News archive

Malin Granbom Koski receives the Swedish Medical Association's Candidate and Junior Physician Association's Asklepios Prize for best scientific article 2025. The study presents clinically significant findings and provides important information for how doctors can assess patients' risks before interventions on the aorta and aortic valve.

Niek van Bree, previously a doctoral student at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology at Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded the 2025 Dan Grandér Research Prize for his thesis “Development of Translational Models and Identification of Novel Therapeutic Targets for Medulloblastoma”. This annual award recognises the best doctoral thesis in cancer research at Karolinska Institutet.

Two Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships and a Walter-Benjamin-Postdoctoral Fellowship (German Research foundation, DFG) have been granted to outstanding early-career scientists at the Division of Molecular Metabolism (MolMet) at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics. The fellowships are highly competitive and prestigious.

The Lundbeck Foundation in Denmark has awarded Professor Patrik Ernfors The Brain Prize 2026 for groundbreaking discoveries about how the nervous system interprets touch and pain. His research has clarified key aspects of somatosensation, the body’s ability to sense the physical world, and opened new opportunities for developing treatments for long lasting pain. He shares the prize with Professor David Ginty, Harvard Medical School.

The prize recognizes researchers/research students who have distinguished themselves through outstanding utilization of research results that have led to innovation.

Professor Anna Dimberg at Uppsala University is awarded the prize for her outstanding discoveries of tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) in brain tumors and their pivotal role in activating an effective immune response against cancer.

Professor Ute Römling at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology is, among 63 fellows, elected to the American Academy of Microbiology.

The Lennart Nilsson foundation was established in 1998 in order to bestow an award in recognition of the world-renowned Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson and his extraordinary body of work. Its main aim is to promote education, training and research within the medical, biological and engineering sciences through the use of images.

Birgitta Henriques- Normark, at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology at Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded a medal, 12th size with the ribbon of the Order of the Seraphim, by HM the King.

The prize is intended for newly graduated PhDs, or alternatively doctoral candidates in the final year of their doctoral studies. To be eligible for nomination, candidates must not have reached the age of 32 at the time of nomination.

The Swedish Central Association for the Promotion of Sports (SCIF) has named Eva Jansson, professor emerita at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, as the 2025 recipient of the Major Sports Research Award for an experienced researcher.

If a person damages the brain or spine, nerve cells do not regenerate spontaneously. The mechanism has been there since the embryonic stage, but is not activated. Enric Llorens Bobadilla and his research group at Karolinska Institutet are trying to find which genes should be turned on to create new nerve cells. A new film about their work is now available.

The medals are awarded to individuals who have made significant contributions to support KI's activities and are available in three categories: the gold medal, the large silver medal, and the silver medal.

Richard Rosenquist Brandell has been named Pharmaceutical Profile of the Year 2025 for his dedicated work in building a national infrastructure for precision medicine. The award is presented by Läkemedelsmarknaden in collaboration with Dagens Medicin and Dagens Industri.

Hello Bea Uusma, who received the August Prize in the non-fiction category for "Vitön", the continuation of the similarly August Prize-winning book "The Expedition: My Love Story" which was published in 2013. Both are about Bea Uusma's attempt to finally solve the mystery of how the members of the Andrée expedition died on Vitön in 1897. Bea Uusma is an affiliated researcher at the Unit for the History and Cultural Heritage of Medicine at Karolinska Institutet.

Harald Lund has been awarded the Bjarne Ahlström Memorial Fund Prize for research in clinical neurology, with a particular focus on inflammatory mechanisms that affect the function of the central or peripheral nervous system.

The director of the Centre for Health Crises, Johan von Schreeb, surgeon and professor of global disaster medicine at Karolinska Institutet is awarded the Forska!Sverige Honorary Award for his outstanding commitment to reducing suffering around the world and for his leading research in a field that is becoming increasingly relevant also in Sweden.

Professor Mona Ståhle has been awarded the Sven Hellerström Medal by the Swedish Society of Medicine for her significant contributions to dermatological research. The award committee highlights how, over four decades, she has been a visionary leader at Karolinska Institutet, particularly in psoriasis research, and has educated an entire generation of clinician-scientists in Sweden

The 50th annual meeting of the Scandinavian Society for Immunology (SSI) took place in Stockholm on 15-17 October. During the conference the SSI Young Investigator Award was presented to recipients from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

Paediatric allergist and KI researcher Caroline Nilsson has been awarded this year's Mogren Prize in Medicine, Sweden's largest prize for clinically active doctors. The prize money of SEK 250,000 is motivated by her work to link patient encounters directly to research, which has a life-changing effect on children with severe food allergies.

The motivation from the jury: "For identifying key viral mechanisms used by hantaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 to disrupt cellular functions, thereby laying the foundation for the development of new antiviral drugs."

Tilen Trselic, a doctoral student at the Department of Medicine, Solna, has been awarded the 2025 Cilla Weigelt Prize for his research on Sjögren’s syndrome, a rare rheumatic disease that primarily affects women. The prize includes a personal scholarship and a research grant to promote scientific exchange.

KI researcher Samir EL Andaloussi has been awarded the Swedish Society for Medical Research’s (SSMF) Jubilee Prize of SEK five million for his groundbreaking research in gene therapies that could revolutionise the treatment of hard-to-treat diseases. The recipient will also receive an honorary medal presented by H.M. The Queen on 17 October.

The Biophysical Society has selected Erdinc Sezgin, Associate Professor at Karolinska Institutet, SciLifeLab and the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, as the recipient of the 2026 Early Independent Career Award. The award recognises his outstanding work combining chemistry, physics, biology and computer science to advance fundamental and translational insights into how the biophysics of cells influence health and disease.

Emma Johansson, Senior Consultant and Associate Professor at Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded the Ellis and Ivar Janzon Prize 2025 by the Swedish Society of Medicine. The prize recognizes scientific excellence in the fields of dermatology and venereology and will be presented at the society’s annual ceremony on 21 October 2025.

Dr M. Madan Babu, this year's Ulf von Euler lecturer, wants to understand how cells control and regulate their various functions. Through his research, he aims to reveal why certain diseases arise when the regulation in cells does not function as it should. Dr Babu works at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, USA.

Xinxin Luo, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Medicine, Solna, has been awarded the Dimitris N. Chorafas Prize 2025. The prize of USD 10,000 is intended for recent PhD graduates or doctoral students in their final year of doctoral studies. The aim is to encourage young, promising researchers. Xinxin Luo is recognised for her research on how inflammation, tissue damage and healing processes interact in the intestine.

Marianne van Hage, professor at Karolinska Institutet, has received Europe’s most prestigious research award in allergy – the Paul Ehrlich Prize. She is the first Swede ever to receive the award, thanks to her groundbreaking research in molecular allergology and on the tick-induced food allergy, the alpha-Gal syndrome.

We congratulate Buse Yel Bektash, PhD student at the Translational Psychiatry research group, who receives the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Excellence Award 2025.

We congratulate Caroline Nordenvall, Docent and Lecturer in surgery, who was awarded the Major Research Award during the Surgeons' Week in Linköping 2025.

Professor emeritus Peter Strang of Karolinska Institutet has been awarded the Swedish Government’s medal “Illis quorum meruere labores”. The Latin name of the medal means 'To those whose labors have deserved it'. He receives the award for his outstanding contributions and long-standing research in palliative medicine, particularly for highlighting the importance of existential perspectives in end-of-life care.

The Swedish Society for Virology has awarded the Pandemifonden Fenyö Prize for 2024 to Daniel Sheward, Assistant Professor at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet.

KI researcher Fredrik Ullén has been awarded the fifth Mensa Foundation Prize for his pioneering work in neuroscience, with a particular focus on the neuropsychology of expertise and creativity, i.e. the mechanisms in the brain that allow us to perform at a high level in a particular field after many years of focused training. The prize recognises individuals whose research helps us better understand human intelligence.

Dr. Maximilian Ackermann, currently working as a Professor of Pathology at the RWTH University Clinics Aachen and Helios University Hospital Wuppertal, Germany, and as anatomist at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz is awarded the 2025 Lennart Nilsson Award for his outstanding contributions to scientific imaging, revealing critical insights into diseases, such as COVID-19 and cancer.

The Perioperative Medicine and Intensive Care Laboratory (PMI Lab) at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology (CLINTEC) has been awarded a Platinum Medal by My Green Lab – an internationally recognised certification for sustainability efforts in laboratory environments.

Professor Niklas Björkström at the Institution of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH), Karolinska Institutet, is awarded the Eric K. Fernströms prize for younger, especially talented and promising researcher for "his outstanding research on natural killer (NK) cells in humans."

The European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) has named Professor Emeritus Olle Söder as the recipient of the 2025 Andrea Prader Prize – the highest international honour in the field of paediatric endocrinology.

Fredrik Piehl, Professor of Neurology at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet and researcher at Karolinska University Hospital, has been named Neuroprofile of the Year 2025.

The prestigious Nordic Anders Jahre Award for 2025 goes this year to two researchers at Karolinska Institutet. Professor Sten Eirik Wælgaard Jacobsen is to receive the Anders Jahre Award for Medical Research for his work on normal and leukemic blood stem cells. William Nyberg is honoured with the Anders Jahre Award for Young Researchers for his work on the development of T-cell immunotherapy for cancer.

Five people are to receive Karolinska Institutet’s Grand Silver Medal, and a further two KI’s Silver Medal. These two classes of medal are awarded to people who have made tremendous or excellent efforts, respectively, in support of KI’s activities and will be presented this year at the installation ceremony on 9 October.

The Foundation for Child Research at Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital recently hosted a ceremonial event to present this year’s Hugo Lagercrantz Award alongside the fall research grants. It was an inspiring gathering that celebrated both groundbreaking research and emerging scientific talent in paediatrics.

The committee for higher education has decided to award Anders Sondén and Anna Pettersson KI's Pedagogical Prize in 2025.
The prize is awarded during the inauguration ceremony in Aula Medica in October.

The European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA) has announced Professor Lars Bäckman, Karolinska Institutet, as the recipient of the Aristotle Prize 2025. This distinguished award recognises individuals who have made a substantial and original contributions to psychology, particularly in the field of cognitive ageing.

Björn Reinius and Joyce Noble have developed a synthetic protection for RNA molecules that is stable and can be stored at room temperature. Their innovation simplifies aspects of biomedical research and enables new analytical methods. They are now awarded the 2025 Prize for innovation and utilisation for their work.

Congratulations to Karl-Johan Malmberg, who has been awarded King Olav V's Cancer Research Prize for 2025. The prize is awarded annually to a researcher who has significantly improved the quality of Norwegian cancer research.

Klas Kärre, Professor Emeritus of Molecular Immunology at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, has been elected as an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

The 2025 Svedberg Prize is awarded to Michael Landreh, Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology at Karolinska Institutet, "for the development and innovative use of mass spectrometric tools that reveal hidden protein interactions."

Congratulations to Mikael Rydén, the first Swede to be awarded the Camillo Golgi Prize.

Professor Jonas F Ludvigsson at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, and Örebro University Hospital has been awarded the Solstickepriset 2025.

Daniel Helldén, researcher at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet, is on the Forbes' 30 under 30 Europe 2025 list in the Science & Healthcare category.