News archive

Advanced Hazmat Life Support (AHLS) is a brand-new course in Sweden, that is being taught for the first time at Karolinska Institutet. During two intense days in February, medical doctors, nurses, paramedics and people with special responsibilities in the field of CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials) are trained in medical care in the event of exposure to hazardous chemicals.

The Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) is hosting the fifth edition of International Staff Week May 19 – 23, 2025.

Stockholm Trio (Karolinska Institutet, KTH Royal Institute of Technology & Stockholm University) and University College London (UCL) invite you to express interest in two days of workshops in London, the 8-9 April 2025.

With the new EU-funded grant, Sezgin team seeks to examine the virus-host interaction of Marburg virus (MARV) and establish a blueprint for the targeted development of antiviral strategies for newly emerging viruses.

Since 1987, researchers have followed thousands of older residents in Kungsholmen through the "Swedish National study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen" (SNAC-K). The results show that today's 80-year-olds are healthier than previous generations, but health varies depending on where in the district they live.

On 20 January, a new group of participants gathered at Karolinska Institutet (KI) for the first lesson in a slightly different course. The participants are all potential future medical humanitarian aid workers and will be taking the course this spring. It will prepare them for future work in health crises, disasters and low-resource areas.

2024 marked the fifth anniversary of the University Alliance Stockholm Trio – a partnership between Karolinska Institutet, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and Stockholm University. To mark this milestone, Stockholm Trio has launched a new website where you can follow our work to strengthen collaboration between the universities.

Until July 2025, Annika Östman Wernerson, President of Karolinska Institutet, holds the chair of the University Alliance Stockholm Trio.

KI President Annika Östman Wernerson has been elected as a member of IVA's Biotechnology Division. This took place in connection with the Academy meeting in November, when IVA, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, elected 41 new Swedish and international members – prominent researchers and experts from both the business community and the public sector.

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.

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.

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.

On 12 November, Prof. Manfred Wuhrer from Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands, presented a hybrid Eurolife Distinguished Lecture entitled Glycomics of human immune responses hosted by Karolinska Institutet.

The Swedish Research Council has decided which applications have been awarded grants in clinical therapy research. In total, more than SEK 233 million will be granted for the years 2024-2027, of which SEK 98.5 million will be awarded to 13 researchers at Karolinska Institutet.

Karolinska Institutet collaboration with Rockefeller University, which includes short-term staff and postdoc training exchanges, as well as the Nicholson Lecture. Calls are now open and Nicholson Lecture with Professor Luciano Marraffini will be held on Thursday.

More and more students are leaving school with incomplete grades or without qualifications for upper-secondary education. This trend needs to be broken, but how? One way could be through creativity, which was the topic of lectures and discussions at a recent conference in Aula Medica for researchers and decision-makers in the field of education and school development. Minister for Education Johan Pehrson spoke on the importance of teaching methods that reflect pedagogical research.

Makerere University in Uganda and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have been collaborating for nearly 25 years. On November 11th 2024 they celebrated their successful partnership during an alumni event at Makerere University's College of Health Sciences in Kampala, Uganda. The event highlighted their achievements, including a joint doctoral program that has supported nearly 50 Makerere doctoral students, many earning double degrees, and the publication of over 500 peer-reviewed articles.

On 27 November, the Centre for Health Crises will host Sweden's first Health Crises Forum. The aim is to bring people together to discuss what universities can contribute with to support the surrounding society before, during and after a health crisis, and how they best collaborate with other actors.

The University of Toronto invites doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows at KI to apply to the summer course “Summer in Design” given by “Medicine in Design” given the 2-11th of June 2025.

When the prestigious World Laureates Association (WLA) gathered members and invited guests for a conference in Shanghai in October, Robert Harris and other leading KI researchers were on hand to lecture on current research in life science and develop KI's international network of contacts. Among the participants were Joakim Franck, David Gross and nine other Nobel laureates.

While Karolinska Institutet has solid outreach procedures, there are several areas that could do with improvement, according to a report by the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) on Swedish universities and university colleges that was presented to the government on October 31.

The Karolinska Institutet and Mayo Clinic are pleased to announce the availability of limited competitive funds for short-term travel by faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows, students and/or trainees between the partner institutions to plan or conduct collaborative interactions.

Researchers, doctoral students and students gathered in Solna on 16–17 October to mark 30 years of fruitful collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and Mayo Clinic at their annual joint conference. The extremely popular and much-appreciated research conference with 600 participants, including 100 from the Mayo Clinic, centred this year on AI and health data, a rapidly growing area that impacts profoundly on the future of healthcare.

As part of the response to the escalating threat of a global dengue fever epidemic, a new interdisciplinary EU-funded research initiative has been established with KI as coordinator. The COMBAT project aims to develop solutions to manage and mitigate the dengue virus, which causes 100 million infections and 10,000 deaths annually in 141 countries. In addition to the human suffering, the virus causes an economic burden of over EUR 8 billion globally.

On 23 October, the Stockholm Trio University Alliance hosted a seminar at Karolinska Institutet on how interdisciplinary research and education can contribute to sustainable development. The seminar was organized by Stockholm Trio for Sustainable Actions, an initiative within the alliance that supports Karolinska Institutet, KTH and Stockholm University in their work to contribute to the UN's 17 global goals.

The Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM) arranged a seminar during October’s Nobel Calling week for upper-secondary school science students. Over 800 participants from around the Stockholm region gathered in Aula Medica to hear the latest news and issues concerning young adults’ environments, lifestyles and future career choices with an overall focus on human health.

Donders Institute at Radboud University is part of NeurotechEU and collaborates with Karolinska Institutet. Recently, they held an event where KI researcher Gilberto Fisone presented his research.

Region Stockholm and Region Uppsala have teamed up to further strengthen their joint life-science cluster. At a conference on 10 October, large sections of the life-science sector in Uppsala-Stockholm met to discuss how its development is to be effected.

On 4 November, Knut Steffensen will be taking up office as the director of the Karolinska ATMP Centre, a leading centre for advanced therapy medicinal products, with research, manufacture and treatment all under one roof.

The Department of Physiology & Pharmacology (FyFa) is celebrating 75 years at Campus Solna. This milestone is marked by, among other things, a special issue of Pharmacological Reviews, celebrating the long-standing collaboration between the department and the journal, both of which celebrating the 75th anniversary this year.

Every year, hundreds of doctoral and postdoctoral trainees, as well as researchers, travel across the Atlantic for conferences, lectures – and fika. These gatherings take place at two prestigious institutions: Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The collaboration between the two top-ranking institutions is now celebrating its 30th anniversary at KI. Some of the pioneering spirits who were on board from the start look back on what has made it a success.

On 27 September, the Science Festival Researcher Friday (Forskarfredag) was held at Albanova. During the day, many activities were held, including a Researchers‘ Fair and the Researchers’ Grand Prix competition. Many KI researchers participated in the programme and met curious high school students.

Researchers, including doctoral students in their last years of their doctoral education, at KI are invited to apply for short-term research exchange grants funded by Eurolife.

KI researchers Lea Stark and Erik Andersson have qualified for the final of the Researchers' Grand Prix to be held in November.

Karolinska Institutet (KI) is renewing its educational collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and will soon launch two new courses. The courses are possible thanks to support from The Kamprad Family Foundation. The focus is on courses that provide participants with the skills and tools they need to work with healthcare interventions in low-resource contexts, humanitarian disasters and health crises, both globally and locally.

As part of an initiative with Imperial College London, Karolinska Institutet aims to stimulate doctoral student networking and interaction between KI doctoral students and doctoral students at Imperial College.

To facilitate new and existing contacts between researchers and doctoral students as well as increase research collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, KI’s Internationalisation Board is pleased to announce the availability of limited competitive funds for a lab visit.

Researchers have developed a gel inspired by cow slime for patients suffering from disc herniation.

Eurolife's DATAETHICS project has been awarded for its innovative work on data ethics and Big Data in (bio)medical education, and has received funding for an international conference in December.

The research field of environmental physiology is returning to Karolinska Institutet after having belonged for many years to the Royal Institute of Technology. The move marks the start of an extended partnership between the Swedish Armed Forces and KI.

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) will be teaming up with specialists from KI again this year for a vaccinology course aimed at healthcare professionals and researchers from around the world. The course also now forms part of doctoral education at KI.

Policy labs at KI continue to be popular. On Tuesday 27 August, it was time for the first lab of the autumn. The theme was Sweden and antibiotic resistance, with a focus on how research and evidence can influence policy at the highest level. This time, the policy lab was opened up to a slightly wider and more external audience, to provide an opportunity to network and share experiences with others.

Epidemiologist Moa Herrgård has spent six months seconded to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Centre for Health Emergencies in Amman, Jordan. The overall focus of her work has been to enhance health emergency preparedness and response in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East Region. Looking back, she thinks the secondment has taught her a lot that will benefit work at KI.

Eleven years ago, KI researcher Beatrice Uusma published her book The Expedition: A Love Story exploring the fate of Andrée’s balloon expedition to the North Pole at the end of the 1800s. This August, she and a group of researchers from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research and the University Museum of Bergen will be returning to Vitön (Kvitøya) for more answers about the ill-fated expedition. Bea Uusma, at KI’s Medical History and Heritage Unit, tells us more.

The SciLifeLab board has appointed Professor Jan Ellenberg as the new director. Alongside this role, Professor Ellenberg will also be appointed as a professor at Karolinska Institutet and affiliated professor at Stockholm University and KTH (Royal Institute of Technology). He succeeds Professor Olli Kallioniemi, who has served as SciLifeLab director since 2015.

Last week of May four researchers from Ukraine came to Karolinska Institutet for a week of research exchange and collaboration. They are part of the Doc-Stud-Ukraine project funded by the Swedish Institute, focused on supporting Ukrainian PhD students and young researchers to contribute effectively to health systems strengthening, particularly for children and adolescents in deoccupied territories in Ukraine.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet have in collaboration with the University of Eastern Finland and Lund University a new publication in Genome Biology, demonstrated that targeting cell cycle and cell fate regulatory programs blocks non-genetic cancer evolution in acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

How can we help decision-makers during health crises, by developing rapid and useful decision bases, built on research and proven experience? With this question in mind, the Centre for Health Crises gathered a group of curious participants in Aula Medica on Thursday 29 May for a full-day workshop on creating rapid response briefs for decision-making in health crises.

Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital are launching another tripartite collaboration, this time with Elekta. The aim is to join forces in the field of cancer with a focus on radiation therapy and precision medicine.