Cell till samhalle 2015 by Karolinska Institutet

From cell to society

2015

KI’S NEW PROFESSORS ON THEIR RESEARCH MEET THE PRIZEWINNERS

From cell to society

2015

Contents FOREWORD Anders Hamsten Vice-Chancellor

PROFESSORS Jir`´í Bártek Professor of Cancer Biology

Karin Broberg Professor of Environmental Medicine specialising in Genetics and Epigenetics

Cynthia Bulik Professor of Epidemiology specialising in Eating Disorders

Christina Dalman Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology

Óscar Fernández-Capetillo Professor of Cancer Therapy

Gert Helgesson Professor of Medical Ethics

Sten Eirik Waelgaard Jacobsen Professor of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine

Bertrand Joseph Professor of Molecular Cancer Biology specialising in Cell Death

Lisa Juntti-Berggren Professor of Experimental Medicine

Olli Kallioniemi Professor of Molecular Precision Medicine

Eva Kosek Professor of Clinical Pain Research specialising in Musculoskeletal Pain

Lars Larsson Professor of Neurophysiology specialising in Muscular Physiology

Janne Lehtiö Professor of Medical Proteomics

Stig Linder Professor of Molecular Cancer Pharmacology

Sten Linnarsson Professor of Molecular System Biology specialising in Transcriptomics

Karin Loré Professor of Vaccination Immunology specialising in Innate Immunity

Lena Nilsson-Wikmar Professor of Physiotherapy specialising in Education

Molly M Stevens Professor of Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine

Patrick Sullivan Professor of Psychiatric Genetics

Carol Tishelman Professor of Innovative Care

Per Tornvall Professor of Cardiology

Per Uhlén Professor of Dynamic Imaging of Intracellular Signalling

Yvonne Wengström Professor of Nursing

Agneta Åkesson Professor of Epidemiology specialising in Nutrition and Toxicology

ADJUNCT PROFESSORS Barbro Dahlén

Solvig Ekblad

Mikael Forsman

Eva Hurt-Camejo

Ralph Knöll

Nina Lundberg

Jonas Mattsson

Ali Mirazimi

Magnus Nord

Ann Nordgren

Lennart Nordström

Claes Norring

Håkan Wallén

VISITING PROFESSORS Lauri Aaltonen

Patrick Cramer

Ann-Charlotte Granholm

Anu Kantele

Terumi Kohwi-Shigematsu

Ilona Koupil

Matti Lehtinen

Hans Morten Lossius

Karl-Johan Malmberg

Anders Persson

Thomas Sakmar

Timo Sorsa

Peter Svensson

FOREIGN ADJUNCT PROFESSORS

PRIZES AND AWARDS The Grand Silver Medal

The Dimitris N. Chorafas Prize

The Eric K Fernström Prize

The Håkan Mogren Prize

The Karolinska Institutet Ethics Prize

Karolinska Institutet’s Pedagogical Prize

The Malin and Lennart Philipson Prize

Lennart Nilsson Award

The Sven and Ebba-Christina Hagberg Prize

The installation ceremony, when Karolinska Institutet celebrates its newly appointed professors, is one of the grandest academic ceremonies of the year. Full of joy, pride and expectations, I – as Vice-Chancellor – would like to congratulate all our new professors as they step into the highest academic office at one of the world’s leading medical universities at a time when huge investments are being pumped into the life sciences and into Karolinska Institutet itself. A great deal will be expected of you. You are key people who, with the solid platform of your professorships under you, will now be taking even greater responsibility for your research fields, for KI’s education programmes and for nurturing upcoming generations of researchers and teachers. Your job will be to help establish new creative environments and to encourage a spirit of originality and devotion in those working under and with you. Moreover, society and research financiers will be expecting your discoveries to produce innovative techniques that can be swiftly put to the service of medicine. Karolinska Institutet has very high ambitions for its research. We aim at scientific breakthroughs that change ideas about normal and morbid life processes and that improve human health. We have the same expectations of excellence on our education programmes too. Here, I expect you to actively contribute your knowledge and to stand up as important exemplars for our students. This twentieth issue of From Cell to Society presents all our new professors, visiting professors, adjunct professors and foreign adjunct professors. It also introduces those who have won prizes for their contributions to the university and to medical research and teaching. Our special jubilee medal, the Grand Silver Medal – established to commemorate our second centenary in 2010 – is awarded for exceptional services to Karolinska Institutet. Many challenges and wonderful new opportunities await our new professors. I wish you all the best of luck and success in your new office. Stockholm, October 2015

Anders Hamsten Vice-Chancellor Karolinska Institutet

Photo: Ylva Sundgren.

Foreword

ADJUNCT PROFESSOR S

PROFESSORS

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He wants to find the vulnerability Jiří Bártek researches the checkpoint systems that monitor cell division in our bodies. These systems are there to ensure that division occurs at the correct pace and to check the quality of DNA replication. Flaws in these controls can lead to cancer and affect ageing and immunity.

The continual division of cells in our bodies is pre-conditional to life; however, the process is a complex and delicate one and subject to serious error. Professor Bártek’s research concerns the different control systems that the cell has at its disposal for avoiding such damage. “One aspect is checking how often the cells divide,” says Professor Jiří Bártek. “If they start to divide at an uncontrolled rate it causes a cancer. Another aspect is checking the genome quality on cell division. When DNA is replicated, it’s important for the copy to be as close as possible to the original. Replication damage to DNA can lead to disease, including cancer. How quickly we age and how well our immune system works is partly the outcome of how well our DNA can avoid replication damage.” Professor Bártek hopes that his research will help science to discover new targets for cancer therapies, and his group has recently published one such proposal. “When we learn more about what distinguishes cancer cells from normal cells, we’ll increase our chances of discovering mechanisms that the cancer cells are particularly dependent on,”

he says. “We’ll then have found a vulnerability in the cancer, and a point of attack for treatment.” Another research line for Professor Bártek is biomarkers as clinical tools in the choice of cancer therapy. “It’s important for cancer patients to be given the right treatment as soon as possible after diagnosis,” he explains. “But there’s often a whole gamut of therapies, some of which are not as good for the patients. Tests able to predict which one will be effective are therefore valuable.”

Jirř í Bártek Professor of Cancer Biology at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics

Jiří Bártek was born in Mähren in the then Czechoslovakia in 1953. He studied medicine at Palacky University in 1979, graduating with his PhD from the Institute of Molecular Genetics at the Czech Academy of Sciences in 1983. He researched at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Oncology in Brno in 1984–1991, and at the Institute of Haematology in Prague in 1991–1992.

Since 1992 Professor Bártek has been researching at the Danish Cancer Society, where he was made head of the Genome Integrity Unit in 2011. From 2005 to 2014 he was director of a Danish centre of excellence. Jiří Bártek was offered a professorship of cancer biology at Karolinska Institutet on 1 April 2015.

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Metals are good models Our sensitivity to harmful substances is determined by our genes. But such substances can also reprogram our DNA, so called epigenetic changes, in response to the environment. Professor Broberg researches these links between heredity and environment.

Karin Broberg Professor of Environmental Medicine specialising in Genetics and Epigenetics at the Institute of Environmental Medicine Karin Broberg was born in Uppsala in 1973 and graduated with a degree in biology from Lund University in 1996. She went on to earn her PhD in experimental clinical genetics in 2001 and continued to research the field of environmental medicine at Lund University until 2013. Broberg became a docent in 2008 and group leader in 2010.

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exhibit genetic variants that enhance their tolerance to the high levels of arsenic in their drinking water. The findings were published in the spring of 2015 and widely disseminated and commented. The group has also shown that early exposure to harmful substances has an epigenetic effect that potentially impacts on health much later in life. “Epigenetics is a relatively new and extremely exciting field. It helps us understand how environmental factors can have such a sudden impact on biology and why there can be such a delay between exposure and an increased risk of disease,” she says.

Photo: Private.

