News archive

In a new study from the Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM), an alternative method for assessing the cancer potency of air pollution is presented, focusing on mixtures of organic pollutants in particles.

Are you interested in contributing to Karolinska Institutet's (KI) collaborations with Hong Kong?

Our fat cells not only store energy, they are also involved in many physiological processes. Kirsty Spalding researches how dysfunctional fat cells impact health and disease in humans. Meet one of the new professors of Karolinska Institutet who will participate in this year's installation ceremony at Aula Medica on 3 October.

DATAETHICS Winter School 2024: Ethical, social and legal considerations of Biomedical Big Data (BBD) handling ‘Big Data Divide’ and governance of BBD Platforms.

A new study published in the journal Geroscience has investigated whether centenarians reach old age by surviving, delaying or even avoiding disease. By following individuals born in the same year from the age of 60 onwards, the researchers were able to track the disease patterns of those who died early and late in life.

Generation Pep wants all children and young people in Sweden to have the opportunity and desire to live an active and healthy life. They collaborate with established knowledge partners, including Karolinska Institutet. Generation Pep now presents the online training programme My Best Day, developed in collaboration with researchers at KI and others, with the aim of improving young people's health.

Eurolife's DATAETHICS project has been awarded for its innovative work on data ethics and Big Data in (bio)medical education, and has received funding for an international conference in December.

RNA-sequencing has become a cornerstone in the study of gene expression, offering insights beyond mere mRNA transcript abundances. One area of increasing interest is alternative splicing, a process that allows a single gene to produce multiple transcript variants and thus protein isoforms with potentially different functions. In chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), mutations in the splicing factor gene SF3B1 are well-documented, yet broader implications of SF3B1 mutations are underexplored.

Henry Bode is affiliated to KI and ARC until August 2025. Peiyu Jiang is working as a database coordinator and statistician in the NEAR group since the beginning of September 2024.

StratNeuro Welcomes New Board Members and Thanks Outgoing Members

Unrestrained inflammation is associated with many diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases and cancer. Peder Olofsson wants to understand how nerve signals regulate inflammation to ultimately improve therapeutic options. Meet one of the new professors of Karolinska Institutet who will participate in this year's installation ceremony at Aula Medica on 3 October.

Tips from Grants Office regarding current calls

The closing date for nominations is November 7, 2024.

Concurrent with the ageing global population is a growing need of preventative action on age-related diseases. Weili Xu is studying how cardiovascular disease and diabetes influence the risk of developing cognitive failure and dementia. Meet one of the new professors of Karolinska Institutet who will participate in this year's installation ceremony at Aula Medica on 3 October.

At a ceremony at Drottningholm Court Theatre on 3 September, HM Queen Silvia awarded diplomas to two doctors, a dentist, an audiologist and a dietitian, marking the end of Karolinska Institutet’s dementia courses, which were produced jointly with Stiftelsen Silviahemmet.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have identified a mechanism responsible for a serious psychiatric complication caused by dopamine replacement therapy in Parkinson’s disease. The results of these findings were recently published in Molecular Psychiatry.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet has made a significant breakthrough in the study of childhood neuroblastoma, a type of cancer that begins before birth during the early stages of adrenal gland development.

Cervical cancer is a major global health problem. It ranks as the fourth most common cause of cancer-related deaths among women, despite the disease being largely preventable. Now, researchers from Karolinska Institutet have received funding from the UICC to investigate how an HPV self-screening programme can be implemented in war-torn Ukraine.

During the last two weeks of August, newly admitted KI students were invited to the introduction. The mild weather fitted like a glove with the warm atmosphere that permeated the many activities.

It is through our sensory perception that we experience our environment and bodily sensations. François Lallemend is studying the mechanisms underlying these perceptions in the hope of finding new treatments for sensory impairment. Meet one of the new professors of Karolinska Institutet who will participate in this year's installation ceremony at Aula Medica on 3 October.

Those who wish to live to 100 cannot rely on chance. Instead, it is essential to keep biomarkers associated with ageing and disease in check. By the age of 60, it may already be too late.

You might be 50 years old, but your body could be as fresh as a 40-year-old’s ‒ or vice versa. Biological ageing has its own pace and rhythm. How we live our lives, what we experience, and the quality of medical treatment we receive all influence how quickly we wear out.

Bothnia dystrophy is a form of hereditary blindness, prevalent in the region Västerbotten in Sweden. A new study at Karolinska Institutet published in Nature Communications shows that gene therapy can improve vision in patients with the disease.

Now there is a new, partially automated presentation of Karolinska Institutet’s research by subjects on ki.se. The presentation is made with the help of KI’s new data system for research information, KI RIMS, and showcases research groups, teams, and in some cases, units.

NASP has been redesignated as the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research, Methods Development and Training in Suicide Prevention.

The StratNeuro Postdoctoral funding is designed to support exceptional postdoctoral researchers in both basic and clinical neuroscience who are currently conducting research at KI. This year, we received 29 applications from 7 different departments.

