News archive

As our employees who receive patients in the receptions have a vulnerable role, assault alarms have now been installed on floors 6 and 8. The alarm goes directly to the security guard, who sees the position of the alarm. At the same time, an SMS is sent to the manager. The whole of Campus Flemingsberg has security guards on site during the day, and security guards at night.

After six successful years, the PROFORMA project, coordinated by Professor Eleni Aklillu, has come to an end. To celebrate all the achievements and the new PhDs within the project, a closure symposium was recently held in Stockholm, Sweden.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet have developed a new way to understand how cancer drugs interact with different forms of protein. The study has been published in Nature Communications.

Pierre Lafolie is an associate professor and lecturer at the Department of Medicine Solna. Pierre was the scientific secretary at the Stockholm Ethics Committee from 2004 to 2018, and since 2019 he has served as the scientific coordinator at the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. In this article, Pierre discusses the ethical review process we have today when it comes to research on humans, and how researchers can navigate the various tools available on the authority's website.

On March 1, 2025, the regulations on credit transfers in The Higher Education Ordinance will change.

On January 15, the application deadline for KI's global master's programs starting in the autumn semester of 2025 closed. Interest has grown compared to last year, with a larger number of applicants from outside the EU.

Simon Svedman from the research group Orthopaedics at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend his thesis "Acute Achilles tendon rupture : predictors for outcome and plan for intervention" on 14 March 2025.

Main supervisor is Paul Ackermann.

KI Innovations – the company that helps researchers at Karolinska Institutet commercialise their discoveries – is to receive SEK 29 million from Vinnova (the Swedish governmental agency for innovation systems) for 2025 to 2029. “It’s proof of the quality of our business and the startups that we work with,” says Johan Weigelt, CEO of KI Innovations and KI Holding AB.

Protocols from IMM are available via your computer in the folder P:IMM_Information/Protokoll

The summer research school for high school students is Karolinska Institutet's initiative to introduce Swedish high school students to research during the summer. The Summer research school for high school students are now looking for motivated supervisors who are interested in supervising one or two high school students during this summer 2025.

Thursday 20 February saw the latest round of NOR awards, at which 34 members of the KI staff were commended for their long, impeccable service. The recipients of the 2024 KI Silver Medal, Stephan Rössner and Carol Tishelman, were also celebrated during the ceremony.

Studying abroad is a fantastic opportunity that can enrich a person both academically and personally. Three students from Karolinska Institutet (KI) have recently been awarded for their inspiring student exchange reports.

The application for Minor Field Studies (MFS) for the autumn semester of 2025 is now open. The scholarship provides students with the opportunity to conduct a field study in a low- or middle-income country as part of their degree project. The application deadline is 15 April, 2025.

New research suggests that antidepressants can accelerate cognitive decline in people with dementia. At the same time, some drugs appear to be less harmful than others, which can help doctors make better treatment decisions, according to the study published in BMC Medicine.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet shows that severe mental illness is more common in patients with chronic kidney disease and negatively affects their health. The study has been published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.

A new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on 6 February, highlights the life-threatening disease haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) and the importance of early diagnosis and treatment.

We are pleased to invite you to the interdisciplinary NeurotechEU Summer School "Trust me! Neural Networks, Manipulation, and Ethics" at the University of Bonn, taking place 8-11 September 2025.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have discovered a fundamental mechanism that affects the size of the pupil, namely our breathing. The study, published in The Journal of Physiology, shows that the pupil is smallest during inhalation and largest during exhalation – something that could affect our vision.

KI has been awarded grants for eight postdoc research posts under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), the EU’s flagship programme to promote international mobility among leading young researchers. The MSCA are part of the EU’s Horizon Europe innovation programme and KI has been awarded the grants in very tough open competition.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Helmholtz Munich, among others, have developed a user-friendly portal with comprehensive data on human adipose tissue. The portal offers researchers and clinicians an opportunity to explore the biology of adipose tissue, right down to the individual cell level, without any requirement for knowledge in bioinformatics. The study is published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

When we are not doing anything in particular, the brain is still busy producing thoughts and daydreams. Research shows that mental chatter increase if we are sleep deprived and can sometimes even become a barrier to sleeping. But there are techniques for those who need a break from their thoughts.

Three national framework agreements for IT purchases covering servers, storage, and network products will expire on 23 March 2025.

In animal studies, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have found a possible mechanism for how the artificial sweetener aspartame may contribute to atherosclerosis – a common cause of cardiovascular disease and disease of the blood vessels in the brain. The study is published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

What pressing issues do you think the university needs to address better? Take this opportunity to raise matters that you would like KI's academic vice presidents to pursue more actively.

As always at this time of the year, KI submits its annual report and budgetary data to the government. Our university is currently enjoying an upward trend, and this is something we can feel really proud about. As one of Europe’s leading medical universities and one of the foremost in the world, we are able to attract serious research grants, top-tier researchers and highly qualified students.

