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Vaccination coverage for COVID-19 is high in both people with and without mental illness, according to a large multinational study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and published in Nature Communications. However, Swedish registry data revealed that individuals with unmedicated mental illness have lower vaccination levels.
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Correct and functioning diagnostics are a basic prerequisite for knowing what is happening and what it is we are dealing with, both in everyday life, but not least in a health crisis. Therefore, the need for adaptable and scalable laboratory and diagnostic capabilities is central to rapid and adequate management in many health crises, whether infectious diseases or chemical spills.
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Is your immune system functioning as it should? The question is not as simple to answer as one might think. Professor Petter Brodin is trying to understand more about it. At the same time, he hopes to help patients that are severely affected with post-COVID and other conditions where the regulation of the immune system is not working.
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Fetuses whose mothers had COVID-19 or were vaccinated during the first three months of pregnancy are not at increased risk of birth defects. This is the result of a large Nordic study published in the British Medical Journal.
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People suffering from post-COVID have been discouraged from exercising because early observations suggested it could be harmful. In a study published in JAMA Network Open, researchers from Karolinska Institutet show that post-COVIDdoes not mean that exercise must be strictly avoided.
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Two researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded grants from the PolyBio Research Foundation totalling USD 1.85 million dollars (SEK 19 million) for research into long COVID. It is hoped that the studies will provide valuable insights that can promote the development of more efficacious treatments for long COVID, which is still a puzzling condition.
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High-dose pressurized oxygen can stress out old immune cells, leaving behind a younger, better functioning immune system. It helped with acute COVID, and now Anders Kjellberg is testing the method for post-covid as well.
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No increased risks for babies, and for some serious neonatal complications lower risks. This is the result of the largest study to date on the safety of newborn babies whose mothers were vaccinated against COVID-19 during pregnancy. The study is a collaboration between Swedish and Norwegian researchers and is published in the journal JAMA.
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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, together with partners in the Horizon Europe-funded EuCARE project, have shown that the reduced mortality from COVID-19 is not necessarily due to the fact that later variants, such as Omicron, have been less severe. Rather, the reduced mortality seems to be due to several other factors, such as immunity from previous vaccinations and previous infections. The study is published in the latest issue of Lancet Regional Health Europe and is funded by EUH2020.
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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have shown that nasal drops with IgA antibodies can protect mice from SARS-CoV-2 infection. The results imply a new way to protect individuals at high risk from different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and possibly other infections. The study is published in PNAS.
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Researchers from Karolinska Institutet have discovered that the gut microbiome can influence how well people respond to mRNA COVID vaccines. The study, published in the journal npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, suggests that certain bacteria in the gut can enhance the immune response to the vaccine, whereas other bacteria may weaken it.
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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Danderyd Hospital have followed recipients of the new updated COVID-19 vaccine and analysed the antibody response to different SARS-CoV-2 variants. The results show a surprisingly strong response to the now dominant and highly mutated Omicron variants. [This news article has been updated]
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What were the successes and challenges of clinical trials of COVID-19 treatment during the pandemic in Sweden? What have we learnt, in order to be better prepared for future health crisis? Those were questions asked at a symposium and roundtable discussion organised by the Centre for Health Crises at KI on December 14.
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In December, Kenneth Chien is leaving his professorship in cardiovascular research after ten years at Karolinska Institutet. He will now devote himself wholeheartedly to developing new mRNA therapies in the biotechnology industry.
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A collaborative study involving researchers from Karolinska Institutet has charted the prevalence of severe physical symptom burden amongst Scandinavians for up to two years after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Most affected were people who had a severe COVID-19 infection, while the researchers found no elevated prevalence of long COVID in those who had never been bedridden. The study is published in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe.
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The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded this year to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, whose research gave rise to effective mRNA vaccines that contained the COVID pandemic and saved millions of lives. A well-deserved honour, according to Karolinska Institutet.
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The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet who studied SARS-CoV-2 variant BA.2.86, found that the new variant was not significantly more resistant to antibodies than several other variants that are circulating. The study also showed that antibody levels to BA.2.86 were significantly higher after a wave of XBB infections compared to before, suggesting that the vaccines based on XBB should provide some cross-protection to BA.2.86.
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Swedes with lower income and education were at greater risk of deteriorating mental health during the pandemic. This is shown in a study conducted by researchers from the University of Gothenburg in collaboration with Professor Mats Lekander at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience.
