News archive

The financial burden on health systems would drastically increase if new European expert guidelines for cholesterol-lowering treatment were implemented, according to a new simulation study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the European Heart Journal. The findings highlight an urgent need for cost-effectiveness analysis given the current cost of the proposed treatment for very high-risk patients, the researchers say.

An extensive workshop has been held to further the vision of creating a Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health. Karolinska Institutet is driving the development together with Makerere University in Uganda, with focus on non-communicable diseases and other high burden diseases.

Children conceived with assisted reproductive techniques have a somewhat higher mortality risk during their first weeks of life than children conceived naturally, according to a study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility. The researchers link the increased risk to a higher degree of premature births in IVF-conceived children. The risk of infant mortality is still very small for both groups and after 1 year of age there is no difference.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of Milan in Italy have identified a gene in human neurons that protects against the degeneration of motor neurons in the deadly diseases ALS and SMA. Gene therapy in animal models of these diseases was shown to protect against cell death and increase life expectancy. The study is published in the eminent journal Acta Neuropathologica.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet, Örebro University and Aarhus University, Denmark, have published the largest study to date on the risk of colorectal cancer in Crohn's disease. The article is published in the journal The Lancet Gastroenterology Hepatology.

Rates of people dying from chronic kidney disease are expected to increase in the coming years unless more countries invest in preventative measures and early treatment. That is the conclusion of a global systematic analysis by the international research consortium Global Burden of Disease, published today in the scientific journal The Lancet. The study was led in part by Professor Johan Ärnlöv at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

The Arts and Sciences come together through a collaboration between a division of NVS, Aging Research Center, and the Stockholm School of Photography in a project about aging. Public lectures and an exhibition will allow the general public the possibility to access the research, the collaborative process and the students’ photos. The exhibition opens on the 25th of February at Folkuniversitetet.

In a new Swedish study, published in the medical journal Neurology, it was found that people with cluster headache have twice as many sick-leave days as people without. The researchers also found that women with cluster headache had twice as many sick-leave days as men with the same disease. That an episodic disease has some effect on working life was expected, but not that the differences were that large.

Alumni from Health Informatics Centre (HIC) at Karolinska Institutet receives Board Certification in Clinical Informatics by the American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM).

On Monday, February 10, the government presented four collaborative groups that are linked to the government's strategic collaboration program. Karolinska Institutet's president Ole Petter Ottersen is a member of the collaboration group for health and life science.

Professor Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam was elected member of the Academy's Class for medical sciences on 15 January 2020.

Stress-related conditions such as adjustment disorder and clinical burnout can be effectively treated with a 12-week cognitive behavioural programme, both when delivered as a face-to-face treatment and when delivered via the internet, according to a new doctoral thesis from Karolinska Institutet.

Today at the "International Day of Women and Girls in Science" we want to pay special attention to all female researchers at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery!

People age in different ways. Biological age is a metric that scientists use to predict health risks, the relevance of which can be enhanced by combining different markers. Particularly important markers are frailty and the epigenetic clock, write researchers from Karolinska Institutet in a study published in eLife.

Hi Astrid Grensman, PhD-student at the Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care. On February 14 you will defend your thesis “Traditional yoga and clinical burnout: Quality of life and biomarkers before and after treatment”, what is the main focus of the thesis?

Since the beginning of the year, Henrik Engblom holds the position as Professor of Clinical Physiology at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet. He combines his professorship with a position as senior consultant at the Department of Clinical Physiology, Karolinska University Hospital and since 1 February he is research group leader for Clinical Physiology at MMK.

KI Pick up service is now looking for more student representatives who want to work with picking up incoming exchange students from City Terminal (T-Centralen) and escorting them to their accommodation.

We are looking for healthy participants between the ages of 18 and 35 to participate in a brain imaging study of personality factors, which will be conducted at Karolinska Institutet.

The International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care (ISNCC) honors the contributions of distinguished cancer nurses working to reduce the global burden of cancer. Lena Sharp is one of the outstanding individuals to be honored at the upcoming International Conference on Cancer Nursing 2020 in London.

The CEPEH EU project organised its kick-off meeting on 15-19 December 2019 in Nottingham, United Kingdom. The aim of CEPEH strategic partnership is to co-design and implement new pedagogical approaches and in particular chatbots for European Medical and Nursing schools.

Ann Nordgren, Adjunct Professor at Karolinska Institutet, has in her position as coordinator of the working group predisposition within the Childhood Tumor Bank (BTB) - Genomic Medicine Sweden (GMS), working committee (AU) Childhood cancer, been awarded clinical project grant amounting to SEK 15.000.000 from the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund.

The Swedish organisation Psykiatrifonden has just announced which projects will receive research funding by money earmarked for suicide preventative research donated by Suicide Zero. Lotfi Khemiri at Karolinska Institutet is responsible for one of the projects and is studying the connection between substance abuse and risk of suicide.

Hi Médoune Sarr, PhD-student at the Division of Neurogeriatrics. On February 28 you will defend your thesis ”A star is born: Development of NT* as a biotechnological tool based on the mechanism of pH dependent dimerization of the spidroin N-terminal domain”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

N.B. THE CONFERENSE WILL HELD ONLINE
On May 15-16, 2020, The European Conference on Rare Diseases & Orphan Products (ECRD) will be held at the Stockholm fair in Älvsjö. The conference brings together over 800 participants from more than 50 countries. Abstract deadline is February 10.

Researchers worldwide are trying to develop a vaccine and antiviral treatments against the new corona virus spreading in China. At Karolinska Institutet, virus researchers Ali Mirazimi and Matti Sällberg are working to develop a prototype vaccine against the virus. But vaccine development takes time, and it will likely take at least six to nine months before an application for clinical studies can be filed and another two to three years before a vaccine could be ready for the public.

