News archive

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet report in the journal Nature that they have developed novel first-in-class inhibitors that compromise mitochondrial function in cancer cells. Treatment with the inhibitors stopped cancer cells from proliferating and reduced tumour growth in mice, without significantly affecting healthy cells.

As life expectancies rise, so does the risk of dementia. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now studied how an active, non-smoking lifestyle can influence this correlation. The results, which are published in PLOS Medicine, suggest that good cardiovascular health gradually decreases the risk of dementia.

In the search for new ways to treat the incurable eye disease glaucoma, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and St. Erik Eye Hospital have discovered more clues as to its pathogenesis. A new study shows how metabolic disturbance of the neurons coincide with raised pressure in the eye. In animal and cell models, rapamycin and pyruvate treatments were shown to have a protective effect. The study is published in the journal PNAS.

With the help of algorithms, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified markers that can differentiate between irritant eczema and contact allergy, two skin reactions that look similar but require different treatment. Their findings, which are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), support the further development of an alternative to today’s diagnostic patch tests.

Carin Lennartsson has been granted funding to collect data and research materials linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project is entitled “The Swedish Panel Study of Living Conditions of the Oldest Old – SWEOLD COVID-19”.

Stefan Swartling Peterson has been appointed Professor of Global Transformations of Health as of 1 January 2021.

Rosaria Galanti receives NOK 10 million from NordForsk. The grant is awarded for collaborative projects between Nordic and Baltic Countries concerning clinical and public health aspects of COVID-19, especially in combination with the use of tobacco such as smoking and snus.

The two used methods for detecting amyloid pathology in Alzheimer's disease give ambiguous results, with the risk of incorrect or delayed care interventions. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have found genetic explanations for the differences. The study is published in Molecular Psychiatry and may be important for more individual diagnostics and the development of future drugs.

The blood is the main source of studies on the immune system, despite the fact that most diseases are combated by immune cells in the body’s tissues. A new study from Karolinska Institutet and the University of Pennsylvania has identified which immune cells patrol the human body’s tissues and circulate back into the blood. The study, which is published in Cell, shows that not all T cells do this – some are found mostly in the blood where they constitute a unique part of our immune system.

Depressed children and teenagers have an increased risk of suffering from premature death and a wide range of illnesses later in life. That is according to a large observational study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The findings highlight the need to look for other potential diseases following childhood or adolescent depression. Other psychiatric conditions, such as anxiety and substance misuse, can explain part of the association. The study is published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Researchers at KI have received SEK 36,800,000 from the Swedish Research Council’s consolidator grant 2020. In total, SEK 217 million was distributed to 20 universities.

Samir El Andaloussi, researcher at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, has been awarded the 2020 European Research Council Consolidator Grant for the project “Release of engineered Extracellular vesicles for delivery of Biotherapeutics”.

On Thursday evening, 15 October, one of the highlights of the academic calendar took place – the annual installation ceremony for new professors at KI, this time both in Aula Medica and digitally. 14 new professors were installed, and new adjunct professors and visiting professors were also welcomed.

Four KI researchers are to receive funding from the Swedish Research Council and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) for interdisciplinary collaboration projects on corona and virus research in the call for applications “Project grant for cross-disciplinary collaboration between China and Sweden on corona and virus research”.

Infectious diseases doctor Katja Wyss’s thesis is the product of many years’ research on malaria in Sweden. With clinical data from almost 3,000 diagnosed cases over a twenty-year time span, Katja Wyss at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Medicine in Solna presents risk factors for malaria and new links between malaria and lymphoma – results that are of potential significance to people in many parts of the world.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have come one step closer toward understanding why some people become seriously ill or die from a common bacterium that leaves most people unharmed. In a study published in The Lancet Microbe, the researchers linked RNA mutations within the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis to invasive meningococcal disease, marking the first time a non-coding RNA in a bacterium has been linked to disease progression.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have succeeded in mapping the neuron types comprising the enteric nervous system in the intestine of mice. The study, which is published today in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience, also describes how the different neurons form during fetal development, a process that follows different principles to brain neurons.

