News archive

Karolinska Institutet and St. Erik Eye Hospital have entered into a collaboration with Novo Nordisk A/S to develop a new treatment for age-related macular degeneration. Novo Nordisk A/S will provide support and SEK 48 million in funding to enable a phase 1 clinical trial where new retinal cells generated from embryonic stem cells will be transplanted into patients. The aim is to develop a completely new cell therapy for this common but currently incurable eye disease.

Since 15 June, the requirements for distance learning have been eased and this autumn there will be a gradual return to KI's campus. But the unusual spring semester has yielded valuable lessons and experiences. Head of Division Ann Langius-Eklöf and lecturer Carina Georg recount what it was like for the nursing education programmes – to work against the clock.

On 17 March 2020, the Public Health Agency of Sweden encourages Swedish universities and upper-secondary schools to conduct distance learning in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The campus closes on 18 March, but teaching must continue. For KI’s teachers, it’s the start of an intensive undertaking, one that proved particularly challenging for the Unit for Teaching and Learning.

Researchers may have come one step closer toward understanding how the immune system contributes to severe COVID-19. In a study published in Science Immunology, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden show that so-called natural killer (NK) cells were strongly activated early after SARS-CoV-2 infection but that the type of activation differed in patients with moderate and severe COVID-19. The discovery contributes to our understanding of development of hyperinflammation in some patients.

Hi there Therese Scott Duncan, who held her licentiate seminar with the title "Paving the way - the second generation of e-patients, their experiences, actions and driving forces" in May. Congratulations! Can you tell us a little more?

Earlier this week, a new ranking of the world universities came from the Academic Ranking of World Universities, ARWU (also called the Shanghai ranking). This ranking has been a relatively stable ranking since it was introduced in 2003.

In an interdisciplinary study combining developmental biology and computational biology, researchers from Karolinska Institutet and Medical University of Vienna (together with researchers in US, Italy and France), have revealed a dynamic transcriptomic roadmap of the development of somatosensory neurons and extracted mechanistic insights of cell fate decision. Results from this study are published in Nature communications.

Olga Nilsson from the research group Vascular Surgery, Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend her thesis "Development, evaluation and patient experiences of eHealth in the care of abdominal aortic aneurysm" on September 4, 2020. Main Supervisor is Rebecka Hultgren.

Professor Jonas F Ludvigsson, at MEB, KI has been appointed national scientific expert in pediatrics at the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet reveal mechanisms of neuron vulnerability and resistance in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) by investigating gene activity dynamics of different neurons in a mouse model. The study was recently published in the journal Genome Research.

New student at Karolinska Institutet? Back on campus after the spring? Take the chance to participate in our photo competition #helloKI. Share your experience as a student at KI and get the possibility to be published on KI’s Instagram, and the chance to win a goodiebag!

KI has introduced a new application system from August 18, 2020, so if you want to utilize the resources of the Twin Registry, you must now use the web based system iLab.

New research from Karolinska Institutet shows that the degree of frailty, a measure of a person’s functional level before contracting the disease, can better predict COVID-19 survival than the patient’s age. The analysis of 250 multimorbid older adults who received care for COVID-19 at the Aging Theme at Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge, Sweden also shows that three out of four of these patients survived. The study has been published in the scientific journal JAMDA.

Being socially active generally increases your chances of getting a good night’s sleep. But if you are active late into the evening, it reduces the number of hours you sleep – and can also affect your social life. This is according to a new study from Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet published in the scientific journal PNAS.

COVID-19 hits nations worldwide. Social restrictions are being put in place in an effort to limit the spread of the corona virus and save lives.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital shows that many people with mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 demonstrate so-called T-cell-mediated immunity to the new coronavirus, even if they have not tested positively for antibodies. According to the researchers, this means that public immunity is probably higher than antibody tests suggest. The article has been published in the esteemed scientific journal Cell. [This news article has been updated]

Antibiotics use, particularly antibiotics with greater spectrum of microbial coverage, may be associated with an increased risk of new-onset inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and its subtypes ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. That is according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Harvard Medical School in the U.S., published in the journal The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology. The association remained when patients were compared with their siblings.

The disease multiple sclerosis (MS) attacks the central nervous system and, with time, can give rise to muscle tremors and loss of balance. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now identified a gene, Gsta4, that protects a certain kind of cell in the brain from being destroyed. It is hoped that the results of the study, which is published in Nature Communications, can help to improve the treatment of this serious disease.

Johan von Schreeb, Specialist in General Surgery and Disaster medicine at the Karolinska Institutet, has been on site in Beirut for a couple of days now.

The pharmaceutical company Chiesi donates SEK 320,000 to a research project at Karolinska Institutet to develop a new method for large scale COVID-19 tests. The goal is to be able to follow the development of the virus in populations and community groups. The project is led by Nicola Crosetto, researcher at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics.

With the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 40 professionals, in maternal and child health care and nutrition in Sub-Saharan African countries, will receive training comprising of 7.5 credits from Karolinska Institutet. The training programme is fully online and runs from August until September 2020.

By conducting advanced analyses of immune system activation in patients with severe COVID-19, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have managed to identify several cell types that play a key part in the immune response to the new coronavirus and the hyperinflammation seen in severe cases of the disease. The results are published in the scientific journal Cell Reports Medicine.

A new type of immunotherapy for the skin cancer malignant melanoma shows promising results. Three severely ill patients are now long-term survivors. The study, published in OncoImmunology, is the result of a collaboration between researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital.

