News archive

For two days in the first week of October, Karolinska Institutet for the first time invited members of the public to partake in guided tours of the Nordic region’s largest zebrafish facility. More than 40 people took the opportunity, offered as part of Nobel Calling 2022, to visit more than 20,000 tropical freshwater fish that are helping to solve medical mysteries.

KI is still the Nordic Region’s highest ranking university, but has dropped ten places from 39 to 49 in this year’s Times Higher Education (THE) overall rankings over all subject fields. Other EU universities have also dropped, while those in Asia, especially China, have advanced. The UK and USA remain relatively stable. Universities with a technological profile have also fared better than the average.

Good health in the future through the development and application of the best possible medical education is the guiding star for Anna Kiessling’s work – for both research and quality work at Karolinska Institutet.

Transporting drugs to the right place and into the right cells is a major challenge. Samir EL Andaloussi researches how tiny vesicles called exosomes, which naturally transport material between cells, can be used for this purpose.

Pedagogical issues, in both dental education and dental care, are along with patients’ experiences of periodontitis two main themes in Annsofi Johannsen’s research. She is also head of KI’s dental hygiene programme.

Thanks to modern treatments, people with haemophilia live a normal life. But what will decades of medication mean for them as they reach old age? Jovan Antović researches blood clotting and haemophilia, especially in relation to elderly health.

Jacob Hollenberg conducts research to increase the survival rate after cardiac arrest. He leads the KI Center for resuscitation science, which develops and studies new innovative methods and treatments along the entire cardiac care pathway.

Molly M Stevens is Professor of Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics. By combining knowledge in material design and biology, her research group generates new technologies for repairing the body.

Jenny Mjösberg researches innate lymphoid cells (ILCs), a previously unknown part of the immune system. She wants to understand the part they play in different kinds of inflammatory disease, and ultimately contribute to new, improved therapies.

Lars E Eriksson researches earlier detection of lung cancer through the charting of early symptoms and biomarkers. He also researches organisational issues in healthcare as well as stigma and quality of life in patients with chronic infections like HIV.

Gerald McInerney researches the molecular-level battle between human cells and viruses. He is also a teacher who is passionate about developing the study of virology at KI.

Brjánn Ljótsson researches cognitive behavioural therapy , CBT. He has helped to develop and establish online CBT, and researches how CBT can improve the lives of people with physical disease.

Marie Löf’s research covers ways of improving health and reducing overweight and obesity in pregnant women and children. She develops apps that help individuals and families to make vital changes in their dietary and exercise habits.

Johan Hartman is developing new diagnostic methods for predicting therapeutic responses and judging relapse risk in cancer. The methods range from patient-derived three-dimensional tumour models to AI-aided risk assessment.

Anders Kvanta researches cell and gene therapies for diseases of the retina that currently lack effective treatments. His discovery that the pathologic formation of new blood vessels in the retina is attributable to the growth factor VEGF has saved the eyesight of millions of people.

Anders Thorell’s research evaluates techniques of gastrointestinal surgery, leading to new clinical recommendations. He also studies mechanisms behind the effects of weight-loss surgery.

Screening programmes for childhood hearing loss need to become better at collecting data and measuring outcomes in order to increase quality, such as improving the percentage of follow-ups, a new thesis from Karolinska Institutet reports.

We recognise the images of health care and medical staff in PPE. Maybe we have even experienced an outbreak of the disease where we have lived. But what is it actually like to work in an ongoing Ebola outbreak? Anneli Eriksson, specialist nurse and research specialist at KI, answers three questions about working in the ongoing outbreak in Uganda.

A randomized study, known by the acronym NordICC – Northern - European Initiative on Colorectal Cancer - shows colonoscopy screening reduces the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent. The reduction is much smaller than experts previously assumed. The NordICC study is now published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to K. Barry Sharpless, Morten Meldal and Carolyn R. Bertozzi for the development of click chemistry, a quick and efficient way to build molecules. Several KI researchers use the technology in their daily research, one of which has co-authored a study with one of this year's prize winners. Here, they comment on the prize.

At KI's Culture Day on October 19, Ina Schuppe Koistinen, researcher at the department of microbiology, tumor and cell biology, presents her new book "Vulva: facts, myths and life-changing insights".

The Docent Committee decided on the 22 of September 2022 to admit Milan Chromek as a docent in paediatrics.

Milan is affiliated to the Division of Paediatrics at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology - CLINTEC.

Professor Martin Bergö is re-appointed Academic Vice President for Research as well as Chairperson of the Committee for Research at Karolinska Institutet. On October 4th the president of Karolinska Institutet, Ole Petter Ottersen, appointed the academic vice presidents and deputy chairpersons for the three committees that report to the Faculty Board.

The two-day conference, Collaboration in Science 2022, is held on 6 and 7 October at KI’s Campus Flemingsberg. During the conference, participants will learn about the extensive research being conducted at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital.