The discovery of the hepatitis C virus is this year acknowledged by The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. It is now possible to detect the virus in blood and to provide an effective treatment for the infection. WHO wants to eliminate hepatitis C by 2030, but is this possible? We asked three researchers what they think.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet characterise a GTPase involved in ribosome biogenesis in mitochondria. The study, published in Nucleic Acid Research, reveals new details of a complex process that enables mitochondria to produce energy.

This year’s silver medals are awarded to professors Kristina Alexanderson and Roland Möllby. The medal recognises excellent efforts to support the activities of Karolinska Institutet and is awarded at the Diligence and Devotion ceremony.

Tânia Costa at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition is the receiver of the Dan Grandér Memorial Prize 2020 for the best doctoral thesis in the area of cancer research at Karolinska Institutet during 2019. With a comprehensive and yet focused thesis, spanning from molecular mechanisms to patient outcome, illuminating the role of PAK 4 in tumor development and prognosis.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet and the Helmholtz Diabetes Research Center shows that primary cilia, hair-like protrusions on endothelial cells inside vessels, play an important role in the blood supply and delivery of glucose to the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreatic islets. The findings are published in eLife and may be relevant for transplantation therapies in diabetes, as formation of functional blood vessels is important for the treatment to be successful.

The award recognises Professor Kivipelto’s more than 20 years of research into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia.

Hi there Linda Sturesson Stabel, PhD student at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Lifelong Learning in Health Care Contexts (LLiHCC), defending her doctoral thesis "Entrance to and advancement within the Swedish medical labour market for physicians with a medical degree from outside the European Union". What is it about?

Professor emeritius Jan Lindsten was awarded KI’s Culture Award during the KI Culture Day on December 2. He was awarded for his outstanding contributions to bridge science with culture at KI.

Hello Elena Rafetti, doctoral student at the Department of Global Public Health. You will defend your thesis on 16 December. Tell us, what is the focus of your thesis and the project?

Sabine Koch, professor at HIC/LIME and president of IMIA is organising a dialogue meeting with the WHO Director General Dr Tedros.

Sabine Koch, professor and head of HIC, the Health Informatics Centre, is the keynote speaker at the 17th Brazilian Health Informatics Conference

It is a known fact that sexual minorities are at a higher risk of developing poor mental health, when compared to heterosexuals. The stigma that sexual minorities face has been regarded as potentially the primary cause of this. A new thesis from Karolinska Institutet offers an insight into how stigma-related factors may work in a broader socio-ecological system, considering the complex interaction between structural, interpersonal and individual factors.

Karl-Johan Malmberg, co-director of NextGenNK will present his research and the Competence Center at the digital event - Allogeneic Cell Therapies Summit 2021, May 17-19. The meeting is focused on the clinical and commercial development of engineered allogeneic cell therapies and innovating off-the shelf therapies to benefit patients in need.

Liu Yang from the research group Translational Psychiatry, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend her thesis "Exploring the Gut-brain Axis in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)" on December 4, 2020. Main Supervisor is Catharina Lavebratt.

DOAC (direct oral anticoagulant) pills are used in the treatment of atrial fibrillation by preventing blood clots. Even though blood clots are thought to contribute to complications from the new coronavirus infection, users of this class of drug do not seem to be protected against severe COVID-19, reports a large Swedish registry study from Karolinska Institutet published in The Journal of Internal Medicine.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have led an international team of scientists who have tested a vaccine for Crimean-Congo virus on primates for the first time. The vaccine provided protection against the virus, which can cause fatal haemorrhagic fever, and showed no serious side-effects. The study is published in the journal Nature Microbiology. The next big step will be to test the vaccine on humans.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), or nasopharynx cancer, is a malignant disease characterized by unique geographic distribution endemic to southern China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East/North Africa. It is known that the interaction of Epstein-Barr Virus infection, environmental and lifestyle factors, and genetic susceptibility, contributes to NPC carcinogenesis.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have found unique synaptic connectivity patterns of neurons in the External Globus Pallidus in mice. This may hold the key to understanding how information is processed by the basal ganglia in health and disease. The article was recently published in Neuron.

The corona pandemic put a stop to the planned inauguration-reception this autumn, but now Karolinska Institutet's new 3D-EM core facility is fully operational after all. In the basement of Wargentin House on Solna campus there are several cryogenic electron microscopes of the latest models, that can be used by both KI researchers and external customers. Martin Hällberg, PI at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology and director of the 3D-EM facility, is enthusiastic.

Shihua Sun has investigated the associations between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and specific adverse outcomes including asthma and premature death. In his thesis, Shihua included four studies to clarify the magnitude and etiology of the associations, as well as potential effects from medication treatment that may prevent poor prognosis.

In a new study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have studied CYP2C19 and CYP2D6 genes impact on treatment with antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs. The study shows that a control of the patient’s genotype can be used to individualize the drug treatment and lead to a more effective treatment.

Birth asphyxia is one of the most common causes of neonatal death. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and others have now evaluated a method of resuscitation not previously used by midwives. The study, which is published in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that a laryngeal mask is a safe and easy-to-use alternative to other methods and one that is particularly suitable for use in low-income countries.

Gilberto Fisone has been awarded a three-year research grant from the Swedish Research Council within the program Novel Imaging and Brain Stimulation Methods and Technologies (JPND) for a project entitled "Phage-based targeted neural stimulation in neurodegenerative diseases".

In this weeks issue of New England Journal of Medicine Nicolas Pejovic and Susanna Myrnerts Höök report the results from the hitherto largest randomized trial comparing laryngeal mask airway to the standard face mask when resuscitating asphyxiated newborn infants.

KI Culture Day 2020 is a cultural Christmas cracker packed with music, art, comedy and science. The two-hour event is being organised with the Stockholm House of Culture and City Theatre (Kulturhuset) and will be live streamed to the public on 2 December at 3.00 p.m.

Concerns have been raised that the use of a common group of medications called RAS inhibitors could facilitate SARS-CoV-2 infection, impact COVID-19 disease severity and worsen prognosis. However, in a new nationwide registry-based study from Karolinska Institutet, including almost 1.4 million patients, use of RAS inhibitors was not associated with increased risk of hospitalisation or death from COVID-19. The study has been published in the European Journal of Heart Failure.

Female reproductive toxicity has long been recognized as a research area with many knowledge gaps, and current regulatory toxicology methods have limited possibilities to detect disruption of ovarian function by chemical exposures.

It is largely unknown why influenza infections lead to an increased risk of bacterial pneumonia. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now described important findings leading to so-called superinfections, which claim many lives around the world every year. The study is published in the journal PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and can also contribute to research on COVID-19.

On Tuesday morning alarming and ominous signals came from Iran that the death sentence against the former KI researcher and Swedish citizen Ahmadreza Djalali might soon be carried out.

Hi there Giulia Grande, PhD student at the Aging Research Center (ARC). You will be defending your thesis entitled “Development of dementia in older adults: the body-mind connection” on 11 December 2020. Could you give us a brief summary?

We wish to congratulate Axel Abelein at BioNut who has received Formas research project grant for early-career researchers for a project on Development of new protein-based biomaterials for sustainable purification of heavy metals from water.

Immunotherapy for cancer has made great advances and many patients can now receive effective treatments that were not available ten years ago. However, there are certain types of cancer that do not respond to existing immunotherapy. A study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reports on a new kind of immunotherapy that gives hope of more treatment options for cancer in the future.

The virtual SPARKS conference held on 2-3 December will gather a network of global leaders in public policy and research to facilitate the exchange of knowledge on social protection and health. Knut Lönnroth is the founder of the SPARKS Network and Professor of Social Medicine.