Karin Broberg researches on the links between genetics and harmful substances in our environment in terms of how these substances affect our DNA and how our DNA affects our sensitivity to the substances. “The difference between people who are especially vulnerable to environmental factors and those who are especially tolerant is huge,” says Professor Broberg. “If we’re to be able to judge risks correctly and set suitable threshold limits for different substances, for instance, we have to know more about these differences.” To a large extent, her research has focused on toxic metals and semi-metals such as arsenic, but her aim is to add to general knowledge in the field. “Metals are a good model for understanding how toxic substances affect our DNA. For one thing, they’re relatively easy to track through the body. The metabolism of organic compounds is much more complicated.” Professor Broberg and her colleagues have discovered what is to date the only known genetic adaptation in humans to hazardous environments: the indigenous peoples of northern Argentina

Since 2011 Professor Broberg has also been researching at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at KI, initially one day a week and then full-time from 2013. Karin Broberg was appointed professor of environmental medicine specialising in genetics and epigenetics at Karolinska Institutet on 1 May 2015.

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Understanding the biology is the first step Cynthia Bulik researches eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder. Her aim is to identify the genetic and environmental risk factors, understand the biology of the diseases, and contribute to the development of more efficacious treatments.

Cynthia Bulik has been researching eating disorders since the 1980s, and has spent the past decade focusing on their genetic causes. “We want to learn which genes contribute to the risk of anorexia and how they operate,” she says. “To do this, we are leading large international consortia, including the Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI), with around 26,000 participants. We’re hoping to get the first results at the end of 2016.” Professor Bulik also researches treatments for eating disorders, which she says need improvement, particularly for anorexia. “In my clinical research we have developed a couple-based model in which patients attend therapy with their partners. Partners often desperately want to help, but they don’t know how, and this causes frustration. The couple approach gives the patients and their partners a chance to work together towards recovery. And the results really do look promising.” In the more distant future, Professor Bulik hopes her genetic research will lead to the development of new medications to treat eating disorders.

“All drugs used today in the treatment of anorexia are borrowed from other conditions, and none of them work well for our patients. Understanding the biology of anorexia is the first step towards developing effective drugs that target the root causes of the illness.” One of the main advantages of working at KI that Professor Bulik cites is the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines. “There are also fantastic opportunities to conduct registrybased research in Sweden,” she says.

Cynthia Bulik Professor of Epidemiology specialising in Eating Disorders at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Cynthia Bulik was born in 1960 in Pittsburgh, USA. She graduated with a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988. After postdoc research in Pittsburgh, she conducted research at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand from 1991 to 1996. From 1996 to 2003 she conducted research at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics. In 2003

she became the USA’s first endowed professor of eating disorders, a position she holds at the University of North Carolina, where she founded the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders. Cynthia Bulik was offered a professorship in epidemiology specialising in eating disorders at Karolinska Institutet starting on 1 November 2014.

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Association with many risk factors Schizophrenia and other forms of psychosis cause terrible human suffering at a considerable cost to the health services. Professor Christina Dalman’s work involves identifying the risk factors in order to understand how these conditions develop with a view to improving methods of therapy and prevention.

Christina Dalman researches into the risk factors of serious psychiatric conditions, particularly schizophrenia and autism. “In my thesis, I studied the link between schizophrenia and complications during pregnancy, such as low birth-weight,” she says. “Since then, I’ve gradually been including other factors.” By combining blood samples from pregnant women and neonates with registry data from a wide variety of sources, Professor Dalman has built up over the years a better picture of risk factors for schizophrenia, both biological – such as complications during pregnancy and birth, infections and inflammation in infancy and advanced age of the father – and socioeconomic – such as social vulnerability, trauma (such as a death in the family), migration, urban upbringing and cannabis use. “The next step for us is to understand how these factors operate,” she says, “We’ve started a project with geneticists at John Hopkins, USA, and epigeneticists in Bristol, UK. Some of my team have also started to study the association with other factor types, such as nutrients and hormones.”

Professor Dalman herself will now be extending her research to diagnoses other than schizophrenia. “Conditions such as schizophrenia and autism are obviously related, and when we examine the risk factors for the autism spectrum we see a picture that very much resembles that we’ve seen for schizophrenia. We’ll also be looking at the risk factors of bipolarism.”

Christina Dalman Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at the Department of Public Health Science Christina Dalman was born in Gävle in 1956 and studied medicine at Uppsala University and KI, graduating in 1985 and obtaining her licence to practice in 1990. Since 1997 she has been working at what is now the Centre for Epidemiology and Community Medicine (CES), currently as the director of the mental health unit. She received her PhD in 2001 and became a docent at Karolinska Institutet in 2010.

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As a clinician, Dalman became a consultant in community medicine specialising in psychiatry in 1999. Christina Dalman was appointed professor of psychiatric epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet in combination with the position of senior physician at Stockholm Health Care Services starting on 1 November 2014.

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The cell’s toolbox Damaged DNA plays a vital part in both cancer and ageing. A deeper knowledge of how such damage occurs and how cells try to neutralise it can give rise to new treatments for cancer and to a healthier old age. This is Professor Óscar Fernández-Capetillo’s objective.

Damage to our DNA is responsible for both cancer and ageing. But what causes the damage and what does the body do to neutralise it? This is what Professor Óscar Fernández-Capetillo hopes to find out. “I’ve been concentrating on replicative damage, which is to say the kind of damage that occurs when DNA copies itself during cell division,” he says. The cell has a system, a toolbox for finding and fixing such faults. By studying and manipulating these tools, Professor Fernández-Capetillo has added to the knowledge of replicative damage. His research group in Madrid was the first in the world to empirically show that a higher degree of replicative damage speeds up the ageing process. The group discovered that most of the damage originated in the fetal stage, despite symptoms not showing through until much later. Professor Fernández-Capetillo’s work has also produced a drug candidate for cancer that pharmaceutical company Merck is now continuing to develop.

“Since cancer cells are much more active than other cells, they are also more dependent on tools for avoiding replicative damage. The inhibition of these tools therefore compromises the tumour. To this end we have found a substance that we have proved to be toxic to tumours. Clinical studies are now being prepared.” Meanwhile, Professor Fernández-Capetillo continues to search for other ways to strike at cancer and to research into ageing. “We recently showed that premature ageing in a mouse model can be offset by increasing the cell’s production of nucleotides, which are the building blocks of DNA,” he says.

Óscar Fernández-Capetillo Professor of Cancer Therapy at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics Óscar Fernández-Capetillo was born in 1974 in Bilbao, Spain. He earned his PhD in biochemistry from the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain, in 2001 and did his postdoc research at the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA, between 2001 and 2004. Since 2005, Professor Fernández-Capetillo has been leading a research group at the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) in Madrid, Spain. This he will continue to do on a part-time basis.

In 2014, he was included in the 40-under-40 list from the journal Cell, which selected 40 of the most prominent worldwide scientists under 40 years of age. Óscar Fernández-Capetillo was offered a professorship in cancer therapy at Karolinska Institutet starting on 1 January 2015.

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Ethics becoming more complex Gert Helgesson researches scientific and medical ethics. The issues he interrogates concern everything from how researchers present their data to the difficult decisions doctors must make on life and death.

As a professor of medical ethics, Gert Helgesson researches in a dual field, one part of which concerns research ethics and departures from accepted scientific practice. “One sometimes sees pure fraud, with scientists fabricating data,” says Professor Helgesson. “But in our research and our training of the next generation of researchers, it is the more complex ethical issues that are of interest. How may researchers handle and package their results? What aberrant data can be overlooked in the statistical analysis – and why?” One of Professor Helgesson’s interests is the ethics of scientific publication, such as who is to be included on the list of authors of a scientific paper. “Nothing’s so important for your academic career as the articles you’ve co-written. It can therefore be tempting to fudge the truth about your own contributions.” The other part of Professor Helgesson’s research concerns ethics in medicine, where staff are confronted with difficult decisions about life-sustaining interventions or palliative care, about prioritising limited resources, and about power and influence.