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Family members and close friends of people with COVID-19 have elevated symptoms of depression and anxiety, a study from Karolinska Institutet published in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe reports. According to the researchers, the results of the study indicate a possible unmet public health need.
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The government has appointed Jan Albert, professor of infectious disease control at Karolinska Institutet and senior consultant at Karolinska University Hospital, to lead a government inquiry looking into strengthening the country’s preparedness for future pandemics. The directive concerns a national strategy for how pandemics are to be managed and a possible revision of the Communicable Diseases Act. The investigation should be delivered in February 2025.
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Vaccination protects against severe COVID-19 but not against infection. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Danderyd Hospital now show that protection against infection with the new omicron variants is linked to mucosal IgA antibodies, which are not induced by vaccination. These are the findings of two studies recently published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, and The Lancet Microbe, and could explain the limited protection by currently available vaccines against infection.
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A new DNA-based COVID-19 vaccine is now being tested for the first time on healthy volunteers at Karolinska University Hospital. The vaccine has been developed at Karolinska Institutet and target multiple parts of the virus, making it less vulnerable to mutated strains and potentially effective against new variants.
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Biobank Sweden has teamed up with the Swedish regions and the National Pandemic Centre (NPC) at Karolinska Institutet to produce a new process that gives researchers access to 1.5 million COVID-19 samples. The samples are stored at the NPC and researchers applying to use them must first seek ethical approval.
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The group of expert coordinators at the Centre for Health Crises keeps growing. The expert coordinators manage the work that is done within their field of expertise. The latest area of expertise to be added to the Centre is laboratory and diagnostic preparedness, with Jessica Alm as expert coordinator.
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Helena Hervius Askling is new in the growing group of expert coordinators at the Centre for Health Crises. Her extensive experience in the field of infectious diseases and the topic of vaccine, as a medical doctor in infectious diseases, county medical officer and associate professor, will strengthen the centre’s competence in the field.
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During the pandemic, it became clear that children who contracted COVID-19 became less ill than adults. One hypothesis has been that common colds would give children immunity protecting against a severe form of the disease. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet are now able to show that OC43, one of the coronaviruses that cause common colds, boosts the immune response to COVID-19. The study, which is published in PNAS, could give rise to more tailored vaccine programmes for children and adults.
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Following a request from KI's President, the Centre for Health Crises has produced the report Improved preparedness for the next health crises – lessons learned at KI during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report outlines the changes that were made and the lessons learned from the work KI did during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now available to read online in its entirety.
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High levels of mucosal IgA antibodies in the airways protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection for at least eight months. Omicron infection generates durable mucosal antibodies, reducing the risk of re-infection. These are the findings of a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Danderyd Hospital in Sweden. The results raise further hope for the feasibility of future nasal vaccine platforms to protect against infection.
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Critical illness myopathy (CIM) is a common complication affecting ventilator-treated intensive care patients, which can lead to increased mortality/morbidity, prolonged hospital care, impaired patient quality of life, and increased healthcare costs. reported molecular pathogenesis of CIM during prolonged ICU stay, and potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets. The study was recently published in Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle.
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In its recent call, the Swedish Research Council has awarded in excess of SEK 19 million for six projects at KI. The project receiving the largest grant aims to study the long-term impact of the pandemic on the lifestyle and health of young adults.
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Losing too much weight when infected with COVID-19 has been linked to worse outcomes. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have discovered that SARS-CoV-2 infection fuels blood vessel formation in fat tissues, thus revving up the body’s thermogenic metabolism. Blocking this process by using an existing drug curbed weight loss in mice and hamsters that were infected with the virus, according to the study published in the journal Nature Metabolism.
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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have shown that patients with acute COVID-19 infection have increased levels of the cytokine IL-26 in their blood. Moreover, high IL-26 levels correlate with an exaggerated inflammatory response that signifies severe cases of the disease. The findings, which are presented in Frontiers in Immunology, indicate that IL-26 is a potential biomarker for severe COVID-19.
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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have in a new study used cellular reprogramming to create human three-dimensional brain models and infected these models with SARS-CoV-2. In infected models, the brain immune cells excessively eliminated synapses and acquired a gene expression pattern mimicking what has been observed in neurodegenerative disorders. The findings could help to identify new treatments against persistent cognitive symptoms after a Covid-19 infection.