Babies born with low birth weights are more likely to have poor cardiorespiratory fitness later in life than their normal-weight peers. That is according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the journal JAHA. The findings underscore the importance of prevention strategies to reduce low birth weights even among those carried to at term delivery.

When Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) infects a cell, the virus often becomes invisible to both the immune system and drugs. Now research from Karolinska Institutet shows that the integrated virus mimics a specific chromatin structure that lets the virus sequence remain accessible while preventing production of new viruses.

In a recent study, researchers from the Karolinska Institutet show that the estrogen receptor beta (ERß) affects nerve signals in the part of the brain that controls locomotor activity. The results highlight the importance of ERß and the female sex hormone estrogen in brain development and function, and that an imbalance of the hormone could contribute to neuropsychiatric disorders.

A clinical phase I study led by the Public Health Agency of Sweden and researchers from Karolinska Institutet shows that a new vaccine for pertussis (whooping cough) given as drops into the nose is more efficacious than the current vaccine. The results of the study are presented in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. The vaccine will now be evaluated in a larger phase II clinical trial.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have mapped how different nerve cells in the brain area striatum process information to plan and execute our movements at just the right time and with the right vigour. The results, presented in the journal Cell Reports, show that different cell types in the striatum receive signals from completely different parts of the cerebral cortex and thus respond to different types of information.

The new corona virus continues to spread despite significant measures taken by the authorities in China to stop the outbreak. However, this time the fast response coupled with increased knowledge about the nature of the virus means the world is better placed to handle the outbreak compared to 18 years ago when SARS caused widespread concern, says virus researcher Ali Mirazimi, adjunct professor at the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Karolinska Institutet.

Researchers from the Teixeira Lab in collaboration with the Ruas and Stevens Labs at Karolinska Institutet have identified that molecular weight, nuclear import rate as well as the width of the muscle fibers are the key factors behind the transport of proteins within muscle cells. The study is published in PNAS and provides engineering parameters for gene therapies in skeletal muscle.

A multiple organ-on-chip platform developed by researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Karolinska Institutet and Harvard University could drastically accelerate drug testing. The technology, described today in Nature Biomedical Engineering, provides accurate predictions of drug effects prior to clinical testing.

Bo Runeson and his colleague Seena Fazel from University of Oxford has written a review article about the current state of research on suicide prevention. The article was published in New England Journal of Medicine.

A new digital tool that tailors specific questions based on a patient's medical history could improve the safety of diagnosis and effectiveness of care, according to a new study at Danderyd Hospital and Karolinska Institutet published in BMJ Open.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have revealed a new principle of organisation which explains how locomotion is coordinated in vertebrates akin to an engine with three gears. The results are published in the scientific journal Neuron.

More than 200 people have died and thousands more have been sickened by the new corona virus spreading in China. A few cases have been confirmed outside China, and the World Health Organization is closely monitoring the situation. How worried about a new pandemic should we be? Virus researcher Ali Mirazimi, adjunct professor at the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Karolinska Institutet, gives us his perspective.

Two researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded funds from the Sjöberg Foundation. The foundation promotes cancer research, and research on health and the environment.

After years of research on cell surface receptors called Frizzleds, researchers at Karolinska Institutet provide the proof-of-principle that these receptors are druggable by small molecules. The results, which are published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, open for new strategies to treat different types of cancer.

Abdominal obesity not only increases the risk for a first heart attack or stroke, but also the risk for recurrent atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

Endogenous proteins that play a vital part in allergies and parasitic infection can prevent the immune system from wrongly attacking the body and causing inflamed joints, a study from Karolinska Institutet published in the scientific journal PNAS reports. The researchers hope that the results will give rise to new drugs for rheumatoid arthritis.

UPDATE: Please note that the rest of the seminars in this series are cancelled.

A common and inexpensive drug may be used to counteract treatment resistance in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), one of the most common forms of blood cancer. This is the conclusion of a study in mice and human blood cells performed at Karolinska Institutet and SciLifeLab and published in the medical journal EMBO Molecular Medicine. The researchers will now launch a clinical study to test the new combination treatment in patients.

The transcription factor DAF-16/FOXO mediates a wide variety of aging-preventive responses by driving the expression of stress-resistance and longevity promoting genes. Ilke Sen and other members of the Riedel lab could show that transcriptional initiation at many DAF-16/FOXO target genes depends on dephosphorylation of SPT-5 by Protein Phosphatase 4.

KI researcher Emma Andersson receives Swedish Foundations' Starting Grant 2019 for research in developmental biology.

In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers at Karolinska Institutet show that MAIT cells (mucosa-associated invariant T cells), part of the human immune system, respond with dynamic activity and reprogramming of gene expression during the initial phase of HIV infection. The study fills a knowledge gap, as previously there has been a lack of awareness of the function of MAIT cells during this particular phase.

Two new research programmes focusing on AI and bioelectronic medicine, for application in the areas of breast cancer and inflammatory disease, respectively, have been adopted at MedTechLabs. An interdisciplinary centre run by KTH, Karolinska Institutet and the Stockholm Region.

The post-doctoral programme for leading research, Pro Futura Scientia, provides promising young European researchers financing for independent research. The 15 participants of the 2019-2020 programme have also been offered a leadership programme, Leadership in Academia, given by Karolinska Institutet in collaboration with Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences).

On Friday January 31, Yunzhang Wang will defend his thesis "DNA methylation and aging : a longitudinal study of old Swedish twins".

Congratulations Pawel Kozielewicz! You are the Highlighted Trainee Author for the January 2020 Issue of Molecular Pharmacology.