“An important change in recent decades is the shift towards a patient or person-centred approach,” he says. “It’s an agreeable trend, but it brings ethical complications. Does patient influence mean that the healthcare services are abdicating their responsibility? How can we handle a clash of objectives, like autonomy and health? What are the limits of self-determination in psychiatry? We have recently started up a large research programme on these interesting questions.”

Gert Helgesson Professor of Medical Ethics at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics Gert Helgesson was born in 1965 in Borås. After studying philosophy, psychology and sociology, he worked as a journalist from 1991 to 1996. In 1997 he returned to his philosophy studies, earning his PhD from Uppsala University in 2002 with a thesis on the intrinsic values of microeconomic theory.

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In 2002–2007 Gert Helgesson worked at what became Uppsala University’s and KI’s joint Centre for Bioethics. He joined LIME at KI in 2007, becoming docent the following year. Gert Helgesson was appointed professor of medical ethics at Karolinska Institutet on 1 May 2015.

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Normal and abnormal formation of blood cells Sten Eirik Waelgaard Jacobsen researches how bone marrow stem cells produce blood cells. His research involves exploring the mechanisms and regulation of healthy blood formation and the causes of diseases of the blood, such as leukaemia.

Every second, millions of new blood cells are created by the stem cells in our bone marrow. A single stem call can both produce all types of blood cell and replicate itself into new stem cells. Professor Sten Eirik W. Jacobsen researches into this process. “The production of blood cells is regulated by the body’s needs,” he says. “For example, more white blood cells are formed in the presence of an infection. In the past twenty years we’ve learnt a great deal about how this regulation works, but there are still gaps in our knowledge. We know about some of the cells and substances involved, but it’s still unclear how they interact and function.” An important aspect of Jacobsen’s research is understanding what malfunction disrupts the formation of blood so that blood cancer develops. He and his team have the crucial task of identifying the cells that cause leukaemia and the molecular mechanisms that result in the disease. “My hope is that what we learn from our research will eventually give rise to leukaemia treatments that are more effective and less physically intrusive than those currently available,” he says.

“Greater knowledge of the normal blood formation process can also lead to better treatments for patients with defective blood formation.” For the past five years, Professor Jacobsen has been a part-time visiting professor at KI and has helped to establish the new Centre for Haematology and Regenerative Medicine (HERM). As a newly appointed full-time professor, he is also looking forward to setting up collaborations with stem cell researchers in other departments.

Sten Eirik Waelgaard Jacobsen Professor of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge, and the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology Sten Eirik W. Jacobsen was born in Oslo in 1961. He became a licensed doctor in 1989 and earned his PhD from the University of Bergen in 1992. In 2000 he became professor of stem cell biology at Lund University, where he set up a centre of excellence in the life sciences (the Lund Stem Cell Centre). He was director of the centre from 2003 to 2007.

In 2006 Sten Eirik W. Jacobsen was made professor of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the University of Oxford. He was also a guest professor at KI from 2010 to 2014. Sten Eirik W. Jacobsen was offered a professorship in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at Karolinska Institutet on 1 October 2014.

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Mechanisms for life and death are related Bertrand Joseph researches signals at cellular level that determine if cells are to die or not. His work is relevant for many diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, in which cells take the wrong decision in this choice between life and death.

Our bodies have systems for repairing damaged cells so that they survive, and systems for letting cells die. If these mechanisms dysfunction, disease ensues. Professor Joseph’s work involves looking into what happens at a molecular level when cells decide between life and death. “Our research concerns different kinds of cell, including the microglial cells in the brain,” says Professor Joseph. “These cells are very flexible in their function and can both attack unwanted cells and maintain healthy cells. What we’re trying to do is understand why they sometimes make the wrong decision, such as when microglia actively help a cancer tumour to grow; or vice versa, when they attack healthy cells and cause neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.” The more that is learned about these systems, he explains, the clearer it becomes that the mechanisms for survival and death are actually quite related. “Previous, scientists have often taken the presence of certain proteins to mean that they performed some kind of function,”

he says. “Now we see that enzymes linked to apoptosis are also involved in the survival signalling. It’s not the protein that matters, it’s the context.”. Another process associated with cell survival and death is autophagia, which is an important cellular digestion mechanism that allows cells to get rid themselves of defective organelles while recovering energy and building blocks. Autophagia can also lead to cell death, however. Professor Joseph and his colleagues have discovered that the nucleus plays a hitherto unknown and key part in autophagia.

Bertrand Joseph Professor of Molecular Cancer Biology specialising in Cell Death at the Department of Oncology-Pathology Bertrand Joseph was born in 1972 in Haubourdin, France. He studied the fundamentals of cell biology at Lille University, graduating in 1995 and receiving his PhD two years later at the same institution. Professor Joseph did his postdoc research in 1998–2000 at the Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM) at KI, and in 2000–2003 at Stockholm’s Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. He returned to

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the IMM in 2004 and started to assemble his own research group. He became a docent in the same year, and in 2009 moved with his group to the department of oncology-pathology. Bertrand Joseph was appointed professor of molecular cancer biology specialising on cell death at Karolinska Institutet on 1 May 2015.

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Association to be used for prediction Lisa Juntti-Berggren’s research on diabetes, especially apolipoprotein CIII, aims to find new drugs for the prevention and treatment of the disease.

In the early 1990s, Lisa Juntti-Berggren discovered that serum from patients with type 1 diabetes is harmful to insulin-producing beta cells; ten years later, she identified the cause: raised levels of apolipoprotein CIII (apoCIII). This was unexpected, as the protein, although well-known to science, was associated with cardiovascular diseases rather than diabetes. Since then, Professor Juntti-Berggren continued to research the part played by apoCIII in diabetes. “Since diabetes patients have raised levels of apoCIII in their blood, I wanted to see what happens when the concentration of the protein is lowered before the disease breaks out,” she says. “This we have tested in an animal model for type 1 diabetes. By reducing levels of apoCIII when the animals were still healthy we managed to delay the onset of the disease by the equivalent of eight human years. We’ve also found that apoCIII is linked to overweight, insulin sensitivity and the development of type 2 diabetes.”

Professor Juntti-Berggren’s research has produced a general explanation for the association: raised levels of apoCIII affect the cells’ ion channels, which leads to morbidly high calcium concentrations and subsequent cell death. However, the precise mechanisms behind this process remain to be discovered. “Many diabetics develop complications in organs like the kidneys and eyes,” she says. “We can’t predict who will develop complications and we’ll be looking into whether apoCIII can be a predictor. If this is found to be the case, we can use it as a diagnostic tool.”

Lisa Juntti-Berggren Professor of Experimental Medicine at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery Lisa Juntti-Berggren was born in Övertorneå in northern Sweden. She received a BSc in medical science at Umeå University in 1977 and her medical degree at Uppsala University in 1980, subsequently receiving her licence to practise in 1984. She earned a PhD from Uppsala University in 1992 and became docent at KI in 1997. She has also researched at other institutions, such as Boston University Hospital in the USA.

As a clinician, Lisa Juntti-Berggren became a specialist in endocrinology and internal medicine in 1993 and consultant at Karolinska University Hospital’s endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes clinic in 2006. Lisa Juntti-Berggren was appointed professor of experimental medicine at Karolinska Institutet in combination with the position of senior physician at the Karolinska University Hospital starting on 1 January 2015. FROM CELL TO SOCIETY 2015

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To put new knowledge quicker to clinical use Olli Kallioniemi wants to see today’s great life-science advances put to much swifter clinical use. Both as a professor and as the new director of SciLifeLab he is interested in new translational collaborations and the molecular classification of diseases.