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A study at Karolinska Institutet shows that the coronavirus variant BA.2.75.2, an Omicron sublineage, largely evades neutralizing antibodies in the blood and is resistant to several monoclonal antibody antiviral treatments. The findings, published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, suggest a risk of increased SARS-CoV-2 infections this winter, unless the new updated bivalent vaccines help to boost immunity in the population.
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Many people were delighted to hear that Professor Svante Pääbo has been awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, particularly so Hugo Zeberg, researcher at Karolinska Institutet. He has collaborated with Svante Pääbo for years, not least on the work to find Neanderthal genes that can influence how ill different people become after contracting the COVID-19 virus.
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Intravenous treatment with omega-3 fatty acids in elderly hospitalised patients in intensive care due to COVID-19 seems to have positive effects on the ability of the immune system to cope with the virus, according to a study from Karolinska Institutet. In the future, the study, published in the journal Clinical and Translational Medicine, could lead to a complementary, cost-effective treatment for COVID-19.
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Have a car. Don’t be poor. Don’t have a stressful job. Age, gender and socioeconomics are some of the factors that affect your risk of developing an illness and of dying prematurely. Sweden has set the goal of levelling out influenceable health gaps within one generation. But is this goal realistic? And why is it so difficult to achieve? Read an article series about health inequities from the Swedish magazine Medicinsk Vetenskap.
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Children with certain immunodeficiency diseases carry mutations in genes that regulate the body’s immune system against viral infections and they have a higher mortality rate due to COVID-19. This is according to a study by researchers from Karolinska Institutet, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
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High levels of mucosal antibodies in the airways reduce the risk of being infected by omicron, but many do not receive detectable antibodies in the airways despite three doses of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. These are the findings of a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Danderyd Hospital.
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Sweden initially chose a different disease prevention and control path during the pandemic than many other European countries. In June 2020, the Swedish Government established a national Commission to examine the management of COVID-19 in Sweden. In a review, Professor Jonas F Ludvigsson summarizes and comments on the findings of the commission inquiry. The review is published in Acta Paediatrica.
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In a recent study researchers from Karolinska Institutet, among others, have characterised the new omicron variant BA.2.75, comparing its ability to evade antibodies against current and previous variants. The study, published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, suggests that BA.2.75 is not more resistant to antibodies than the currently dominating BA.5, which is positive news.
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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet are developing a coronavirus vaccine designed to be less sensitive to mutations and equipped for future strains. The vaccine showed promising results in mice in a newly published study in EMBO Molecular Medicine, and the researchers now hope to be able to take it to safety studies on humans.
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In a new analysis, Karolinska Institutet is ranked number eight in a list of organizations with the most published articles on COVID-19 and the immune response. KI also stands out as one of the universities that has had the most international collaborations in the field. The analysis was conducted by Chinese researchers without a connection to KI and is published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health.
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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet present the results of a refined clinical COVID-19 test, which has been used to track the spread of the Omicron variant in real time in the Swedish population. The study, published in the journal Med, provides new insights into the dominance transition of Omicron sublineages that occurred consistently across the world.
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The clinical outcome and severity of COVID-19 cannot be explained by a single factor like age, gender, or comorbidities. A new study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has identified potential determinants of COVID-19 severity at the cellular level using advanced systems biology analysis. The findings, published in the journal Cell Systems, offer insights into the metabolic tug-of-war in the human body and its association with disease severity.
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Severe acute COVID-19 is very rare in children, but SARS-CoV-2 infection can trigger a novel post infectious condition called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). MIS-C is a potentially serious condition, and so far, little has been known on risk factors for developing MIS-C.
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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Danderyd Hospital have followed participants who have received three doses of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and compared their immune responses after Omicron infection. The results, which are published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, show that Omicron infection elicits significantly higher antibody responses in individuals without prior COVID-19 infection as compared to previously infected individuals.
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Researchers at Uppsala University and Karolinska Institutet are one step closer to explaining why COVID-19 patients have a substantially increased risk of blood clots. The study, published in Nature Immunology, shows that a gene variant in the innate immune system influences the risk for blood clots in the lungs of severely ill COVID-19 patients.
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Vaccines based on inactivated SARS-CoV-2 virus are commonly used in resource-poor countries due to their low cost. New research from Karolinska Institutet shows that a booster shot of mRNA vaccine to individuals who have received two doses of inactivated vaccine offers the same level of protection against COVID-19 as three doses of mRNA vaccine. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.
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