News archive

The Decision-making Procedures and Delegation Rules will be published in full early in the new year. Some of the amendments apply to the delegation of authority to the deans, university director and heads of department, while others concern the organisation as a whole.

Ten years ago, a cancer patient in Sweden was treated with CAR T-cell therapy for the first time. Today he is cured. Several challenges remain before the treatment can be given to everyone who could benefit from it, and how to achieve this was one of the questions discussed at the SWECARNET network’s annual education day.

Walking, running, cycling to work, strength training and yoga. Activities undertaken by 400 employees during November's varied weather. The Pep@Work exercise challenge has ended and participants have been moving at record levels.

Karolinska Institutet is investing over SEK 200 million over five years on a new funding package for EU-financed research projects. The aim of this investment, which was decided by the President on 11 November 2024, is to bolster research at KI and attract more international research grants and global collaborations designed to address today’s societal challenges. It is also intended to reward successful researchers that have won large prestigious external grants for breakthrough research.

Congratulations to Louise Emilsson who receives the Rising star Award from United European Gastroenterology. Ten emerging scientists are selected annually from all over Europe to receive the prize, which is awarded to young, promising researchers in gastrointestinal diseases in connection with the annual European UEG conference in gastroenterology. The award ceremony will be held in Berlin in October 2025.

Get to know Hong Qian, Professor of Molecular Haematology at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH) since 26 November 2024.

Karolinska Institutet is part of NeurotechEU (NTEU), a European University alliance. The Neuroscience Internship Program Bonn provides bachelor and master students with an opportunity to engage in hands-on lab experiences within the field of neuroscience and neurotechnology. Last day for application Jan 8, 2025

On November 18-22, 2024 IMM organised the course “Health risk assessment of chemicals - principles and applications” within the EU funded project PARC (Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals). The course was attended by 32 participants from 22 PARC partners in 13 countries.

As KI’s new presidential advisor, Maria Eriksdotter will be leading the university’s collaboration with Region Stockholm, giving her a key role in the future of clinical research and education in the capital.

Coinciding with the Nobel celebrations in Stockholm, a diverse group of global health experts and researchers were invited to GPH for a pivotal workshop. The meeting, led by Anders Nordström, Senior Advisor in the Global Child Health and the Sustainable Development Goals research group, aimed to lay the groundwork for an upcoming Lancet Series on Health Diplomacy.

Four researchers at KI received funding from Systembolaget's Alcohol Research Council for Alcohol prevention research. Each year, ten million SEK is awarded, and this year over 2 million SEK goes to researchers from the Department of Global Public Health.

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a severe and rapidly progressing neurodegenerative disease that affects both motor and cognitive functions. Often misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed due to a lack of specific biomarkers, PSP has posed significant challenges for accurate diagnosis and treatment. However, a new study published in the journal Alzheimer & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Associationoffers promising insights into this debilitating condition.

The Mats Paulsson Foundations award Jan Johansson, professor at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, SEK 10 million for research into new innovative treatment methods for Alzheimer's disease. The aim of the research project is to create a new drug that can achieve a breakthrough in the treatment of the most common dementia disease.

Analyses of self-tests for human papillomavirus (HPV) can be used to divide HPV-positive women into three risk groups, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet and Queen Mary University of London published in PLOS Medicine. This method could be important for enhancing cervical cancer screening.

Tips from Grants Office regarding current calls

Emma Eliasson at the National centre for suicide research and prevention (NASP) has been awarded an establishment grant of 3,744,000 SEK from Forte. This grant will finance a research project aimed at evaluating supportive follow-up calls —Uppföljningssamtal — as a method to reduce suicides in Sweden.

We congratulate the two researchers from the Department of Medicine, Huddinge who have been awarded grants from the Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation.

New research from Karolinska Institutet highlights the possibility of screening people with type 2 diabetes for liver damage at the same time as they undergo screening for eye disease. The study is published in Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

When crisis or war comes’ is both the title of a now well-known brochure and the theme of Sweden's first Health Crisis Forum, organised by the Centre for Health Crises at Karolinska Institute (KI). Over 100 specially invited participants, including two state secretaries, the surgeon general and the National Board of Health and Welfare's head of emergency preparedness, gathered to discuss the role of higher education institutions in the event of a health crisis or war.

On 10 December, it was announced that the Centre for Health Crises will receive 3 million Norwegian kroner in funding from the Nordic Council of Ministers' research funding body, Nordforsk. The funding will go towards a project to create a Nordic health crisis network. The funding is based on a call for proposals in the area of preparedness and resilience. that the Centre, together with partners in other Nordic countries.

How can we work together to create better conditions for a strong pedagogical everyday life for educators? That is what the PULS project wants to investigate. During the spring, your work group can receive pedagogical support by jointly developing a form of process tool.

The Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation is awarding more than SEK 80 million to Karolinska Institutet for paediatric oncology research in 2024. The allocation includes 29 projects run by researchers at KI.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet shows that long-term exposure to air pollution contributes to millions of deaths in India. The research, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, emphasises the need for stricter air quality regulations in the country.

