

Early-life events, such as the exposure to air pollutants, increases the risk of chronic lung disease in young adulthood, according to new results by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, published in the European Respiratory Journal and Thorax. The studies add to the growing evidence that chronic lung disease in adulthood can be traced back to childhood.

Girls who have been sexually abused run a much higher risk of psychiatric ill health with depression and anxiety, leading to possible alcohol abuse and suicide. This persists even after intervention, reports a study from Karolinska Institutet published in European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Karolinska Institutet has together with its partners in Sub-Saharan Africa kick-started implementation of a new online training programme about sustainable health for professionals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Somalia and Uganda. The aim of the programme is to, based on the Agenda 2030, develop capacity to use innovative approaches to strengthen the health sector in the participants’ countries.

Hi Hazal Haytural, PhD student at the Division of Neurogeriatrics, NVS! On November 27 you will defend your thesis “Unraveling pathogenic proteins and pathways in Alzheimer disease: A focus on proteomics”. What’s the main focus of the thesis?

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have explored all COVID-19 research published during the initial phase of the pandemic. The results, which were achieved by using a machine learning-based approach and published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, will make it easier to direct future research to where it is most needed.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have investigated the association between certain immune markers in neonates and the risk of later developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD). They found that mid-levels of a classical marker of inflammation, C-reactive protein, were associated with the lowest risk for ASD – whereas too much or not enough were linked to increased risk. The study is published in the scientific journal Biological Psychiatry.

KI holds its position in the Times Higher Education Reputation rankings published on 3 November 2020.

The Swedish Research Council has awarded five-year grants totalling SEK 442,680,000 to 110 researchers at Karolinska Institutet. All in all, the SRC is awarding almost SEK 1 billion to 247 researchers in the fields of medicine and health.

European research consortium LipiDiDiet finds long-lasting and broadly benefiting effects of nutritional intervention in early Alzheimer’s

Professor Grigori Orlovsky, at the Department of Neuroscience, died on 26 October after a long period of illness.

Federico Pietrocola has been awarded 400 000 SEK in start-up grant from the Jeanssons Foundations.

A new study has found that a commonly prescribed anti-depressant may halt growth of a type of cancer known as childhood sarcoma, at least in mice and laboratory cell experiments. The findings, from researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Texas, ignite hope of novel treatment strategies against this disease. The study is published in the journal Cancer Research.

We wish to congratulate Luca Jovine, Juha Kere, Janne Johansson and Eckardt Treuter at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, who have been awarded grants from the Swedish Research Council within the area of Medicine and Health as well as the area of Natural and Engineering Sciences for the years 2020-2024.

Congratulations Jorge Ruas, newly appointed Professor of molecular physiology at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet.

Professor András Simon of the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB) and two fellow researchers in Canada and Switzerland have been awarded a grant of almost SEK 100 million by the European Research Council. The aim of the project, which goes under the acronym Salamandra, is to understand how locomotor functions can be restored after damage to the nervous system.

By the time KI-researcher and nurse Martina Gustavsson arrived in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Abeba in September, the staff at the city’s COVID center had been working every day since April. Tired and worn out, they were caring for more than 200 patients. They had not met their families for almost five months. Yet they were determined to carry on.

Worldwide, 30 countries account for almost 90% of the global tuberculosis burden. Ending tuberculosis (TB) will require early detection of people with TB, and active case-finding is one strategy for doing so. In this new study researchers at the Department of Global Public Health sheds light on policies for active case-finding in the 30 high TB burden countries, and the gap between policy and practice.

Isidora Vera Valencia, a student at the Occupational Therapy Programme at KI, has been awarded "Occupational Therapy Student of the Year 2020" by the Swedish Association of Occupational Therapists.

By screening hundreds of synthetic antibodies, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and EMBL Hamburg in Germany have identified an antibody that may prevent the new coronavirus from infecting human cells. The study, which is published in the journal Nature Communications, also shows how antibodies can be quickly produced in the event of future pandemics.

Agneta Nordberg, professor at the Division of Clinical Gertiatrics, NVS, is awarded ”2020 Grand Prix for research on Alzheimer disease” by Recherche Alzheimer Fondation at Sorbonne Université, Paris.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet and the University of California have uncovered the role of a polysynaptic pathway that links cholinergic neurons together. The study was recently published in Nature Communications.

Geriatrikboken is a new practical book in Swedish with a broad geriatric perspective on aging and health care for the elderly.

While proteins on the surface of cells are the targets for most drugs, refined methods are needed to analyse how these membrane proteins are organised. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a new DNA-based analytical method that could contribute to the development of future drugs for breast and other cancers. The study is published in Nature Nanotechnology.

KI holds its position in the Times Higher Education World university rankings by subject 2021, published on 28 October 2020.

A new paper shows that differences in plasma protein biomarker levels are controlled by hundreds of genetic variants across the human genome, and that these insights can be used to predict which drug targets that are likely to be effective future medicines. The study has been published in the October issue of Nature Metabolism.

The Division of Innovative Care Research has been very successful in receiving funding from SFO-V (Strategic Research Area Health Care Science), with four of the seven awarded grants going to the research group.

Both eczema and psoriasis are inflammatory skin diseases that affect many individuals. Now, researchers from Karolinska Institutet and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden have made progress in mapping new candidate genes for these hereditary skin diseases. This may in the long run open up new ways of treating the diseases. The findings are published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Christina Samuelsson has been appointed professor of speech and language pathology (SLP) at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, CLINTEC combined with a position as speech language pathologist at Medical Unit SLP, Karolinska University Hospital.

The professorship is primarily financed by direct government funding and FoU, and currently has a main focus on acquired communicative disabilities in adults.

Matilda Ernkrans, minister for Higher Education and Research, visited KI on 23 October. She met students, faculty, researchers and the university management, who described how they had adapted to the ongoing pandemic.

The Blue Sky Grant for Innovative Cancer Research is a one-year grant, providing SEK 500 000, to support projects aimed at exploring new research territories and demonstrating proof of principle. This year the internal organisation Cancer Research KI has awarded six Blue Sky grants, three of them to researchers at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics (MBB).

Summary of publication in CID by Helena Bergsten et al.