News archive

Two new studies from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden underscore health risks associated with childhood obesity. Children with obesity have a three times higher risk of mortality in early adulthood compared with children in the general population and are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression. The findings, published in PLOS Medicine and BMC Medicine, highlight the need to identify specific risk factors for children with obesity and find preventative tools, say the researchers.

Camilla Olofsson from the group Growth and Metabolism will defend her thesis "Diet and postprandial risk markers for complications in type 2 diabetes" on March 20, 2020. Main Supervisor is Neda Rajamand Ekberg.

Congratulations to Professor Jesper Lagergren, from the research group Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery and Professor Pernilla Lagergren, from the research group Surgical Care Science, both at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, who will be awarded the 2020 Hilda and Alfred Eriksson's Prize.

We are born with all the hair follicles that we will ever have in our lives, because after birth the skin loses the ability to create new hair follicles. If our skin is severely damaged it cannot form new hair follicles or associated sebaceous glands essential for keeping the skin moist. But now researchers at the Karolinska Institutet have revealed that controlled activation of the so-called Hedgehog-signaling pathway leads to new formation of hair follicles and hair in mice.

Patients with polyps have a higher risk of colorectal cancer, and those with sessile serrated polyps, tubulovillous adenomas, and villous adenomas had a higher colorectal cancer mortality.

Their researches on the lamprey brain has enabled researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden to push the birth of the cortex back in time by some 300 million years to over 500 million years ago, providing new insights into brain evolution. The study is published in the scientific journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

The president of Karolinska Institutet, Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, has established a team of experts for Covid-19 comprising eight of the university’s researchers with expertise in a range of fields related to the spread of infection. One of them is doctoral students Hedvig Glans, assistant consultant and head of inpatient care at Karolinska University Hospital’s infection clinic in Huddinge.

The human papillomavirus (HPV) causes, amongst other diseases, cancer of the cervix and oropharynx. A Swedish-Finnish study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases now shows that the most oncogenic HPV types can be eliminated, but only if both girls and boys are vaccinated. Both genders will be offered vaccination in Sweden as of 2020.

Among adults with chronic viral hepatitis at high risk of liver cancer, those who took low-dose aspirin long-term were less likely to develop liver cancer or to die from liver-related causes. The findings come from a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and conducted by a team led by investigators at Karolinska Institutet and Örebro University Hospital in Sweden and Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S.

Hi there Sayem Ahmed, you recently defended your doctoral thesis "Healthcare financing challenges and opportunities to achieving universal health coverage in the low- and middle-income country context". Could you tell us what is it about?

Professor Ali Mirazimi at Karolinska Institutet is part of a consortium that has received 1 million Canadian dollars (almost 7 million kronor) to try to develop a drug candidate against COVID-19. Mirazimi will assist with in vitro and in vivo infection models for SARS-CoV-2. The project is a collaboration with Canadian and Chinese researchers.

Within the framework of a long-standing collaboration between Mayo Clinic and Karolinska Institutet, the Department of Global Public Health and Centre for Psychiatry Research will be hosting Mayo Clinic's renowned Tobacco Treatment Specialist Training Program in Stockholm during the fall this year.

The Hugh Knowles Prize for Distinguished Achievement is awarded periodically to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to research or clinical practice in the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of hearing disorders.

Karolinska Institutet’s Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters has been tasked by the National Board of Health and Welfare to arrange an education, training and practice package (e.g. on the handling of personal protective equipment) for medical personnel in connection with the Covid-19 outbreak.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet are on track to produce a vaccine against the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Several vaccine candidates are currently available in the freezers at the Department of Laboratory Medicine and the first animal studies are slated to begin at the end of March, according to Professor and Head of Department Matti Sällberg who is leading the effort together with virus researcher and Professor Ali Mirazimi and researcher Gustaf Ahlén.

Jiayao Lei’s thesis addresses research questions on prevention and prognosis of cervical cancer within the framework of the interplay of human papillomavirus (HPV), vaccination, and cervical screening, and also provides insights for evidence-based decision-making.

The 24-25th of March 2020 is the starting point of the new learning arena “Develop future development” aiming to increase organizational competence and capacity for multilevel development in complex organizational systems.

Three coronavirus projects coordinated by researchers at Karolinska Institutet have moved onto the grant negotiation phase in a bid for 9 million euros (95 million kronor) in EU funding. The projects aim to find a vaccine, immunotherapies and neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and are being coordinated by KI’s Matti Sällberg, Qiang Pan Hammarström and Benjamin Murrell.

Hi there Oliver Dyer, doctoral student at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet. On Thursday 12 March you will defend your thesis. Tell us, what is your thesis about?

An international team of scientists led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet has launched a comprehensive overview of all proteins expressed in the brain, published in the journal Science. The open-access database offers medical researchers an unprecedented resource to deepen their understanding of neurobiology and develop new, more effective therapies and diagnostics targeting psychiatric and neurological diseases.