Olli Kallioniemi is the new director of SciLifeLab and a recently appointed professor at KI, who in both his research and his capacity as leader of a large research organisation wants to find new forms of collaboration between the worlds of research and healthcare. “We have to put new knowledge to clinical use much more quickly than we do at present,” he says. “That it still takes 15 years to go from discovery to marketable drug just isn’t good enough.” Professor Kallioniemi’s own research concerns optimising the treatment of acute leukaemia, and involves systematically testing a large number of drugs on samples taken from cancer patients. “We have 461 cancer drugs in our collection,” he continues. “We test them all on patient cancer cells in culture. One of the things we’ve discovered is that a certain type of leukaemia relapse can be treated with a drug for kidney cancer. This is by far the quickest way of contributing to clinical benefit – finding new applications for drugs already out on the market.” A key aspect of Kallioniemi’s research is ascertaining the molecular causes of the disease in each individual case. What is

normally regarded as one disease is in fact a heterogeneous group of diseases, which is why doctors cannot always know in advance which patients need which drugs. If each molecular variant is identified, this uncertainty can be eliminated. For practical reasons, Kallioniemi’s current research group is still working at FIMM in Helsinki; he is, however, establishing a new group at KI. “We’ll work as a single group split into two locations,” he says.

Olli Kallioniemi Professor of Molecular Precision Medicine

Olli Kallioniemi was born in Karkku, Finland, in 1960. He earned his medical degree in 1984 and PhD in 1988 at Tampere University. He researched for 11 years in the USA, at UC San Francisco (1990–1992) and the NIH (1995–2002). From 2002 to 2008 he led a research group at VTT Technical Research Centre in Turku, Finland. Kallioniemi founded the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) at Helsinki University in 2007, since when he has been its director. FROM CELL TO SOCIETY 2015

In the summer of 2015 he was appointed director of SciLifeLab in Stockholm and Uppsala, and remains director of research at FIMM on a part-time basis. Olli Kallioniemi was offered a professorship in molecular precision medicine at Karolinska Institutet starting on 1 July 2015.

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Chronic pain causes a negative spiral Chronic pain affects large groups of patients and is very costly in terms of human suffering and medical resources. Eva Kosek researches the causes of chronic pain in the hope that her work will one day lead to new, more efficacious treatments.

Eva Kosek researches chronic pain in muscles and joints, studying diseases such as fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis in order to understand how chronic pain conditions arise and develop. “Chronic pain isn’t the same as prolonged acute pain,” says Professor Kosek. “Gradual changes take place in the body and brain that make chronic pain classifiable as a disease in itself, rather than a symptom. A negative spiral appears in the signal system between the body and the brain that gradually exacerbates the pain by amplifying the signals and degrading the filter the brain uses to dampen them.” Professor Kosek now wants to find out more about the precise causes of these changes. New research shows that the glial cells in the brain are activated by pain, which releases inflammatory substances. Professor Kosek’s group has shown that fibromyalgia patients have elevated levels of these inflammatory substances in their cerebrospinal fluid. To see if there is also a link to activated

glial cells in these patients, the group is progressing to PET scans. Professor Kosek’s research also includes genetic factors of significance to chronic pain and the effects of different types of treatment: drugs, exercise, CBT and surgery. “Drugs for chronic pain have started to appear in the past few years, but for most patients they’re still not enough. This is one reason why it’s important to understand the mechanisms behind the condition, as it will open doors to the development of new, more effective treatments.”

Eva Kosek Professor of Clinical Pain Research specialising in Musculoskeletal Pain at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience Eva Kosek was born in Prague in the then Czechoslovakia in 1960. She graduated in medicine from Uppsala in 1986 and earned her licence to practise in 1989. In 1996 she received her PhD at KI, where she has continued to do her research. She was made a docent in 2004. Professor Kosek also works as a clinician, becoming a specialist in rehabilitation medicine in 1990 and pain relief in 2001. In 2007,

she was made consultant at the Stockholm Spine Center, which also co-finances her professorship. Eva Kosek was appointed professor of clinical pain research specialising in musculoskeletal pain at Karolinska Institutet on 1 May 2015.

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Muscular atrophy common in intensive care Lars Larsson researches muscle cells and how ageing and disease impair muscle function. He is particularly interested in a type of muscle paralysis that affects some patients in intensive care and hopes to understand the underlying mechanisms, improve diagnostics and develop specific treatment methods.

Many intensive care patients on a respirator develop serious muscular atrophy or paralysis of the muscles of the torso and limbs. The condition causes considerable suffering, increases the risk of complication and contributes greatly to the cost of healthcare. Lars Larsson, who researches muscle cells, described the first patient in Sweden with this specific muscle disease 20 years ago, and since then has focused his work on the causes of this muscular atrophy and on improving diagnostics and developing methods of treatment. “An estimated 30 to 60 per cent of patients in intensive care and on a respirator are affected by this muscle disease,” he says, “but unfortunately many still are not diagnosed correctly.” Professor Larsson’s research has highlighted the causes of the atrophy, which is the result of a lack of the motor protein myosin. One of the most important triggers is the total absence of muscular load, activity and other mechanical influence. This condition, which is unique to the intensive care situation, activates processes that cause a critical drop in the muscle cells’ contractile protein.

“Mechanical stimulation of the muscles, by which I mean active physiotherapy, can therefore offset this atrophy,” he explains. Professor Larsson’s research group is now working on evaluating the protective effect on the musculature of different substances and on passing potential therapies on to clinical trials and, hopefully, to routine care.

Lars Larsson Professor of Neurophysiology specialising in Muscular Physiology at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology Lars Larsson was born in Stockholm in 1952 and studied medicine at KI, where he received his PhD in 1978 and his medical degree in 1982. Three years later he became a docent of and specialist in clinical neurophysiology. Between 1997 and 2002, Larsson conducted research in the USA, where he was the Marie Underhill Noll professor at the Noll Physiological Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, the

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Center for Development and Health Genetics and the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Hershey Medical School. Between 2002 and 2014 he was also professor at Uppsala University. Lars Larsson was offered a professorship in neurophysiology specialising in muscular physiology at Karolinska Institutet in combination with the position of senior physician at the Karolinska University Hospital starting on 1 September 2014.

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Biomarkers can guide doctors Janne Lehtiö uses mass spectrometry to study proteomes and their function to understand how proteins change as cancer develops. One of his objectives is to find reliable biomarkers that can help doctors to choose the most effective medication for each patient.

Janne Lehtiö conducts research in proteomics – i. e. studies biological networks of proteins. “Instead of studying a certain protein in detail, we aim to form an overall picture of the proteome, of all the proteins in a cell, tissue *or organism,” he explains. “I often compare it to take landscape images instead of photographing individual trees.” Professor Lehtiö focuses mainly on cancer and is using proteomics methods to understand why, for instance, a certain drug works for some patients but not for others. “Cancer clinics have recently gained access to a new arsenal of target-seeking drugs,” he says, “the efficacy of which varies widely between patients diagnosed with same type of cancer. We’re trying to find biomarkers that can guide doctors in treatment decisions when selecting the most potent combination of targeted cancer drugs for their patients. Our research is also focused on understanding the fundamental principles by which the proteome changes during cancer development.”

As head of the SciLifeLab’s platform for clinical proteomics and mass spectrometry, an additional important focus in Lehtiös research is the development of mass spectrometry based methods – the main tool in proteomics. His group is also active in the new field of proteogenomics, which integrates genomics and proteomics. “It’s exciting to be part of founding a new research field,” he says. “When our group recently discovered 100 previously unknown protein-coding genes in humans, this was how we did it – by combining genomics and proteomics.”

Janne Lehtiö Professor of Medical Proteomics at the Department of Oncology-Pathology Janne Lehtiö was born in Lieto, Finland, in 1970. He graduated with a degree in biochemistry from Helsinki University in 1996 and earned his PhD in biotechnology from KTH, Royal Institute of Technology in 2001. After two years working at biotech research companies in the US and Denmark, he returned to the academia to do postdoctoral research at KI between 2003 and 2004. Janne Lehtiö became head of Karolinska University Hospital’s

facility for clinical proteomics in 2004, and head of SciLifeLab’s platform for clinical proteomics/mass spectrometry in 2010. In 2009 he became docent in proteomics. Janne Lehtiö was appointed professor of medical proteomics at Karolinska Institutet on 1 June 2015.