Basing their research on an unexpected interspecies difference between rats and mice, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University have mapped a system in the brain that controls paternal behaviour towards offspring. A key component in this behaviour is the hormone prolactin, which prepares females for motherhood and has now been shown to control paternal behaviour as well. The study has been published in the journal Cell.

In an interdisciplinary study combining stem cell biology and tumor biology, researchers from Karolinska Institutet (as well as Uppsala and Lund University, together with researchers in Canada, Germany and France), have succeeded in creating a new type of stem cell models for studies on cancer of the brain. The study was recently published in PNAS.

The drug tocilizumab, which is used in the treatment of various forms of arthritis, is associated with shorter time on ventilation and shorter hospital stays for patients with severe COVID-19, a new study from Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital published in The Journal of Internal Medicine reports.

A literature review coordinated by Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and McMaster University in Canada demonstrates that cloth face masks provide clinically useful levels of filtration, which has the potential to reduce the spread of viruses such as SARS-CoV-2. The findings, now published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, support the wearing of cloth masks to reduce the spread of the new coronavirus, according to the researchers.

Injuries in the nervous system of patients with severe COVID-19 are revealed by magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography. In a study of 185 patients, researchers at KI and Karolinska University Hospital show an affection of microscopic blood vessels and inflammation in the brain, meninges and nerves. The results are published in Radiology.

The human perception of pain may have been influenced by events taking place 50,000-70,000 years ago when our ancestors met the Neanderthals. A Neanderthal gene confers increased sensitivity to pain according to new research from Karolinska Institutet and Max Planck Institute published in Current Biology. These findings could lead to more tailored treatments.

As previously announced, Professor Sten Orrenius has passed away.

The Covid-19 pandemic does not stop the fight for LGBTQ rights. This year’s Stockholm Pride will instead be broadcast live digitally under the name Stockholm Pride Summer Stream. As usual, several of Stockholm’s higher education institutions are participating under the joint Academic Pride banner, which this year brings together both students and employees from seven higher education institutions.

KI-researcher Simon Elsässer, Senior Researcher, is one of fifty-five grantees of the European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept funding to explore the commercial or societal potential of their research results.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the new coronavirus has created an unprecedented public health challenge globally. Little was known about how the infecting cells respond to the virus and how the virus hijacks the host cellular machinery. A study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet published in Emerging Microbes & Infection gives new insights into the virus-host interplay enabling newer ideas to tackle the virus.

Using a large transfusion database, with data going back to the 1960s, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been able to identify 44 donors and 1,180 transfused patients likely to be infected with hepatitis C, who are still alive and who remain undiagnosed.

The antidepressant fluoxetine has been suggested as a means to improve brain recovery after acute stroke. However, a large randomised study on stroke patients at 35 Swedish hospitals shows that the drug has no such effect. The study, which was led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, is published in The Lancet Neurology.

We have published a systematic review in the Journal of Dental Research

Through a unique database, KI researchers have studied the risk of small bowel cancer in individuals with celiac disease. Principal investigator Louise Emilsson, affiliated researcher at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, associate professor at HELSAM, Oslo University and co-author Jonas F Ludvigsson, professor at Karolinska Institutet, reflect on their work recently published in Gastroenterology.

Sophie Erhardt's research group, at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded a research grant of in total SEK 1,200,000 from The Swedish Brain Foundation.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a new method that can make it easier for public authorities to assess the health risks of hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment.

Making the latest research results available to doctors increases the opportunities for finding better individualised cancer treatment. For a few years, researchers at Karolinska Insititutet and several other universities have been working on building a digital tool which will make global genomic data easily available as support for treatment decisions.

In a study published in PNAS, researchers from Karolinska Institutet, the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Nagoya University and Technische Universität Braunschweig show an undiscovered heterogeneity of adult zebrafish Purkinje cells, revealing the existence of anatomically and functionally distinct cell types.

World-Wide FINGERS (WW-FINGERS) is the first global network of clinical trials for risk reduction and prevention of dementia and Alzheimer's disease through multidomain interventions. The network convenes research teams from over 30 countries, and is led by Professor Miia Kivipelto from the Center for Alzheimer Research, Karolinska Institutet. The main scope, scientific strategy and activities of the WW-FINGERS network have been published today (July 6, 2020) in Alzheimer's & Dementia.

A novel study from the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet indicates that antibodies against a small lipid entity, phosphorylcholine (PC), can be associated with protection in inflammatory systemic diseases, including SLE and Sjögren´s syndrome. The results support evidence for a potential treatment by providing antibodies (anti-PC) to patients with these diseases or through immunization with PC.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have imaged tau protein in the brains of living patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The amount and spread of tau proved a predictor of future memory loss. Brain imaging for measuring tau can be useful both for improving diagnosis and for developing more effective treatments, say the researchers. The study is published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

The vitality of preterm infants should be assessed with an Apgar score, a tool used to measure the health of newborns immediately after birth. That is the conclusion by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden who in a large observational study examined the value of Apgar scores for preterm infants. The findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Evaluating the genetic correlations across our phenotypes is of essential importance for understanding disease etiology and other potential causality. The new method – published in the journal Nature Genetics – vastly improves our power in estimating genetic correlations using the huge established resources from genome-wide association studies.

Professor emeritus Torgny Svensson has passed away following complications of covid-19 on Friday, June 12th, at the age of 75. He will be sorely missed by his family, as well as friends and colleagues in Sweden and around the world.

Repeated measurements of the biomarker FIB-4 in the blood every few years can predict the risk of developing severe liver disease, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in the Journal of Hepatology. The risk of liver cirrhosis increases if the levels of this biomarker rise between two testing occasions.

They receive 750 000 SEK each over a 1-year period.