Our nine teams in Pep@work have made outstanding efforts among the 38 competing teams! The best part, of course, is that many have been more active than usual and had fun with their colleagues

The Bergendorff scholarship was founded in 2022 in honor of Anders Bergendorff, the former program director of the master programme in Toxicology at IMM. This scholarship supports summer internships for students at the program, and the awardees present their projects at the annual Bergendorff seminar.

Jennie Eldh Bastman, the environmental and sustainability representative at Biomedicum, talks about the environmental initiatives that have been carried out throughout the year.

What exactly does an HR employee at NVS do? We had a little chat with the HR group.

The allocation of government funding for 2025 is now planned, budgeted and decided.

This autumn’s major allocation of external research grants from the larger Swedish research councils, the Heart-Lung foundation and Cancerfoundation means that many of our researchers at the Department of Medicine Solna (MedS) can continue their important research, while others can start new projects.

Advanced Medicinal Therapy Products, ATMP, span broadly over medical fields and the aim of this symposium is to enhance networking within ATMP and to get a flavor of academic and commercial development of ATMPs in Stockholm and Sweden. NextGenNK and CCRM Nordic are inviting you to a mini-symposium with the focus on ATMP on January 22, 2025.

Moon landings, worms and micro-RNA are just three shared interests held by Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, who told the story of how they first aimed for the stars and achieved a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in their Nobel lectures with humor and erudition.

Max Kleijberg, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Nursing, and Markus Saarijärvi, lecturer at the Department of Nursing, receive a total of 3.3 million SEK in grants from Forte.

For the first time, the course 'Sustainable Health and Agenda 2030' is being offered here at KI. It is part of the Doctoral Programme in Health Care Science (PUF-V).

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) have developed AI-driven warning technology capable of detecting infections up to 24 hours before symptoms appear.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the University of Gothenburg have identified two types of metabolic-associated fatty liver disease – a liver-specific type and a systemic type that affects other organs and tissues. The discovery could lead to improved diagnosis and treatment of this growing patient group. Two studies are published back-to-back in Nature Medicine.

On 5 November, KI submitted its final batch of material to the Swedish Research Council’s national evaluation of preclinical medical and pharmaceutical science for 2024-25. Seven universities are participating in the process, which aims to provide a national picture of the research field.

A delegation from Karolinska Institutet (KI), led by KI President Annika Östman Wernerson, travelled to Uganda and Rwanda in November 2024. The delegation visited Makerere University in Uganda and met with representatives from the University of Rwanda and the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda, emphasizing Karolinska Institutet’s commitment to global collaborations, which rely on strong relationships, contextual knowledge, and robust infrastructure.

MedS Day 2024 gave employees and affiliates at the Department of Medicine Solna (MedS) a long-awaited opportunity to meet and take part in the department’s ongoing activities.

According to a study published in Nature Communications, researchers at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet have made a significant leap in drug discovery and development with a new method called CeTEAM. This approach connects how drugs bind to their targets inside cells with the effects they produce, offering a clearer understanding of how a drug works.

Call for scientific proposals for the Swedish Suicide Research Conference 2025 is open. The conference will take place on May 6–7 in Stockholm. The submission deadline is January 10.

Tips from Grants Office regarding current calls

One in ten adults in society suffer from chronic kidney disease (CKD), a disease characterized by progressive loss of kidney function. Altered kidney function can impact on the risk/benefit of many medications. People with advanced chronic kidney disease have to be careful about the medications they take because their kidneys don't work as well as they should. Some medications are not safe for them to take at all while others require dose adjustments or strict monitoring for safety.

As a member of the Cochrane Governing Board, Emma Persad represents Sweden and the Nordics, advocating for open science, international collaboration, and access to reliable research. Through her work, she aims to make healthcare more evidence-based and improve outcomes for the most vulnerable populations.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have discovered how the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, manipulates human proteins to replicate and evade the immune system. The results have been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

Amaia Calderon-Larrañaga and Weili Xu are recipients of the Elderly and Ageing 2024 Grant from Forte and will both receive funding for the period 2025-2027.

Professor Camilla Björkegren at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Karolinska Institutet, is awarded a distinguished professor grant within natural and engineering sciences by the Swedish Research Council. Out of 83 applications, four grants are awarded to four different universities.

Natalie von der Lehr, science journalist and molecular biologist, visited GPH a few weeks ago and held a workshop on writing popular science summaries, an important component of any grant application. We have summarized the highlights from the workshop and share her best tips below

Rosaria Galanti is Professor Emerita of Epidemiology at GPH, whose research interests include tobacco use and the use of new tobacco-free nicotine products among young people. New products such as white snus are often marketed as 'tobacco-free' despite containing high doses of nicotine, which is produced from tobacco and are often marketed as a fresher alternative to snus with appealing flavours.

In November, Anna Mia Ekström was invited as one of the few external advisors to the Africa CDC’s Continental Research Prioritization Framework Workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The workshop aimed to validate a comprehensive set of tools and frameworks designed to enhance health research, identify priority diseases, map research capacities, establish ethical guidelines, and improve governance and coordination of health research across Africa.

During November and December, KI's bachelor programmes representatives participated in three fairs across the country: the Kunskap & Framtid fair in Gothenburg and the Saco Student fair in Kista and Malmö. Tens of thousands of high school graduates attended to get inspiration for their future careers.