In an article published in The New York Times on 2 February 2020, Dr. Perry Klass discusses recent research and the relationship between the risk for depression and lack of physical activity among adolescents.

The EU-funded cooperation project "Modernity, Education and Human Rights" (MEHR), between Sweden, Croatia and Portugal, aimed at developing the work and strengthening higher education on human rights within the fields of medicine, social welfare, teacher training, geography and engineering.

Petter Brodin, researcher in immunology at Karolinska Institutet is awarded the prestigious Göran Gustafsson Prize in medicine for his “pioneering analysis of the early development of the human immune system”.

My goal is to continue the work of Erik Näslund and together with Danderyd Hospital continue to build and establish the best environment for the researchers, teachers, doctoral students and students of our department, says Tomas Jernberg

For some time now, various text messages have been circulated with an invitation to send an e-mail to an e-mail address that includes the words “karolinskainstituten” or “karolinska”. The invitation is justified by the claim that the sender can provide “important info for you about Coronavirus”. These text messages are fake and should not be answered! Karolinska Institutet is not the sender of these text messages.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet along with clinicians from the Karolinska University Hospital have discovered a new molecular mechanism of cell oncogenic signaling switch, which is induced by platinum chemotherapy and contributes to treatment resistance in ovarian cancer.

Hi there Mattias! Tell us, which job responsibilities do you regard as being to be most important for your position as Director of studies?

In her thesis, Ninoa Malki concludes that socioeconomic differences are associated with both incidence and mortality of cardiovascular disease in Sweden.

Qiaoli Wang from the group Upper GI Surgery will defend her thesis "Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma - Opportunities for Prevention" on March 6, 2020. Main Supervisor is Jesper Lagergren.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have analysed all cell types in the human ovary and found that the hotly debated so-called egg stem cells do not exist. The results, published in Nature Communications, open the way for research on improved methods of treating involuntary childlessness.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet led by Professor Erik Melén have together with an international team mapped the relationship between length of pregnancy and chemical DNA changes in more than 6,000 newborn babies. For each week's longer pregnancy, DNA methylation changes in thousands of genes were detected in the umbilical cord blood (Figure 1).

Our skin protects us from physical injury, radiation and microbes, and at the same time produces hair and facilitates perspiration. Details of how skin cells manage such disparate tasks have so far remained elusive. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have systematically mapped skin cells and their genetic programs, creating a detailed molecular atlas of the skin in its complexity. The study is published today in the scientific journal Cell Stem Cell.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified a molecular pathway that when silenced could restore the normal function of immune cells in people with fatty liver disease. The findings could lead to new strategies for treating the condition, which is a major health risk for people with obesity. The study is published in the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine.

People who have been treated in intensive care commonly suffer from residual cognitive impairment, but the reason for this is unknown. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet now link cognitive impairment with lasting inflammation and a potential treatment target. The results are presented in the scientific journal Intensive Care Medicine.

The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, SSF, appointed the seventh generation of "Future research leader", four researchers from Karolinska Institutet. The grant supports young, promising researchers and enable them to build their own successful research groups.

Hi there Erika Saliba Gustafsson, doctoral student at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet. On Monday 2 March you will defend your thesis. Tell us, what is your thesis about?

Development of a novel technology to generate maps of interaction between RNA and genomic DNA reveals that different classes of transcripts play a significant role in chromatin organization and regulation of gene expression. The results are published in Nature Communications by an international collaboration lead by researchers at RIKEN in Japan and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

Marie Tyrrell, PhD-student at the Division of Neurogeriatrics. On March 6, 2020 you will defend your thesis:
”VOICES TO REMEMBER: Persons’ and family members’ experiences of living with neurocognitive disorders and related symptoms”,
What's the main focus of the thesis?

Hi Rita Fernholm, PhD-student at the Division of Family Medicine and Primary care. On March 9 you will defend your thesis ”Patient safety in primary and emergency care”, what's the main focus of the thesis?

Dr Franz Matschinsky, Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia receives the 2020 Rolf Luft Award for the discovery that glucokinase (GK) is the sensor controlling glucose-stimulated insulin secretion in the pancreatic beta cell.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have carried out the first randomised trial of civilians with acute conflict-related wounds at two hospitals in areas affected by armed conflict. The study, which is published in The Lancet Global Health, shows that a new, more costly method of wound treatment is not more effective than standard treatment. The researchers hope to inspire new research projects in conflict zones that could improve the care for these vulnerable patients.

Babies regularly treated with bath oil and skin cream are no more protected from developing atopic eczema than other babies, according to a study at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of Oslo in Norway. Early complementary introduction of certain foods to breastfeeding also failed to reduce the presence of atopic eczema during the first 12 months. The findings are published in The Lancet.

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.