News archive

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton, and Charles M. Rice for their discoveries of the Hepatitis C virus.

Meet Agneta Richter Dahlfors, director of a new interdisciplinary research centre with the focus on societal benefits, that was inaugurated on 30 September. What is AIMES?

The Center for the Advancement of Integrated Medical and Engineering Sciences, AIMES, is a collaboration between KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Karolinska Institutet, in partnership with Getinge, with the vision to enhance the exchange of expertise within academia and industry. The center was officially inaugurated on 30 September 2020, in Biomedicum, Solna (and via Youtube).

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have identified a protein in the brain that is important both for the function of the mood-regulating substance serotonin and for the release of stress hormones, at least in mice. The findings, which are published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, may have implications for the development of new drugs for depression and anxiety.

Herwig Schüler, Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, KI, is co-applicant in a project lead by Umeå University, which are about to receive almost SEK 30 million in project grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) for a project on "Decoding bacterial toxin-antitoxin systems: from high-throughput discovery to molecular mechanisms and biotechnology".

Spinal cord injury often leads to permanent functional impairment. In a new study published in the journal Science researchers at Karolinska Institutet show that it is possible to stimulate stem cells in the mouse spinal cord to form large amounts of new oligodendrocytes, cells that are essential to the ability of neurons to transmit signals, and thus to help repair the spinal cord after injury.

KI is now taking the next step and establishing a new team – KI’s interdisciplinary resource team post COVID-19 (KIRP) – to handle future challenges and to help improve and strengthen preparedness for future crises, such as new pandemics. 

Women vaccinated against HPV have a significantly lower risk of developing cervical cancer, and the positive effect is most pronounced for women vaccinated at a young age. That is according to a large study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in New England Journal of Medicine.

A study published in Nature shows that a segment of DNA that causes their carriers to have an up to three times higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neandertals. The study was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Four major research projects at Karolinska Institutet are to receive project grants from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) this year. A total of almost SEK 143 million over a five-year period is to be invested in KI projects on cellular ageing, cerebral decision-making mechanisms, stem-cell fate and antibody-producing cells.

A type of anti-bacterial T cells, so-called MAIT cells, are strongly activated in people with moderate to severe COVID-19 disease, according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden that is published in the journal Science Immunology. The findings contribute to increased understanding about how our immune system responds against COVID-19 infection.

Women receiving fertility-sparing surgery for treatment of borderline ovarian tumours were able to have children, a study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in Fertility & Sterility shows. Natural fertility was preserved in most of them and only a small proportion required assisted reproductive treatment such as in vitro fertilization. Survival in the group was also as high as in women who had undergone radical surgical for treatment of similar tumours.

Barbara Canlon was elected as a foreign member of the medical science class at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on March 12, 2020.

More than 10 percent of young and previously healthy people who develop severe COVID-19 have misguided antibodies that attack the immune system itself, and another 3.5 percent carry a specific genetic mutation. This is according to new research published in Science by an international consortium involving researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

Researchers at KI have received funding from the United States Army for the development of genetic engineering methods to alleviate or cure the disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), the most common form of genetic neuromuscular disease in children.

In a study published in JAMA researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital have examined the association between a positive SARS-CoV-2 test during pregnancy and complications in mothers and their newborn babies. Almost two out of three pregnant women who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were asymptomatic and the researchers found no higher prevalence of complications during delivery or of ill-health in the neonates. However, preeclampsia was more common in infected women.

Nils-Göran Larsson receives a project grant in Endocrinology & Metabolism of DKK 2 million from the Novo Nordisk Foundation. We’ve talked to him about the project that investigates the role of mitochondria in the development of obesity-associated insulin resistance.

New knowledge on the cellular makeup and growth of teeth can expedite developments in regenerative dentistry – a biological therapy for damaged teeth – as well as the treatment of tooth sensitivity. The study, which was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, is published in Nature Communications.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a method for fast, cheap, yet accurate testing for COVID-19 infection. The method simplifies and frees the testing from expensive reaction steps, enabling upscaling of the diagnostics. This makes the method particularly attractive for places and situations with limited resources, for repeated testing and for moving resources from expensive diagnostics to other parts of the care chain. The study is published in Nature Communications.

KI researcher Federico Iovino has been awarded the Bjarne Ahlström's Minnesfonds pris 2020 (Bjarne Ahlström’s Memorial Fund Prize 2020) for his research in Clinical Neurology and on the study of inflammatory mechanisms that affect the function of the central or peripheral nervous system. The prize which consists of SEK 1000,000 is awarded annually and is distributed partly as an individual prize of SEK 50,000, partly as a research grant of SEK 950,000.

The first virtual workshop between the Stockholm Trio (KI, KTH and SU) and the University of Tokyo was conducted September 16th-18th, via Zoom. The overarching theme for the workshop was sustainable development. It brought together senior academics, young researchers, students, and other staff mainly from Sweden and Japan, but also from India, China, Mexico, Brazil, Ethiopia, France and Indonesia. Many ideas were brought forward for future, interdisciplinary collaboration between the four univer

Simon Elsässer receives a grant of SEK 2.7 million from IngaBritt and Arne Lundberg's Foundation for the project "sORF peptides in tumor biology and diagnosis". Elsässer's project is one of 19 that has been awarded a total of SEK 36 million this year.

Sweden chose a different pandemic strategy than its peer nations. This included the timing of pandemic-related actions, how parts of the healthcare system reacted to the pandemic, the legal framework for the relationship between the Government and other actors and actions taken with regard to schools. In a paper published in Acta Paediatrica, Professor Jonas F Ludvigsson presents a detailed timeline on how Sweden tackled COVID-19 during the eight months up to 1 September, 2020.

Dr. Ivan Nalvarte, a Senior Researcher at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition (BioNut) at Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded a grant of approximately 1.75 million US dollars for four years, from the National Institute of Health (NIH), USA.

Karolinska Institutet is proposing, in partnership with Karolinska University Hospital, a national preventative drive aimed at people at risk of committing acts of sexual violence. One initiative is to set up a national knowledge hub.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet describe molecular and cellular consequences of unique genetic mutations affecting the CASK gene which has been implicated in various neurodevelopmental disorders. Notably, the results indicate differences in the development of presynapses of inhibitory neurons in individuals with specific mutations. The findings elucidate key mechanisms during early neuronal maturation and may help to define targets for future drug discoveries for these disorders.

In his thesis, Emilio Ugalde Morales uses a molecular epidemiology approach to investigate the association between risk factors and aggressive breast cancer defined by tumor characteristics, intrinsic subtypes, mode of detection, and survival.

Karolinska Institutet’s Grand Silver Medal 2020 is awarded to Ove Hagelin, Richard J. Heald, Hans Jörnvall, Lars Olson and Nancy Pedersen. The award has been conferred on them in special recognition of their significant contributions to medical research in general and Karolinska Institutet in particular.

While alcohol dependency is becoming increasingly common, it is difficult to obtain help. However, new research presented in a doctoral thesis by Magnus Johansson at Karolinska Institutet shows that web-based CBT is no less effective than face-to-face CBT.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet are taking part in three projects funded as part of the EU’s second major investment in research on the new coronavirus sars-cov-2, COVID-19 and the pandemic. The total research grant for KI amounts to just over SEK 14 million.

Karolinska Institutet's reputation score among the public has risen for the second year in a row, according to new survey results published on 10 September.

Hi Nicola Payton, PhD student at the Aging Research Center (NVS). On October 8 you will defend your thesis “Understanding preclinical dementia: Early detection of dementia through cognitive and biological markers”. What’s the main focus of the thesis?

When the coronavirus pandemic struck, a great many researchers put aside their current projects to devote themselves completely to the new virus. Meet three of those whose working life took an unexpected turn.