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Targeting slowly dividing cells Stig Linder’s research aims to develop new cancer drugs. Two of his discoveries are currently undergoing phase 1 tests in the USA. A blood test for tumour cell death that his group has developed is used in the development of drugs and the diagnosis of liver diseases.

Stig Linder Professor of Molecular Cancer Pharmacology at the Department of Oncology-Pathology Stig Linder was born in Ludvika in 1954 and graduated with his PhD from KI in 1982. He did his postdoc research at Yale University, USA, in 1982–1983 and became docent at Uppsala University in 1988. Between 1989 and 2014 professor Linder worked at the Cancer Research Funds of Radiumhemmet. He became an adjunct professor at KI in 1999 and was deputy head of department in 2009–2014. FROM CELL TO SOCIETY 2015

and a limited metabolic plasticity. Our drug candidate kills nongrowing tumour cells by disrupting their energy metabolism.” Professor Linder’s group has teamed up with a biotech company to develop a simple blood test for tumour cell death. The test, called M30 Apoptosense, is used in clinical studies for the development of new drugs and has proved a useful marker of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NASH). The process of obtaining FDA approval for M30 Apoptosense as a marker for liver diseases has commenced.

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Stig Linder has been an adjunct professor at KI since 1999 and works in the area of cancer drug research. Clinical phase 1 trials are currently underway for two of the drug candidates that his group has discovered. “We are working with two different areas of cancer treatment,” he says. “The intended disease area for one of our substances is multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer. The problem with existing drugs of its kind – so called proteasome inhibitors – is that cancer cells gradually develop resistance to them. Our substance works along a different principle and would therefore be a valuable addition to the current therapy arsenal.” The other project is to target slowly proliferating cells in solid tumours, cells that are resistant to conventional cancer drugs. “The therapies used today damage rapidly proliferating cancer cells”, Stig Linder explains. “But there is often a reservoir of cancer cells that do not divide quickly, and conventional drugs can’t touch them. These cells have a poor oxygen and nutrient supply

Since 2014, Stig Linder has been professor of pharmacology at Linköping University. He is also a visiting professor at Tianjin Lung Cancer Institute, China. Stig Linder was appointed professor of molecular cancer pharmacology at Karolinska Institutet on 1 January 2015.

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Single cells have exploded Single cell analysis enables scientists to do what was once thought impossible: study gene activity in an individual cell. Sten Linnarsson uses the technique to identify cell types in the brain and to understand the systems that regulate our cells types in both healthy and cancerous tissue.

The brain’s grey and white matter actually consists of hundreds – perhaps thousands – of cell types. Nobody yet knows, but Professor Linnarsson intends to find out and has devoted much of his research to creating the single cell analysis technique needed to do so. Professor Linnarsson’s research group has been one of the international leaders in the field. “When we started, there were maybe just a couple of groups in the world working on this,” he says. “Since then interest has gradually grown, to completely explode in just this past year.” Single cell analysis allows the researchers to study the genes of an individual cell to understand how it works. Analysing such a small amount of material has never before been possible. In a recently published study in the scientific journal Science, Professor Linnarsson and his colleagues were able to show that only a tiny part of the mouse cerebral cortex contains 47 different types of cell, most of which are specialised neurons of one kind or other.

An important aspect of his research involves understanding the processes that give rise to these cell types under normal circumstances and in cases of cancer. “My own research mainly concerns cell types in the brain, but single cell analysis is relevant to research on all organs,” says Professor Linnarsson. As head of the new national facility for single cell analysis at the SciLifeLab in Solna, Professor Linnarsson helps other researchers use the technique in their own work. He and colleagues from Oxford have also identified exactly which cell type causes the blood disease MDS.

Sten Linnarsson Professor of Molecular System Biology specialising in Transcriptomics at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics Sten Linnarsson was born in Stockholm in 1971. He studied molecular biology at Stockholm University, graduating in 1995. In 2001 he earned his PhD from KI and founded Global Genomics, returning to KI as an assistant professor on a Swedish Research Council grant when the company was sold in 2007.

Sten Linnarsson was appointed platform director of SciLifeLab’s Eukaryotic Single Cell Genomics Facility in 2015. Sten Linnarsson was appointed professor of molecular system biology specialising in transcriptomics at Karolinska Institutet on 1 July 2015.

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To manipulate vaccine respons Karin Loré studies how the immune system responds to vaccination and how protective responses to infectious diseases are established. In particular, she focuses on how immune-stimulating substances – vaccine adjuvants – can induce stronger responses which is important for the development of vaccines to infections like hiv/aids and malaria.

Vaccines for smallpox, polio, diphtheria, measles, rubella and tetanus represent some of the greatest medical advances, with many millions of lives saved. However, details on how the body develops immunity to vaccines are still largely unknown. Karin Loré’s research activities are focused to change this. “Infectious diseases such as hiv/aids, malaria and tuberculosis still claim millions of lives every year,” she says. “It’s clear that we need a much better understanding of the immune mechanisms that dictate vaccine responses to be able to develop such vaccines.” Professor Loré’s research group is particularly interested in different kinds of adjuvants, which are substances added to vaccines to reinforce the immune reaction. A major part of their research is to analyse the efficacy of newly developed adjuvants and how they affect the immune system – something that is still not understood. With better adjuvants, there is not only potential to develop improved vaccines to challenging infections but also prospects of using lower vaccine antigen doses, fewer immunizations and reach sufficient protection in people with weakened

immune systems. One part of Professor Loré’s research focuses on the dendritic cells, which play a critical part in how the immune system responds to vaccination and control the cells that establish the immunological memory. “The dendritic cells direct the work of the immune system,” she explains. “If we can learn more about how they can be manipulated with different adjuvants, we’ll be in a better position to develop effective vaccines.”

Karin Loré Professor of Vaccination Immunology specialising in Innate Immunity at the Department of Medicine, Solna Karin Loré was born in Jönköping in 1972. She graduated with a degree in molecular biology and biochemistry in 1995, earning her PhD in immunology from KI in 2001. She then spent four years as a postdoctoral researcher at the NIH’s Vaccine Research Center in the USA. In 2005 Loré returned to KI to establish her own research group and became docent in 2010. She and her group subsequently spent the years between 2011 and 2014 back at the NIH. FROM CELL TO SOCIETY 2015

Karin Loré was appointed professor of vaccination immunology specialising in innate immunity at Karolinska Institutet on 1 September 2014.

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Implementation is difficult How can the education process improve student learning, and what will it take for the necessary changes to actually advance from management decision to implementation? Lena Nilsson-Wikmar’s research focuses on learning in higher education.

Lena Nilsson-Wikmar’s physiotherapy professorship is centred on education, which means that her research focus will henceforth be on issues relating to how teaching methods can be developed as a means to improving student learning from both a professional and interprofessional perspective. “KI is currently working very hard on modernising its teaching, which is why research is needed in this field too,” she explains. The existing research often points out the advantages of studentcentred learning, and education rooms are currently being erected at KI to help make it happen. But what then? “Implementation is difficult to research, but critical,” says Professor Nilsson-Wikmar. “How are these new possibilities exploited? What is it that ultimately decides whether a teacher enters a room and gives the same old lecture or chooses a more student-centred interactive pedagogical approach? These are the kinds of question that we ask in our research.” Although Professor Nilsson-Wikmar’s research will focus

mainly on the physiotherapy programme, she hopes that her results will be of more general relevance to the whole university. In parallel with this work, Professor Nilsson-Wikmar will also be continuing her research on back pain from a bio-psychosocial perspective and her involvement in two international projects studying people with spinal cord injury using instruments recommended by the International Spinal Cord Society.

