Professor and former Vice President Anders Ekbom has passed away
Anders Ekbom, Professor of Epidemiology and former Vice President of Karolinska Institutet, has died aged 76. He passed on 29 July after a long illness. Anders Ekbom had several roles and assignments at KI. ”His importance for Karolinska Institutet cannot be overestimated”, says KI’s President Annika Östman Wernerson.
”It is with great sadness that I receive the news that our colleague Anders Ekbom has passed away. My thoughts are with his family at this difficult time,“ says Annika Östman Wernerson.
”I will remember Anders Ekbom as a warm, caring and enthusiastic colleague and friend, and as a distinguished researcher. He has also made outstanding contributions in several roles within KI, and had a great impact on the collaboration with Region Stockholm. His contribution also extends to areas such as medical ethics and research ethics, and what was special about him was that he also brought about change in these areas,“ she says.
Born in 1947, Anders Ekbom studied medicine at Lund University and graduated from Uppsala University in 1977, and became a specialist in general surgery in 1984. He defended his thesis on inflammatory bowel disease in 1990. In 1997 he joined Karolinska Institutet and in 1999 he became Professor of Epidemiology. From 2002–2007 he was an adjunct professor at Harvard University in Boston. At KI, he was Head of the Department of Medicine, Solna, 2007–2015.
“Not only did Anders Ekbom make major contributions in his research fields. He was central to the development of the entire field of clinical epidemiology at our department and Karolinska Institutet in general. He also provided important perspectives on research ethics, both in Sweden and abroad,“ says Marie Wahren-Herlenius, Head of the Department of Medicine, Solna, KI.
Acting Vice President in 2017
Anders Ekbom had several different roles and assignments during his lifetime. He became Acting Vice President in 2017, when one of his important tasks was to follow up the measures taken in response to the Macchiarini case and to ”be the liaison to the county council’”, as he himself described it in the medical journal Läkartidningen (11 January 2017).
But already the year before, in 2016, he received the Grand Silver Medal, which Karolinska Institutet awards to people who have made special efforts to support the university. According to the medal's motivation, Ekbom “played a major role in the development of co-operation between KI and Karolinska University Hospital”. Ekbom continued to strengthen the collaboration with Stockholm County Council (Region Stockholm) during his time as Vice President.
The motivation for the Grand Silver Medal also emphasises Anders Ekbom's outstanding research. He was very active and successful in several research areas with over 600 publications to date. Among other things, his research has had a major impact on how patients with ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis are followed up and treated.
When Anders Ekbom himself was asked what he was most proud of in his research, he mentioned his early epidemiological studies of IBD, that heredity for colon cancer plays a role in the risk of developing colon cancer in IBD, the link between the degree of inflammation and the risk of lymphoma, and that biological drugs are effective in many inflammatory bowel diseases and that severe side effects are rare.
Epidemiology and ethics
Ekbom was appointed scientific representative by the former President of Karolinska Institutet, Ole Petter Ottersen. With this new assignment, he also became chairman of the new ethics council at KI, tasked with proactively discussing complex ethical issues and good research practice at the university.
Several years earlier (2006), Anders Ekbom had chaired the scientific misconduct commission against the Norwegian cancer researcher Jon Sudbø, a highly publicised case, where Ekbom concluded that virtually everything the Norwegian researcher had written about his research was a lie.
He was also an expert in the Corona Commission's reference group for infection control issues.
In 2012, Anders Ekbom was awarded the Swedish Society of Medicine’s Jubilee Medal on the grounds that he ”has, from a strong epidemiological base, demonstrated the ability to scientifically decide clinically relevant issues in various medical fields such as cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and psychiatric diseases. Using epidemiological tools, Ekbom links unique Swedish population-based registers and examines medical issues of relevance to future patients.”
How we remember our colleague Anders Ekbom
”A mentor that I turned to in both ups and downs”
Olof Akre, Professor of Oncological Surgery at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, KI, and Director of R&D at Karolinska University Hospital:
“Anders was my supervisor when I did my PhD and he later became a mentor that I turned to in both ups and downs in my career. He was an incredibly fine research leader. He was a humble person who never had any problems with anyone thinking differently. The research group he led consisted of many colourful characters united in the ambition to create great research together. He was a cheerful, warm and delightful person. He was much liked and appreciated by many and his research regularly appeared in the top medical journals.”
”Unique role as a research leader”
Johan Askling, former PhD student of Anders Ekbom, Professor of Rheumatology and current Head of the Division of Clinical Epidemiology at the Department of Medicine, Solna, KI:
”Anders was an imaginative researcher with a brilliant intellect and an ability to look at things from a different angle. But his greatest contribution to research and KI is still his unique role as a research leader – building what is now the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and a large group of clinically active researchers nurtured by Anders – and as a mentor, in big and small ways, in good times and bad. Over the years, many of us have gone to Anders with problems or ideas, and always left strengthened and confirmed, however crazy our ideas may have been.”
“Nothing was impossible“
Michael Fored, senior lecturer, research group leader and deputy head of the Division of Clinical Epidemiology and director of studies for the doctoral programme at the Department of Medicine, Solna, KI.
“Nothing was impossible for Anders Ekbom – he was great at enthusing and coming up with good ideas and solutions. He was also good at recognising his own shortcomings, and was wise enough to surround himself with people who complemented him.”
“A beacon of ethics in a difficult time“
Claes Frostell, Chairman of the Ethics Council and Professor at the Department of Clinical Sciences, Danderyd Hospital, KI:
“A lot of good and appreciative things can be said about Anders Ekbom's work. I came to work closely with him from 2019 in the role of successor in the assignments of scientific representative and chairman of the Ethics Council KI. For me, Anders has been a pillar and mentor. He was clear-sighted, straightforward and fearless. When things were at their worst around KI, he managed to be a beacon of ethics in a difficult time. Many of us will miss his wise words.”
”My most important research partner”
Jonas F. Ludvigsson, Professor at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
”To me, Anders Ekbom was first and foremost a very close friend. But he was also my mentor for a quarter of a century, and perhaps my most important research partner.”
”Took a standpoint different from the general conception”
Mads Melbye, Director of the Danish Cancer Institute in Copenhagen, and visiting professor, Department of Pediatrics at Stanford University, USA:
”It is with great sadness that I learned of Anders Ekbom's death. Anders was an inspirator and mentor for a whole generation of epidemiologists and taught the upcoming generations to think out of the box. He loved scientific discussions and often took a standpoint different from the general conception of a scientific topic. He was a leading capacity in forming Swedish clinical epidemiology and proved over and over again the importance of working with the unique Nordic registries. 'Life has to be fun' as he often said and he managed to create a positive and relaxed atmosphere even when serious topics were on the agenda. We are many who have lost a dear friend and colleague, and the world a unique scientist.”