News archive

The Swedish Olympic Academy is a new platform for science and sport and a new collaboration between the Swedish Olympic Committee, Karolinska Institutet, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE). The aim is to strengthen Swedish sport.

In a review of existing research, commissioned by a committee of the European Parliament, a group of European researchers has identified benefits of organic food production for human health. The researchers recommend the parliament to consider giving priority to certain organic production practices and their use also in conventional agriculture.

Investigators at Karolinska Institutet have identified a potential therapeutic target for treatment of obesity-associated metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic hepatic steatosis. The work, performed in collaboration with scientists at the University of California, Berkeley and Danderyd Hospital, is published in Cell Reports.

Four researchers at KI will receive grants from Johnson & Johnson Innovation, committed up to the next 2–3 years. The purpose is to identify and support high quality, innovative research that has the potential to provide new healthcare solutions.

[Edit: This text was written in 2017. Prof. Anders Ekbom passed away on July 29, 2024.] Professor and physician Anders Ekbom has been appointed acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Karolinska Institutet from 1 January 2017. He succeeds Henrik Grönberg, who has been acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor since 7 March 2016.

Mikael Odenberg took over as Chairman of the University Board of Karolinska Institutet on 1 December 2016 and has two urgent matters to attend to: recruit a new vice-chancellor and clean up after the Macchiarini case. The minister responsible, Helene Hellmark Knutsson, says that the partly new board is expected to restore confidence in Karolinska Institutet and Swedish medical research.

Martin M. Corcoran, Ganesh E. Phad, Néstor Vázquez Bernat and Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam have published in Nature Communications in an paper that increases our understanding of genetic variation.

Vicente Pelechano Garcia at the Department of Microbiology, Tumour and Cell Biology is one of two researchers to be awarded a Swedish Foundations’ Starting Grant. The grant is arranged jointly by five private research foundations and is awarded to young research group leaders who achieved a top grade and proceeded to the interview stage of their ERC Starting Grant application but did not make it all the way.