Lena Nilsson-Wikmar Professor of Physiotherapy specialising in Education at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society Lena Nilsson-Wikmar was born in Lund in 1952 and took her degree in physiotherapy from Krankengymnastikschule in Freiburg, Germany, in 1976. Since moving to KI in 1981 she has been engaged in the physiotherapy programme, spending ten years as deputy head of department from 1983, and then as deputy divisional manager from 2003 to 2009.

Lena Nilsson-Wikmar earned her PhD in 2003 and became a docent in 2010. She is currently Departmental Educational Coordinator and in 2014 was made chair of KI’s Pedagogical Academy. Lena Nilsson-Wikmar was appointed professor of physiotherapy specialising in education at Karolinska Institutet on 15 June 2015.

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Scaffolds designed to engineer tissues Molly Stevens is the Head of the new Division of Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine at KI. By combining knowledge in material design and biology, her research group generates new technologies for repairing the body.

Molly M Stevens Professor of Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics Molly Stevens was born in the UK in 1974 and grew up in France. She received her PhD from University of Nottingham, UK, in 2001 and conducted her postdoctoral research at MIT, USA, in 2001–2003, where she co-developed innovative techniques for the regeneration of bone and other tissues. Stevens joined Imperial College, UK, in 2004 and was promoted as one of the youngest ever full professors in 2008. Her research

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Another area of interest is how cells interact with material interfaces. This knowledge can be used in directing cell response and in tailoring materials for specific clinical needs. Further, Stevens uses new techniques to study the influence of materials on cells. Her team recently reported that they had found highly crystalline mineralised particles, dense fibres and compact materials within calcified aortic vascular tissues by applying a new variant of electron microscopy. “Such findings may provide important insights into our understanding of the disease aetiology and possible treatments”, Stevens concludes.

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Molly Stevens’ research focuses on designing and developing bioinspired materials for applications in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and biosensing. “I aim to change the way we can use materials-based approaches for regenerative medicine and to improve upon the established technologies to provide better care for patients”, she says. “We are making progress in developing scaffolds designed to engineer bone, cartilage, neural and cardiac tissues.” Stevens’ diverse team of bioengineers, chemists, biologists, materials scientists and surgeons have been able to develop materials for bone regeneration and other materials that can recreate some of the complexity that is found in native biological tissues such as cartilage and heart. Her team is also developing and using nanomaterials-based technologies to deliver specific drugs and signals to the developing tissue.

has been recognised by over 20 major awards, such as the EU40 Prize for best material scientist under the age of 40. Molly Stevens was offered a professorship in biomaterials and regenerative medicine at Karolinska Institutet starting on 1 January 2015.

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We have made giant strides forward Patrick Sullivan is engaged in major international research collaborations to understand the genetics and biology of schizophrenia. He currently divides his time between the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA, and Karolinska Institutet.

“The aim of my research is to one day be able to prevent schizophrenia,” says Professor Sullivan. “If that’s not possible, we’ll find much better treatments for the disease than those available today.” To this end, Professor Sullivan has helped to found large consortia with research groups from around the world. One of them, the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) includes nine psychiatric diagnoses and over 800 researchers in 36 countries. “I like working in large groups, and it’s more efficient for groups to collaborate than to work alone,” he says. “The PGC has made giant strides forward.” Professor Sullivan is now planning a new partnership with European research groups that will cultivate cells with risk genes for schizophrenia. “One of the main problems in psychiatric research has been the absence of living tissue to study,” he explains. “But new tools have become available over the past decade that allow us to create living neurons – brain cells – out of skin cells.”

The aim of the different research tracks is to understand the biological causes of schizophrenia, which are currently very much a mystery. “Once we understand the biology we can expect the development of drugs to pick up; it could even be possible, the biology allowing, to prevent the disease.” Professor Sullivan, who is also a professor at the University of North Carolina, has been a regular visiting researcher at KI since 2001. “The quality of the Swedish medical register makes Sweden the best place in the world for this kind of research,” he says.

Patrick Sullivan Professor of Psychiatric Genetics at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Patrick Sullivan was born in 1959 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. He graduated in medicine from the University of California San Francisco in 1988, and went on to specialise in psychiatry. He researched at the Christchurch School of Medicine from 1994 to 1996, when he was employed as associate professor at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric & Behavioral Genetics, becoming professor in 2002. He was appointed professor at the University

of North Carolina in 2003, a position that he now holds on a parttime (50%) basis. Patrick Sullivan was offered a professorship in psychiatric genetics at Karolinska Institutet starting on 15 October 2014.

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We need to discuss end-of-life Carol Tishelman is an experienced KI professor although she has been recently appointed as Professor of Innovative Care, with a newly established professorial chair funded by an endowment. She is active in research into how people experience sickness and health care – at present focusing particularly on end-of-life care.

In 2006, Carol Tishelman became Professor of Nursing at KI. Her research has primarily concerned the experiences of sickness and care from the perspective of patients, family, and nursing staff, and how care processes can be improved on the basis of this knowledge. She is particularly interested in end-of-life care. In a newly started research programme DöBra (literally meaning Dying Well, but idiomatically meaning “awesome”), Tishelman collaborates with different sectors of society –e.g. interest groups, organisations, museums, theatres – to investigate how the situation for dying people and those close to them can be improved. “Most people say they prefer to die at home, according to a survey we carried out, about 70 per cent. Nevertheless, a very large share of these people die in acute care hospitals. One reason for this may be that we don’t discuss our priorities and values around the end-of-life with those close to us. In DöBra we investigate, for example, ways to initiate such conversations.” Another area that interests Carol Tishelman is the link between staff experiences of their work situation and the quality of the

care. Among other things, she has shown a relationship between a poor working situation for nurses and deficits in patient safety. Her new professorial position, funded with a donation from the Swedish investment company Investor, is located at both the Medical Management Centre, at KI and the Innovation Center at Karolinska University Hospital. “An important element of this new role is to be a ‘match maker’ between stakeholders in health care, research and education, who share an interest in innovation. I have worked to bridge this gulf for several decades,” she says.

Carol Tishelman Professor of Innovative Care at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics Carol Tishelman was born in New York in 1953. Her education in the USA included Women Studies 1970–1973 and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing 1978–1980. Carol Tishelman defended her doctoral thesis at KI in 1993 and has remained at KI since. She became docent in 2000 and was promoted to a full professorship in Nursing in 2006. She has also been affiliated as Professor at LaTrobe University, Australia, and at

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the University of Manchester, England. She is currently a visiting professor at the University of Southampton, England. Carol Tishelman was appointed professor of innovative care at Karolinska Institutet in combination with the position of university nurse at Innovationsplatsen, Karolinska University Hospital starting on 1 October 2014.

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Heart attack with unusual cause Myocardial infarction in people with healthy coronary arteries is far more common than once thought. Much remains unknown about the causes, diagnosis and treatment of these infarctions, but Per Tornvall hopes to put this right.

Myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack, is not always caused by a narrowing of the coronary artery. Professor Tornvall researches on people who have suffered a heart attack despite having healthy coronary arteries, a patient group that has only recently been found to be relatively large, representing around 10 per cent of all infarctions, or 2,000 to 3,000 cases a year in Sweden. “One of the objectives of our research is to develop diagnostics in the field, so that all these patients can be correctly diagnosed,” says Professor Tornvall. “My research group has already shown how diagnostics can be improved using magnetic resonance (MR), and we are now following this up with a study in which we hope to be able to make the correct diagnosis in 70 per cent of cases solely on the basis of MR. A correct diagnosis is important, as different types of infarction require different types of treatment.” The most common cause of myocardial infarction in the presence of a healthy coronary artery is a so-called “broken heart”, or takotsubo as it is known to medicine, where much of the left

ventricle ceases to work and swells up. Professor Tornvall’s group is studying the causes of broken heart syndrome and the risks it entails. “We know that it’s associated with stress, but what the underlying mechanisms look like we’ve yet to find out. We’ve also recently begun a study of its genetic causes in an attempt to discover if there are any differences in stress hormone receptors.” Treatment of this type of infarction is another aspect of the work being done by Professor Tornvall, who is also preparing a national treatment study in the field.

Per Tornvall Professor of Cardiology at the Department of Clinical Research and Education, Södersjukhuset Per Tornvall was born in Stockholm in 1957. He took his medical degree at KI in 1984, becoming a registered doctor two years later. He went on to specialise in internal medicine in 1993 and cardiology in 1995. Alongside his work at cardiology clinics in Stockholm, Per Tornvall has also been researching at KI. He earned his PhD in 1993 and became docent in 1998.

Between 2001 and 2002 he was a visiting research fellow at the Wellcome Trust Center for Human Genetics in Oxford. Since 2014 he is head of the Department of Clinical Research and Education, Södersjukhuset. Per Tornvall was appointed professor of cardiology at Karolinska Institutet in combination with the position of senior physician at Södersjukhuset starting on 1 June 2015.

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The calcium waves in the cell As a doctoral student, Per Uhlén discovered that the calcium concentration in cells can fluctuate at a certain frequency, roughly like a radio signal. He is now trying to understand the meaning of these signals for the healthy and diseased body.

Calcium ions, Ca2+, are important to a wide variety of cellular processes from the moment of fertilisation and onwards throughout life. Sometimes regular fluctuations occur in the level of calcium in the cells, creating a wave motion that oscillates at a constant frequency. Per Uhlén researches such fluctuations and the role they play in development and in cancer. “I discovered the phenomenon as a doctoral student and it fascinated me,” he says. “Since I’m originally a physicist, I knew that it’s possible to use maths to analyse oscillating systems.” His first discovery concerned kidney cells, the calcium level of which starts to fluctuate in twelve-minute cycles when treated with E.coli bacteria. If the same cells are treated instead with digoxin, a different wave pattern emerges of roughly double the frequency. “There’s a lot to indicate that the fluctuations are specific signals for intra- and intercell communication,” says Professor Uhlén. “We’ve shown that the cells can interpret these signals but how they are generated and decoded is something we know very little about.”

Professor Uhlén wants to find out more about the role of these calcium fluctuations both in the healthy and in the diseased body. An interesting area in which these wave motions have been observed is cell division, and Professor Uhlén wants to examine the link between the waves and asymmetric cell division, which is essential to physiological development as well as to tumour growth. “Our plan for the future is to create experiments in which we can artificially control the wave frequencies and analyse how they influence the genes. This would give us valuable information on the function of the signals.”

Per Uhlén Professor of Dynamic Imaging of Intracellular Signalling at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics Per Uhlén was born in Uppsala in 1969 and has an MSc in engineering physics from the Royal Institute of Technology. He graduated with his PhD at KI in 2002. He did his postdoc research between 2003 and 2005 at Yale University, USA, and spent six months as visiting researcher at Marine Biological Lab, Woods Hole, USA. In 2006 Uhlén returned to KI and became docent in 2008. In 2010 he was a visiting professor at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan.

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In 2009 he was awarded the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ five-year research fellow position with support from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), and the following year the Swedish Research Council’s (VR) six-year senior research position. Per Uhlén was appointed professor of dynamic imaging of intracellular signalling at Karolinska Institutet on 1 October 2014.

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Apps for real time communication Yvonne Wengström researches how care can support patients’ symptom burden and well-being during treatment for cancer; this she does in dialogue with the patients themselves.

Cancer treatments often have severe side effects, and Yvonne Wengström’s research investigates how care can improve the well-being of such patients. One consistent theme in her work is patient involvement. “It’s very much about help for self-care,” she explains. “We ask the patients what they feel to be the most serious problems and then together we develop tools to help them.” Professor Wengström’s main focus has been breast cancer, and she is currently studying how different exercise programmes affect this patient group’s quality of life. “We know from previous studies that exercise relieves the discomfort of treatment and reduces the risk of relapse,” she says. “But what kinds of exercise are best? That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Another track that Professor Wengström is following is e-health use in the clinical setting. The research group is conducting randomised studies of patients with different cancer diagnoses and

elderly people receiving home care to examine how an app for tablets and smartphones can be used for real time communication between the patient and the care provider. The tool has been developed in dialogue with users. “In one of the studies, in this case of prostate patients, we’ve obtained a preliminary result – that the group using our tool experiences less symptoms,” she says. “The study also shows that they are very happy with the tool and feel well-taken care of.” Professor Wengström is also looking into the issue of how hospitals change their work processes when e-health apps are implemented.

Yvonne Wengström Professor of Nursing at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society Yvonne Wengström was born in Stockholm in 1959. She is a trained cancer nurse with a degree from KI from 1991. She earned her PhD at KI in 2000 and became a docent in 2008. Wengström has many years’ experiences as a clinician and researcher at Karolinska University Hospital and KI, and has held several senior positions, including divisional manager. From 2008 to 2010 she was professor and deputy director of

R&D at the University of Stirling’s Cancer Care Research Centre in Scotland. From 2010 to 2013 she was a visiting research fellow at the University of Dundee, Scotland. Yvonne Wengström was appointed professor of nursing at Karolinska Institutet in combination with the position of university nurse at the Karolinska University Hospital starting on 1 July 2015.

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To balance risks and benefits Should we avoid fatty fish because it contains PCB – or eat it because it contains omega-3? Agneta Åkesson combines several research fields in order to piece together a picture of how factors such as diet and lifestyle affect our health.

Agneta Åkesson researches how our dietary and lifestyle habits affect our risk of contracting diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and osteoporosis. Her professorship bridges several scientific disciplines – epidemiology, nutrition, toxicology and environmental medicine. “Traditionally, this research has been divided over several fields, which is why we don’t have the whole picture of the effects of different health factors,” says Professor Åkesson. “One significant example is that some of our most important foods, contributing to an array of nutrients, have also become our largest sources of environmental pollutants.” Fatty fish, which contains omega-3 as well as PCB, and whole grain products, which are high in cadmium are examples where she studied such risk-benefit aspects. “In one ongoing research review we are looking at nuts, which on the one hand often contain aflatoxins, but on the other have significant health benefits,” she says. “And we can see that the health benefits are much greater.”

Much of her research is based on large cohorts and biobanks, which allow for prospective studies. The Swedish mammography cohort and the cohort of Swedish men, which together total over 100,000 individuals, are examples of this. The results of her research manifest themselves in the limit values and dietary guidelines issued by the authorities; she was directly involved, for instance, in revising the exposure limit for cadmium, which the European Food Safety Authority lowered considerably in 2009.

Agneta Åkesson Professor of Epidemiology specialising in Nutrition and Toxicology at the Institute of Environmental Medicine Agneta Åkesson was born in Stockholm in 1957. She took her degree in chemistry with nutrition from Stockholm University in 1989, after which she went on to study toxicology and public health science. In 2000, she graduated with a doctorate from the IMM, KI, where she remained to pursue postdoctoral research from 2001 to 2004.

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Between 2005 and 2008 Åkesson was on a research fellowship from the Swedish Research Council. She became a docent in 2007, and in 2013 was awarded a six-year research position. Agneta Åkesson was appointed professor of epidemiology specialising in nutrition and toxicology at Karolinska Institutet on 1 July 2015.

