News archive

The Federico Iovino group at Karolinska Institutet, and Therakind are initiating an exciting collaboration involving the identification of innate molecules with antimicrobial activity against antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, with particular interest for brain infections considering the poor capability of current antibiotics to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Global health is becoming increasingly complex, ranging from pandemics and climate change to wars, migration and deteriorating mental health. There is an urgent need for a new generation of global health leaders, equipped with the skills to navigate different political environments and drive change. The Stockholm School of Economics and Karolinska Institutet are now launching a new initiative to meet the challenges ahead.

Are you interested in contributing to developing KI's overall collaborations with universities in Japan and representing KI in the steering group for the strategic partnership between Stockholm trio (KI, SU and KTH) and the University of Tokyo? 

In October, KI submitted suggestions to the government for its research and innovation policy bill, which will be presented at the end of 2024. KI stresses the importance of basic research and free competition on research funding as well as educational investment in the form of increased compensation per student and more university places. KI also suggests a national research programme for life science centred on research and technical development.

Next spring, the National Museum of Science and Technology will be opening a branch – called The Cell – in Stockholm’s Hagastaden, with KI as knowledge partner. The Cell will be a venue where science meets art through fascinating and inspirational activities designed to educate and engage more people in the development of tomorrow’s life science field.

MedTechLabs has granted SEK 35 million for two new medical technology research programmes. One will develop a new method for monitoring foetal oxygenation during labour. The other will develop a new method for early diagnosis of brain diseases using MR-Elastography.

The venue in Biomedicum was quickly filled with interested KI employees when the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health and the Centre for Health Crises welcomed them to the first policy lab on 26 October. The aim was to discuss and learn more together about how research can influence politics and society. The focus this time was on how the national Swedish political system is structured when it comes to health care issues and what ways there are to reach in with input from universities.

On 1 November 2023, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Health Minister Acko Ankarberg Johansson, visited Genomic Medicine Sweden (GMS) to learn about the work on precision medicine for improved cancer care. Some of the topics discussed included broad gene sequencing as part of personalised healthcare, as well as the treatment and accessibility of data.

The Aging Research Center (ARC) is an interdisciplinary research centre established in 2000 by Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University, and a division of the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society at KI. ARC is now launching a new website which can be found at ki.se.

KI and Karolinska University Hospital have signed a memorandum of understanding with Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, one of Europe’s largest and most eminent university hospitals and medical universities. The signing of the MoU intensifies cooperation between the organisations.

Rockefeller University and Karolinska Institutet announce the availability of funding for one postdoctoral training position in basic science at Rockefeller University in New York city, New York, USA. This fellowship is part of the Nicholson Exchange Program established between Rockefeller and Karolinska Institutet.

This call is now open. Deadline Monday November 6, 2023.

With only six years left until 2030 when the Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved, this year's Sustainability Forum was organised with a focus on the role of universities in sustainability work. The organisers were the University Alliance Stockholm Trio. 

The Rockefeller University and Karolinska Institutet announce the availability of funds for exchange positions that will allow KI researchers, doctoral students, and other individuals to work in laboratories, resource centers, or administrative offices at Rockefeller University, in New York City, New York, USA for a period of up to 12 weeks.

This call is now open. Deadline Monday November 6, 2023.

KI researchers Gunnar Nilsson and John Skår are awarded this year's silver medal. The medal is awarded to people who have made excellent efforts in support of KI's activities. The researchers will receive their medals at the ceremony for Diligence and Devotion in February 2024.

Karolinska Institutet invites researchers and doctoral students to apply for participation in the SASUF Research and Innovation week that takes place in Sweden May 13-17, 2024.

Researchers at KI are invited to apply for short-term research exchange grants funded by Eurolife.

This year's KLOK award goes to the Optometry program, which together with the St. Erik Eye Hospital has developed a clinical training clinic where students from several educational programs can broaden and deepen their knowledge in an interprofessional learning environment.

Bernard and Barbro Osher donate USD 2,100,000 (approx. SEK 23 million) to the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Karolinska Institutet. The donation follows an earlier donation in 2005 from the same donors.

The Swedish Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology annually awards the best doctoral thesis of the year. 2023 the award goes to Ritah Bakesiima, who completed her dissertation at the Department of Women's and Children's Health last year. Her research studies the barriers to contraception among adolescents, and enlightens the importance of peer counselling in increasing contraceptive uptake.

The strategic partnership agreement, signed between Karolinska Institutet and University of Tokyo aims to increase mobility of students and researchers, joint research projects and faculty development programs such as pedagogic training and research supervision.

The course aims to give doctoral students an opportunity to reflect on the importance of academic research and how this can lead to societal change.

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 postdoctoral 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.

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

Anna Wedell, professor at Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) Gold Medal 2023 for her efforts in precision medicine. This gold medal has been awarded since 1921 for outstanding achievements in technology, economics, business and society.

The Centre for Health Crises has received funding from the Swedish government to increase and support collaboration across the country’s universities on the topic of health crises. Initially, the Centre completed an online mapping of ongoing activities and existing health crises competences at a majority of the universities. We have also recruited Caroline de Groot, who is coordinating the work and is in the process of reaching out to key groups and individuals to learn more.

The Nordic Congress of Gerontology (NKG) is arranged every second year in the Nordic countries and next year Sweden will be hosting the event. The 27th edition will be held at Karolinska Institutet on 12–14 June 2024. It is anticipated that 800 people and scholars from different parts of the world will take part, offering a diverse array of distinctive perspectives on the challenges and opportunities linked to population ageing. Registration will open on 2 October 2023.

Former state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has been awarded the BiotechBuilders Award 2023 for his efforts during the pandemic 2020-2023. The prize is awarded by the non-profit association Stockholm BiotechBuilders, to which KI is a partner and which works to strengthen the Swedish life science sector.

The Centre for Health Crises is currently supporting the WHO’s EMT (Emergency Medical Teams) initiative, through mentorship to the Ministries of Health in Georgia and Armenia in their development of EMTs. The director of the Centre, Professor Johan von Schreeb, has just returned from spending ten days in the two countries, working with the Ministries and other partners.

KI has been approved continued funding from the Swedish Institute (SI) to implement a capacity building training programme for professionals in sub-Saharan Africa during the period 2023 - 2024. The programme, which has been running since 2020, has resulted in significant positive changes in the field of reproductive, maternal and newborn health.

Since 2015, Karolinska Institutet has been a member of Scholars at Risk, a network that offers protection for researchers whose lives are in serious danger. Thanks to a request granted by KI and a donation by the Olle Engkvist Foundation, a researcher from Afghanistan has been given a position at KI.

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.

STINT, the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education, annually publishes an index measuring the internationalisation of Swedish higher education institutions. It has now given the maximum of five stars to Karolinska Institutet.

Lifestyles, the pandemic and dental care were some of the topics under discussion when Minister for Social Affairs and Public Health Jakob Forssmed visited Karolinska Institutet on 28 August, the same day as the autumn term kicked off.

The European Commission recently released the results of the 2023 call for European universities. NeurotechEU, the European University of Brain and Technology, where KI is a partner, is among the 30 selected alliances that will receive 14.3 million euro to continue their collaborations for another four years.

KI and the Univeristy of Toronto recently celebrated a course collaboration that has been ongoing for more than 25 years.

Karolinska Institutet has a long-standing collaboration with the global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. In a recently published feature article in Drug Discovery Today, academic and industry representatives describe three success factors that help to leverage the strength of these types of partnerships: mutual collaboration, mutually beneficial science, and a mutual governance model with senior management involvement (3MCs).

The Government has appointed a new research committee - a group of experts - to act as advisors prior to their upcoming Research and Innovation Policy Bill. KI researcher Anna Wedell is one of the fifteen elected members.

Karolinska University Hospital's Director Björn Zoëga and Karolinska Institutet's President Annika Östman Wernerson have signed an agreement to establish a joint center for advanced cell, gene and tissue therapies.

Global Disaster Medicine - Health Needs and Responses is part of a consortium led by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, called IPA Care, that aims to address the needs of countries on Western Balkan, along with Turkey, to strengthen their ability to prevent risks related to earthquakes and other health emergencies.

In this episode Lara Varpio dig a bit deeper into the some of the science methods and theory in Health professions education. The PAPERs podcast bring you the main points of a medical education article in under half an hour.

Congratulations to Samer Yammine at the Department of learning, informatics, management and ethics (LIME), who received the award "Male entrepreneurship educator of the year", an award included in The Triple E Awards!

To bring Sweden’s presidency of the EU to a close, the government is arranging a European Life Science conference to be held at Karolinska Institutet’s Aula Medica on 26–27 June. The theme of the conference is precision medicine, and KI – along with Karolinska University Hospital – has helped to draw up the programme.

Almost a hundred experts from 27 countries took part in a hackathon on June 17–18 to identify diseases in 14 patients lacking diagnoses. “Four of them have now received an answer and we’re confident that more are to come,” says professor and consultant Ann Nordgren, who was one of the organizers of the event.

Karolinska Institutet has been invited by STINT (The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education) to nominate two candidates and a backup candidate to participate in the exchange programme for teaching staff called Teaching Sabbatical.

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.

Creative ideas were born when the NeurotechEU alliance arranged a hackathon at Karolinska Institutet. “Activities like this highlight the value of having people from other disciplines and countries – and at different stages of their careers – engage in cross-border innovative processes with each other,” says KI president Annika Östman Wernerson.

KI-Region Stockholm is the ALF region that best meets the quality criteria in the National Board of Health and Welfare’s evaluation of academic healthcare (USV). The results of the evaluation were compiled into a report published on 31 May. Research is the Stockholm region’s strongest area, but the report also comments positively on its innovation, pedagogics education and interaction with patients and their families.

KI is invited by the National Research Foundation (NRF) in Singapore to nominate participants to the Global Young Scientists Summit in Singapore 8 – 12 January 2024.

The SiiUss project (Sustainability, Inclusiveness, Integration for University Support Services), is a collaborative initiative between Karolinska Institutet and the University of the Philippines Diliman. The project introduces the SiiUss course, a learning platform designed to enhance professional development and foster sustainability, inclusiveness, and integration within university support services. The course just started with participants from both universities.