During the Annual pediatric IBD meeting in Örebro on September 29-30, Jonas F Ludvigsson received this year’s honorary award "the Gut Feeling" SPGHN, the Swedish Association for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, amidst the cheers of the audience. The prize is awarded after voting by pediatricians in Sweden.

”Our study examines the association between older persons perception regarding satisfaction, treatment by staff, and sense of security in home care services (HCS), and factors in the working conditions of the HCS staff” says Anne-Marie Boström, docent at Karolinska Institutet, responsible for the study together with her research group. The results show strong associations between older persons' level of satisfaction with their care, and the level of satisfaction with working conditions reported.

The Horizon Europe grant programme for innovations has awarded the consortium DELIVER (DELiberative ImproVEment of oRal care quality five million euros to improve oral health.

On October 4, the president of Karolinska Institutet appointed academic vice presidents and deputy chairpersons for the three committees that report to the Faculty Board: The Committee for Higher Education, the Committee for Doctoral Education and the Committee for Research. The appointees’ term of office runs from 1 January, 2023, to 31 December, 2025.

Professor and senior physician Lars I Eriksson at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology receives the Franz-Koehler Inflammation Award 2022. Lars is awarded the prize for successful research into the pathophysiology, prophylaxis and treatment of inflammatory conditions in perioperative medicine.

Where do we originate from? And who are we? Thanks to Svante Pääbo, 2022 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, we know more about what make us uniquely human. We also know what we have in common with our, now-extinct, closest relatives.

On October 4, 2022, research group leader Niaz Ahmed was employed as an adjunct professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience (CNS), the Division of Neuro.

From pregnancies and depression to COVID-19. Neanderthals are physically extinct, but their genes live on. For better or worse, they still affect our health today. We are publishing this timeline, previously published in the magazine Medicinsk Vetenskap, due to the fact that researcher Svante Pääbo has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2022.

The Swedish Society for Medical Research (SSMF) has awarded grants to five KI researchers. The grants give both prominent researchers the opportunity to strengthen their position and provide establishment support for younger researchers.

Professor Mikael Landén was awarded the Swedish Society for Medical Research (SSMF) Jubilee Prize for his valuable findings within psychiatry research. This prestigious prize is SEK five million, intended for research. He will also be awarded a medal at the prize ceremony on 21 October.

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.

The research team Global Child Health and the Sustainable Development Goals in collaboration with the Nobel Prize Museum hosted a seminar on global child health as part of the Nobal Calling Stockholm week. Juliet Mwanga-Amumpaire from Mbarara University in Uganda and Tobias Alfvén, associate professor at the Department of Global Public Health, discussed why five million children die every year and what is needed for more children to survive.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2022 has been awarded to Svante Pääbo for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.

Anneli Eriksson, research specialist at the Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters and a specialised nurse with extensive field experience, was on her way to Spain when she turned on her heel and instead headed straight to Uganda, to work in a coordinator role for Médecins sans frontières (MSF) Sweden in their efforts to assist in the current and ongoing Ebola outbreak in the country.

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.

Mariam Shahata is new Research assistant in Team Melican from July 2022! We have asked Mariam some questions about what she will do at AIMES and her expectations of the new position.

Various health care interventions can, to put it in simplified terms, yield different amounts of health per invested Swedish krona. But how can subjective experiences, such as quality of life, be brought into these calculations? Researchers at Karolinska Institutet find ways to make health economic decisions.

A study by researchers at Institute of Environmental Medicine shows that in vitro new approach methodologies (NAMs) can be a useful tool to improve cancer risk assessment (CRA) strategies in the context of complex environmental mixtures as such air pollution.

The core facilities at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics and the SciLifeLab infrastructure contribute to the REMEDi4ALL project that kicks off with the ambition of establishing a European research and innovation eco-system facilitating fast and cost-effective patient-centric development and access to repurposed medicines.

Hi Linda Eriksson, PhD student at the Division of Nursing, NVS. On June 3 you will defend your thesis "Let's work it out : aspects of the occupational situation of survivors of allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation", what's the main focus of the thesis?

Professor Yihai Cao, Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell biology, is the corresponding author of a study recently published in PNAS, explaining how brown adipose tissue (BAT) can be increased in the adult human body.

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.

On September 23, the Centre for Health Crises kicked off our seminar series KI Contributes, aiming at addressing contemporary health crises, with an interactive panel discussion on the health consequences of extreme heat. The focus was addressing a multi-layered health crisis with effects on both individual and public health.

Professor Sophie Erhardt at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology receives The 2022 Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Maltz Prize of $40,000 for innovative and promising schizophrenia research.

How is health equity even calculated? Researchers Emelie Agardh and Matteo Bottai at Karolinska Institutet are looking for new methodological paths, among other things inspired by the game Master mind.

Researchers at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology (FyFa) Sophie Erhardt, Karima Chergui and Carl Sellgren receive grants from the Swedish Brain Foundation (Hjärnfonden). Gunnar Schulte is awarded a grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation.