News archive

Professor Per-Olof Berggren has been awarded a ERC Proof of Concept grant by the European Research Council (ERC). The funding will be used to advance a technology in which islets of Langerhans are transplanted into the anterior chamber of the eye and employed as a screening tool to identify novel pharmaceutical treatments for diabetes.

During the Christmas holidays, a freezer failure occurred in the Neo building on KI's Flemingsberg campus. The automatic filling of the cryotanks with liquid nitrogen was interrupted for an unknown reason. As a result, the temperature in 16 of 19 cryogenic tanks rose and large amounts of biological research material have been destroyed. An investigation with internal and external experts is now underway to find out how this failure could have happened.

Tigist Wodaje from the Endocrinology Unit at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge (MedH), is defending her thesis "Hereditary hypercholesterolemia and cardiovascular disease: functional and epidemiological aspects", on 14 December 2023. Main supervisor is Jonas Brink (MedH).

Anti-rheumatic drugs used for rheumatoid arthritis might prevent the development of autoimmune thyroid disease, according to a new observational study by researchers from Karolinska Institutet published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

Anna Sjöström at the research group Experimental and Clinical Neuroendocrinology, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend her thesis "Severe COVID-19 and routine biomarker patterns" on November 24, 2023.

Main Supervisor is Charlotte Höybye.

We wish to congratulate Professor Eckardt Treuter, at the Department of Biosciences and Nutriton, Karolinska Institutet, who has received the Novo Nordisk Foundation Project Grant in Endocrinology & Metabolism 2023, for a project on "Role of monocyte enhancers and silencers in inflammatory type 2 diabetes" (2 years, DKK 2 million).

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common hormone disorder in women. Studies have shown that the change in hormones is accompanied by variations in immunological B cells. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now established that the syndrome is not caused by B cells, the role of which remains unclear. The study is published in eLife.

Suad Efendic, Stockholm, internationally recognized leading clinical researcher in diabetes, has died at the age of 85 after a long illness. He is survived by wife Mensura, sons Nedim and Enes with their families.

To improve understanding of mental health, today’s symptom-based diagnoses need to be complemented with biological criteria accounting for differences between individuals and the sexes. A major EU-funded research project, coordinated by Uppsala University, will pursue an interdisciplinary path towards better strategies to protect vulnerable individuals from mental illness. Three research teams at Karolinska Institutet participate in the project.

An article in "Dagens Nyheter" (DN), on November 9, 2022, addresses why more women than men suffer from mental illness, such as depression and anxiety. It brings up various circumstances that may be important for why this is so, such as hormones, environment, expectations, as well as the tendency to seek help for mental health problems. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet participated as experts regarding these various factors.

Depression is common in individuals with endocrine-metabolic disorders and vice versa. In a study involving 2.2 million people in the Swedish population, researchers at Karolinska Institutet confirmed that individuals with endocrine-metabolic disorders have increased rates of depression and found that there are also higher rates of depression in their siblings. The study is published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Joachim Nilsson at the research group Endocrine Surgery, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend his thesis "Avidity-guided radionuclide therapy for thyroid cancer" on September 30, 2022. Main Supervisor is Catharina Ihre Lundgren.

Congratulations to Professor Jan Zedenius who has been elected President of the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons, IAES. IAES is an integrated society of the International Society of Surgery ISS/SIC and the inauguration ceremony was held at the International Surgical Week in Vienna on August 16, 2022.

To investigate the long-term benefit of hormone-lowering treatment, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have done a 20-year follow-up of premenopausal women with breast cancer. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, indicates that the treatment provides protection even after a longer period of time and that different patients seem to benefit from different hormonal treatments.

A Distinguished Investigator Grant - Endocrinology and Metabolism 2022, from Novo Nordisk Foundation’s Research Leader Program, is awarded to Elisabet Stener- Victorin, professor and researcher at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology.
The project title is "Dissecting the molecular, mechanistic and causal pathways of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and how these are passed on across generations".

In a new study published in Nature Metabolism, KI researchers show how disturbances in the energy metabolism in human fat cells, can lead to the development of inflammation and insulin resistance.

Three researchers at the Department of Biosciences and Nutriton, Karolinska Institutet, have received grants from the Novo Nordisk Foundation for their research in endocrinology.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have investigated how a newly developed algorithm in connection with gene analysis can be used to improve the possibilities of preventing premature vascular disease and death in individuals with the hereditary lipid disorder, familial hypercholesterolemia. The findings, published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, show how the method can lead to faster and more cost-effective investigations in such families.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have succeeded in mapping the neuron types comprising the enteric nervous system in the intestine of mice. The study, which is published today in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience, also describes how the different neurons form during fetal development, a process that follows different principles to brain neurons.

Many nerve cells in the brain region hypothalamus have unexpected origins and go through complex development programs, where millions of neurons assemble into a precisely knit network by birth. That is according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Medical University of Vienna published in the journal Nature. The findings may further our understanding of hormonal diseases and their origins, according to the researchers.

Two clinical researchers at KI have been appointed Wallenberg Clinical Scholars 2020. The individual funding of SEK 15 million from Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation provides Anca Catrina and Mikael Rydén with the opportunity to deepen their research and disseminate their results in healthcare.

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.

Daughters of women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) are five times more likely to be diagnosed with PCOS as adults, and the generational transmission is driven by high androgen levels during pregnancy, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden report. Their results, which are based on register-based and clinical studies as well as transgenerational animal studies, are published in Nature Medicine.

The hormone secreting part of the pancreas, the islets of Langerhans, has a unique cyto-architecture that allows functional interrelationships between the different cell types. Somatostatin is secreted by the delta cell and is an effective inhibitor of the insulin secreting beta cell and the glucagon secreting alpha cell. According to a novel study from Karolinska Instiutet, published in the journal Nature Communications, the delta cell can thereby indirectly affect glucose homeostasis

Professor Mitchell Lazar at Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia has been selected as recipient of the Rolf Luft Award 2019.

Maternal obesity and androgen excess induce sex-specific anxiety in the offspring, according to a study on mice by researchers at Karolinska Institutet published in The FASEB Journal. The findings may help explain why children born to mothers with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) have increased risk of developing anxiety later in life.

Per-Olof Berggren, Professor of Experimental Endocrinology at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, has been elected as member of the National Academy of Medicine, NAM.

Paolo Parini is a researcher in cardiometabolic diseases and senior Physician at Endocrinology Clinic. Since September 2015 his professorship is shared between Department of Medicine, Huddinge and Department of Laboratory Medicine.

New research from Karolinska Institutet shows that hypersexual disorder – known popularly as sex addiction – can be linked to hyperactive stress systems. In a stress regulation test using the cortisone drug dexamethasone, men with hypersexual disorder showed higher levels of stress hormones than controls, a finding that the researchers hope will contribute to improved therapy for this patient group. The results are published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

In a study in mice, scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have discovered a new potential therapy that may reduce brain damage following stroke in type 2 diabetic patients. The suggested drug is already approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. However, the scientists hope that this new results, presented in the scientific journal Diabetes, also opens up the possibility to decrease brain injury after stroke in other patient groups with a high stroke risk.