Caroline Ran, researcher at Karolinska Institutet, and Jacob Edvinsson, researcher at Lund University, are the first authors of an article which has been awarded the best scientific article on cluster headache published between June 2023 and May 2024. It is the first time since 2004 that the prize goes to Sweden.

The Karolinska Institutet hosted its highly anticipated annual reception, the KI@AMEE Mingle, during the AMEE Congress in Basel in August. Organized by Teaching and Learning at KI, the event served as a platform to celebrate collective achievements, honor this year's KIPRIME awardee, and foster meaningful connections among the global medical education community.

A third of the Swedish population lives with a chronic inflammatory skin disease, such as psoriasis, eczema and vitiligo. Liv Eidsmo is mapping the skin’s T cells to better understand why the diseases often recur at the same place. Meet one of the new professors of Karolinska Institutet who will participate in this year's installation ceremony at Aula Medica on 3 October.

A new report from the Nordic Expert Group (NEG) and the Dutch Expert DECOS committee has evaluated the health hazards and calculated cancer risk of occupational exposure to respirable crystalline silica (RCS).

The Myositis Clinic, led by Professor Ingrid Lundberg, is a world leader in research studies aimed at helping patients. The American Myositis Association is now recognizing their efforts with an award.

The restaurant Jöns Jacob on campus Solna is closed due to renovations. The café and the microwave hub will remain open as usual until renovations begin in those areas as well.

Welcome to Guillermo Vázquez Cabrera's presentation of his thesis ”Microglia: guardians across the lifespan and disease spectrum”.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet has mapped how a specific type of immune cells, MAIT cells, adapt and specialise in different tissues of the human body.

The risk of skin cancer for adults under the age of 50 is now decreasing for the first time in Sweden, according to a study from Karolinska Institutet published in JAMA Dermatology.

The understanding of congenital growth and skeletal diseases is currently limited. Ola Nilsson hopes to pave the way for new therapeutic strategies by charting the mechanisms driving these diseases. Meet one of the new professors of Karolinska Institutet who will participate in this year's installation ceremony at Aula Medica on 3 October.

A groundbreaking study has shed new light on the mechanisms behind idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (myositis), a group of systemic autoimmune disorders known for causing severe muscle weakness, fatigue, and increased mortality.

A groundbreaking study from Karolinska Institutet, recently published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry offers new insights into the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The research reveals critical differences in the progression of memory loss based on the presence of specific proteins in the brain.

Prostate cancer accounts for more male deaths in Sweden than any other form of cancer. However, how the disease progresses and how fatal it is depend on the type of tumour. Olof Akre hopes to find better prognostic indicators that will help to personalise treatment. Meet one of the new professors of Karolinska Institutet who will participate in this year's installation ceremony at Aula Medica on 3 October.

Tips from KI Grants Office about current calls

At the beginning of September, Clara Demetriades started as a Educational Administrator at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH).

Don't miss to apply to The KI Network Medicine Alliance collaborative awards 2024 open to KI faculty, staff and/or students to conduct collaborative interactions within the fields of network medicine, systems medicine and AI. Possibility to apply for:

•Travel grants
•Data collection
•Preparation for writing of a larger grant proposal
•Organising workshops, and external lectures
…and more within the fields of network medicine, systems medicine and AI.

Deadline September 16 2024

The European Research Council (ERC) has announced this year’s recipients of Starting Grants for young scientists and scholars across Europe. Six project applications submitted by researchers from Karolinska Institutet have secured grants totalling 9.8 million Euro – an important recognition for KI.

The research field of environmental physiology is returning to Karolinska Institutet after having belonged for many years to the Royal Institute of Technology. The move marks the start of an extended partnership between the Swedish Armed Forces and KI.

In a recent study published in Nature, Swedish researchers demonstrate the role of sex hormones in regulating the immune system. This newfound knowledge explains differences between men and women and can be used to develop new immunological medications according to researchers.

Luca Love from the Biosciences and Nutrition Unit at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge, is defending his thesis titled "Mechanisms controlling the latent HIV-1 provirus", on 12 September, 2024. Main supervisor is Peter Svensson (MedH).

Mitochondrial diseases are inherited and often affect children. With no effective treatment currently available, Anna Wredenberg hopes to discover more about mitochondrial function in order to improve both diagnosis and treatment. Meet one of the new professors of Karolinska Institutet who will participate in this year's installation ceremony at Aula Medica on 3 October.

The cost of whole-genome sequencing is approaching that of the traditional genetic tests currently used for patients diagnosed with acute leukemia, according to a new study published in the Journal of Medical Economics. With costs falling and whole-genome sequencing adding new information that can improve treatment decisions, researchers see a future in which whole-genome sequencing becomes the standard for acute leukemias.

Congratulations Agnes Wahrenberg, PhD student of the Department of Clinical Science and Education, Södersjukhuset, on receiving the prestigious “Young Investigators Award in Atherothrombosis, Coronary, Aortic and Peripheral Artery Disease,” at the European Society of Cardiology’s annual congress in London.

There has been concern that common diabetes drugs could increase the risk of suicide and self-harm. In a new study, led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and published in Jama Internal Medicine, no such risk increase was observed.