The Erling-Persson Foundation is donating SEK 8 million to KI researcher Johan Ericson to fund the verification of his ATMP (Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products) concept with the aim of producing a highly effective restorative Parkinson’s therapy.

Caterina Gregorio has received funding in the context of Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship within the area of intersecting biostatistics and ageing research for her project entitled "LETMEAGE- A complex system approach to metrics of aging for identifying personalised interventions”.

The new educational organisation, launched on 18 June 2024, involved the creation of two new working groups, in addition to the Education Board (EB). These two are the Steering Group for Teaching at FyFa (STUFF) and an Team for Undergraduate Education (Team GUA). Johanna, what is the latest on STUFF?

The developing fetus is more susceptible to external influences than previously thought. A new study, published in Science Advances, shows that factors such as stress could affect the development of the fetal brain.

KI has signed a letter of intent with University College London (UCL) within the framework of the Stockholm trio university alliance, comprising KI, KTH and Stockholm University. The new agreement aims to expand research collaboration between the universities, initially focusing on sustainability, the climate crisis, and mental health.

In the beginning of 2025 we, the Department of Medicine Solna (MedS), asked the library to generate bibliometric data, as one approach to gauge our scientific activity and contribution to knowledge production.

Do you want to use video more effectively in your teaching? With Canvas Studio, you can easily upload, record, and share videos directly in Canvas – without needing external platforms like OneDrive or ScreenPal. Plus, Studio automatically generates subtitles, which you and your colleagues can review and publish together – a convenient way to ensure accessibility in your video content.

Carolina Maya-González, from the research group Rare Diseases at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend her thesis "Novel genetic causes of childhood cancer predisposition" on March 21st, 2025.
Main supervisor is Ann Nordgren.

We are happy to introduce new colleagues at the Department of Laboratory Medicine. Welcome everyone!

Six out of every ten people in the world lack access to safe medical oxygen which is contributing to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths each year and reducing the quality of life for millions more, according to a new report published in The Lancet Global Health.

Children with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) have an elevated risk of developing psychiatric and physical conditions, a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in JAMA Pediatrics reports. The study highlights the importance of early identification to improve care of these children.

Reading ability among young people is declining, and it is the most vulnerable students who are hardest hit, according to speech language pathologist and researcher Anna Eva Hallin. In her research, she aims to understand how best to support students with language and reading difficulties.

How can we create learning environments that support all students, including those with neurodevelopmental conditions? Our new self-study toolkit provides practical strategies rooted in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to help faculty foster flexible, strength-based, and inclusive classrooms.

A new thesis from Karolinska Institutet aims to advance our understanding of the bidirectional relationship between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and chronic kidney diseases (CKD) through large-scale epidemiological studies utilizing real-world data.

The NASP team recently participated in the latest EXPERIENCE Consortium Meeting, held on February 6-7, 2025, in Paris, France. The meeting brought together consortium members to discuss the latest advancements in the project, which includes the testing of Virtual Reality (VR) for clinical applications.

In a recently published study in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, scientists from the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Karolinska Institutet, have discovered that water molecules play a crucial role in helping proteins, specifically transcription factors, read and regulate the human genome.

A new study published in the scientific journal BMJ Open has provided important insights into how older patients recover cognitively after hip replacement surgery. The research, conducted at Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge, focused on patients undergoing total joint arthroplasty, a common operation for the elderly.

From the 1 of March 2025, Blombäcks väg will permanently replace Retzius väg and Liljestrands väg will replace von Eulers väg on KI Campus Solna.
The buildings along Blombäcks väg have also been renumbered, now starting from 11 instead of 1. Retzius väg 1 is now Blombäcks väg 11.

Patrik Blomberg and Ibrahim Topal are the newly appointed presidents of Medicinska Föreningen (Medical Association) and Odontologiska Föreningen (Dental Association). Both have previous experience in student union work.

The Social inequalities in ageing network (SIA), led by Neda Agahi and Johan Fritzell, has received a three-year grant from Forte. This is a continuation of a Nordic network involving several leading Nordic researchers and their junior colleagues emanating from the earlier SIA programme. The SIA Network will receive a total of SEK 446,000 over three years.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have discovered new insights into brain changes in Parkinson’s disease using advanced imaging techniques.

Together with two other researchers, from the University of Copenhagen (Konstantin Khodosevich and Alicia Lundby) and the University of Zürich in Switzerland (Urs Meyer), Carl Sellgren Majkowitz from the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology will receive DKK 30 million from the Lundbeck Foundation.

In a recent podcast on Global Health, Anna-Theresia Ekman discusses her work in global health and sustainable development. She shares insights on interdisciplinary research, education, with a special focus on her research on children with developmental disabilities in low-income countries.

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.

Karolinska Institutet announces that its official account on the platform X (formerly Twitter) will be deactivated. The account will remain, but will no longer be actively used.