In a decision announced late yesterday (9 September), the National Board for Assessment of Research Misconduct finds Karin Dahlman-Wright, the former vice-president of Karolinska Institutet, guilty of scientific misconduct with respect to four papers published between 2013 and 2016.

People with autism spectrum disorder have lower levels of a protein that regulates the amount of serotonin in the brain, a paper from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry reports. For their study, the researchers used a molecular brain imaging technique to compare people with and without autism; their results offer hope of finding a drug that can alleviate the symptoms.

Associate Professor Ning Xu Landén from the Department of Medicine, Solna, Division of Dermatology and Venereology is this year’s winner of the LEO Foundation Award in Region EMEA.

KI researcher Saida Hadjab explains pain at the molecular level in an interview in the Swedish web magazine Curie.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Science for Life Laboratory in Sweden and Tor Vergata University of Rome in Italy have mapped the immune response in children affected by a rare but life-threatening inflammatory syndrome associated with COVID-19. The study, which is published in the scientific journal Cell, reveals that the inflammatory response differs from that in Kawasaki disease and severe acute COVID-19.

Dr. Glenn Regehr is awarded the 2020 Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education (KIPRIME.) Dr. Regehr of University of British Columbia, Vancouver (UBC), whose work has improved the educational and scholarly practices in health professions education, will be the tenth winner of this prestigious and coveted award.

Karin Edman assumed the role of Head of Administration at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics on 1 September 2020. She has previously worked as financial controller at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society (NVS), and before that, as a controller at Stockholm University of Humanities and Faculty of Law.

The annual ranking is compiled by Times Higher Education (THE) in the UK. In the most recent THE ranking (2020/2021), which was published on September 2, Karolinska Institutet ranks 36th in the world among all universities, regardless of specialization. Last year's corresponding ranking was number 41. Among European universities, KI is in 9th place. Since 2011, when THE changed its methodology, KI's overall placement has varied between 28th and 44th.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified a small neutralizing antibody, a so-called nanobody, that has the capacity to block SARS-CoV-2 from entering human cells. The researchers believe this nanobody has the potential to be developed as an antiviral treatment against COVID-19. The results are published in the journal Nature Communications.

The Unit for Bioentrepreneurship (UBE) and the Health Informatics Centre (HIC) at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, have been granted an EU Innovation Action Grant for the project COVID-X, which aims to contribute to the public health preparedness and response in the context of the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 and to ensure the availability of critical technologies and tools.

Three researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded the 2020 ERC Starting Grant: Niklas Björkström, Janina Seubert and Nils Landegren. Their projects concern resident organ-specific immune cells, the cognitive mechanisms behind our preference of certain foods, and sex-differences in the human immune system and the risk of autoimmune disease. In all, the European Research Council will support 436 early-career researchers with this prestigious grant.

Moritz Lindquist Liljeqvist from the research group Vascular Surgery, Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend his thesis "Geometric, biomechanical and molecular analyses of abdominal aortic aneurysms" on September 11, 2020. Main Supervisor is Joy Roy.

Karolinska Institutet's information management strategy was developed in Spring 2019 and is part of Strategy 2030. The aim is to create concrete, common and established ways forward for the management of information and data at Karolinska Institutet.

A blood test on hospital admission showing the presence or absence of SARS-CoV-2 can identify patients at a high risk of severe COVID-19. Admitted patients without virus in their blood have a good chance of rapid recovery. This according to researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Danderyd Hospital in a new study published in the scientific journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Active lifestyle choices such as eating vegetables, exercising and quitting smoking can reduce the risk of chronic kidney disease, a new study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Griffith University in Australia, reports. The study is published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

At the initiative of Torgny's former PhD students and colleagues, a scientific prize has been initiated in Torgny's honor, the Torgny H. Svensson Award. The prize is awarded during the SCNP's annual conference where the recipient of the prize is offered to give a scientific lecture.