Published: 27-03-2023 17:55 | Updated: 27-03-2023 17:56

Swedish Cancer Society grants SEK 54.9 million to KI researchers

Photo of child with leukemia sitting in her grandma's lap.
Photo: iStock

Thirteen researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded 54.9 million Swedish kronor from the Swedish Cancer Society. The foundation is distributing a total of SEK 124.3 million to 31 cancer researchers in Sweden.

Christofer Juhlin
Christofer Juhlin. Photo: Cancerfonden

Christofer Juhlin is one of the researchers at KI to receive funding. In a press release from the Swedish Cancer Society, he describes his project, which will analyse whether a specific gene (the TERT gene) can be used to assess the most effective treatment for patients with thyroid cancer.

“We think that the TERT gene acts as a kind of molecular crystal ball,” Dr Juhlin says in the press release. “We’ll now use this insight to see if it can help us identify high-risk patients and thus make more accurate diagnoses that can be of use in our further assessments and follow-ups.”

The Swedish Cancer Society issues research grants approximately twice a year. This year, it is directing extra funding at care research that focuses on improving the life quality of patients both during and after treatment.

All grant recipients at KI

Department of Oncology-Pathology

Fredrik Strand is awarded SEK 7,296,000 over a six-year period for his project entitled “Image focused machine learning development and clinical evaluation to promote the health of women with breast cancer”.

Christofer Juhlin is awarded SEK 5,214,000 over a six-year period for his project entitled “Dysregulation of TERT in thyroid cancer – with focus on clinical implementation”.

Svetlana Bajalica Lagercrantz is awarded SEK 2,400,000 over a three-year period for her project entitled “Nationell forskarskola i klinisk och translationell cancerforskning”.

Department of Women’s and Children’s Health

Cecilia Bartholdson is awarded SEK 3,648,000 over a three-year period for her project entitled “Clinical ethics support services in paediatric oncology – focusing on patient and parent participation”.

Sahar Salehi is awarded SEK 7,296,000 over a six-year period for her project entitled “Bringing the future to the present by means of clinical trials and translation research to define and improve patient selection and treatment in ovarian-, endometrial- and cervical cancer”.

Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society

Poorna Anandavadivelan is awarded SEK 3,774,000 over a three-year period for her project entitled “Personalised exercise oncology for improvement of supportive care: a super umbrella trial to demonstrate the (cost)-effectiveness of live-remote exercise in cancer survivors - PREFERABLE-II”.

Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery

Anna Schandl is awarded SEK 2,607,000 over a three-year period for her project entitled “Prediction and treatment of long-term sequelae after oesophageal cancer surgery”.

Department of Biosciences and Nutrition

Federico Pietrocola is awarded SEK 6,348,000 over a six-year period for his project entitled “Targeting the senescent stromal barrier to limit lung cancer progression”.

Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology

Dina Gamaleldin Mansour Aly is awarded SEK 2,202,000 over a three-year period for her project entitled “Stratification of patients with cancer for personalised medicine”.

Department of Medicine, Huddinge

Christopher Maucourant is awarded SEK 2,202,000 over a three-year period for his project entitled “Deciphering the immune features that are increasing the risks to develop Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) and Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) during chronic liver diseases”.

Department of Medicine, Solna

Jiezhen Mo is awarded SEK 2,202,000 over a three-year period for her project entitled “Understanding of the role of mast cells in Waldenström macroglobulinemia through single-cell multi-omics”.

Department of Laboratory Medicine

Yitian Zhou is awarded SEK 2,202,000 over a three-year period for his project entitled “Precision medicine by personalized dosing of capecitabine and tamoxifen in breast cancer – advanced pharmacogene sequencing, phenotype markers and modeling of patientunique genetic variants”.

Department of Cell and Molecular Biology

Maria Genander is awarded SEK 7,548,000 over a six-year period for her project entitled “Defining esophageal progenitor niches – location as determinant of fate, regeneration and transformation”.