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ADJUNCT PROFESSORS AND VISITING PROFESSORS

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Barbro Dahlén Adjunct Professor of Pulmonary Medicine and Allergology at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge. The position is at 0.3 FTE and funded by Karolinska University Hospital. The appointment is for four years, starting on 15 September 2014. Barbro Dahlén is a senior physician who has conducted research into airway diseases and allergies for over 30 years. The focus of her research is to investigate how certain cells and the substances they release, called mediators, can cause airway inflammation and bronchial obstruction in asthmatic patients. Barbro Dahlén’s research group has developed methods of safely provoking asthma in patients by escalating doses of, for example, birch pollen spray. The cells and their mediators can then be studied by collecting samples of bodily fluids from patients and comparing them to measurements of lung function. There are many different types of asthma, and the aim of Barbro Dahlén’s research is to develop novel diagnostics and to test new treatment strategies for specific types of asthma. She is particularly interested in helping patients with aspirin/NSAID-intolerant asthma, a life threatening asthma that have poor treatment options and is triggered by common painkillers in susceptible patients. Barbro Dahlén loves conducting research since she has always had a curious nature, but her strongest drive is her commitment to improving the lives of those suffering from airway diseases.

Solvig Ekblad Adjunct Professor of Multicultural Health Services Research at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics. The position is at 0.2 FTE and funded by Akademiskt Primärvårdscentrum, Stockholm County Council. The appointment is for two years, starting on 1 February 2015. The prevalence of physical and mental ill health among immigrants is twice that of the Swedishborn population. Solvig Ekblad is a researcher, a teacher and a practicing psychologist, specialising in multicultural health and care research with a focus on mental ill health. She heads a research group that is addressing the health needs of immigrants from several different perspectives. These include “virtual clinical encounters” between doctors and refugee patients, and health promotion interventions to recent refugees. Previous research shows that traumatised refugees need extra support. The optimal starting approach is for the primary caregivers (e.g. physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, midwives and psychologists) to provide culturally tailored clinical information and health literacy sessions to groups of recent refugees. The two-way communication in these sessions empowers the newcomers, thus improving their health and well-being. Solvig Ekblad is working with Karolinska Institutet to increase the skills and knowledge in multicultural health by conducting research projects, setting up educational courses, and supervising students at both undergraduate and advanced levels.

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Mikael Forsman Adjunct Professor of Ergonomics at the Institute of Environmental Medicine. The position is at 0.2 FTE and funded by Centrum för arbets- och miljömedicin, Stockholm County Council. The appointment is for three years, starting on 15 September 2014. Mikael Forsman is passionate about health in the workplace and has chosen to specialise in occupational medicine and ergonomics. His area of expertise is biomechanical loads on muscles and joints, arising from poor work posture, heavy loads and repetitive movements. Mikael Forsman collaborates with physiotherapists, physicians and psychologists to quantify work load, to identify the correlation between load and health, and to develop work health recommendations at both the individual and organisational level. Mikael Forsman works with practitioners to develop smart methods to measure working postures and movements. He practices participatory ergonomics where the workers are involved in the intervention process. He is, for example, helping garbage collectors by identifying their true occupational risk factors – jumping out of the truck may impose a higher risk for the workers than pulling heavy loads. He is also investigating the correlation between working with a high arm position and shoulder disorders. In addition to his many research activities, Mikael Forsman is contributing to the area of occupational medicine by teaching and supervising master‘s and PhD students.

Eva Hurt-Camejo

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Adjunct Professor of Biochemical Cardiovascular Research at the Department of Laboratory Medicine. The position is at 0.2 FTE and funded by AstraZeneca. The appointment is for four years, starting on 1 October 2014.

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Eva Hurt-Camejo is part of an initiative where scientists from the pharmaceutical industry work alongside scientists at Karolinska Institutet. The aim of the collaboration is to translate academic research into treatments that can deliver real benefits to patients in need. Eva Hurt-Camejo is an expert on the involvement of lipids in various diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. She has always enjoyed working in a multidisciplinary environment with everything from basic science to clinical trials. At AstraZeneca, she gained experience in drug discovery – to identify and validate disease targets, with the aim to treat or prevent atherosclerosis. She is also actively involved in a number of medical associations, including the European Atherosclerosis Society and the International Society of Atherosclerosis. At Karolinska Institutet, Eva Hurt-Camejo has joined the team of Professor Paolo Parini, where she can use her experience in drug discovery and pharmaceutical development to complement the team. Her wish is that her extensive experience will contribute to a successful outcome for the collaboration between AstraZeneca and Karolinska Institutet.

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Ralph Knöll Adjunct Professor of Myocardial Genetics at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge. The position is at 0.2 FTE and funded by AstraZeneca. The appointment is for four years, starting on 1 March 2015. Ralph Knöll is a newly appointed professor at the Integrated Cardio Metabolic Centre (ICMC), a joint venture between Karolinska Institutet and AstraZeneca. The aim of the collaboration is to identify and validate novel small molecules that can be used in the treatment of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. The focus of Ralph Knöll’s research group is the genetics and epigenetics of cardiovascular diseases. They use a novel gene-editing technology called CRISPR that allows them to make changes to the genome at very precise locations. By introducing mutations and turning genes on and off in mice, they unravel the molecular mechanisms that cause disease. One of the ultimate aims is to develop innovative, ground-breaking therapies to treat and possibly cure heart failure. Ralph Knöll has always had a curious mind but his major driving force is to help mankind. Sharing his time between academia and industry is an ideal combination since it allows him to translate basic research into clinical science, with the potential to provide real benefits to patients in need.

Nina Lundberg Adjunct Professor of E-Health in Medical Radiology at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology. The appointment is at 0.2 FTE and funded by Stockholm County Council. The appointment is for four years, starting on 1 September 2014. Nina Lundberg is contributing to improved healthcare by pursuing her passion – research in e-health. During the last five years, she has been developing information infrastructure for a range of e-services for the healthcare system. The aim is to make information accessible in a meaningful way to patients, healthcare providers, researchers and authorities, while adhering to relevant policies such as the Patient Data Act. My Care Pathways, for example, allows Swedish citizens to manage their past, present and future health events online. In another initiative, patients can access their medical records and also choose which healthcare providers to share their records with. Nina Lundberg leads many of these initiatives and ensures that they function as an integrated whole, where information can flow freely between systems. To enable this, she has started the Health Innovation Platform, which gives developers and designers access to tools that simplify the development of e-services. Components from different e-services can be shared and reused, with the intention of increasing innovation, improving quality and lowering costs.

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ADJUNCT PROFESSOR S

Jonas Mattsson Adjunct Professor of Cell Therapy at the Department of Oncology-Pathology. The position is at 0.2 FTE and funded by the Karolinska University Hospital. The appointment is for three years starting on 1 May 2015. Jonas Mattsson’s area of research is immunology and cancer, focusing on stem cell transplantation. Patients with leukaemia and other malignant blood disorders often need to have their bone marrow, or immune cells, replaced with stem cells from a healthy donor. Much of Jonas Mattsson’s research deals with improving stem cell transplantation methods in order to avoid and treat severe complications that may occur after transplantation. For example, Jonas Mattsson’s group has developed new ways of treating life-threatening viral infections that may develop after stem cell transplantation, using specific T-cells from a donor or a close relative. This treatment has shown very promising results and a significant number of patients have been cured. Jonas Mattsson is particularly interested in helping people with treatment resistant and recurrent cancers. He is researching targeted immunotherapy treatment, where the patient’s own T-cells are removed from the blood and then reprogrammed to specifically attack cancer cells. This has the potential to cure cancer patients who would not survive on standard chemotherapy alone.

Ali Mirazimi Adjunct Professor of Clinical Virology at the Department of Laboratory Medicine. The position is at 0.2 FTE and funded by the National Veterinary Institute. The appointment is for four years starting on 1 March 2015. The world has recently experienced several outbreaks of deadly viral infections. Ali Mirazimi has spent the last 15 years studying how our immune system fights these deadly viruses. Currently, he is focussing on the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) and Ebola viruses. These viruses cause high fever and headaches, followed by bleeding, organ failure, and death in 5-30 per cent of CCHF and up to 90 per cent of Ebola cases. These viruses primarily interfere with the body’s first line of defence, the innate immune system. Ali Mirazami’s research group has shown that the CCHF virus has mechanisms that help it avoid the antiviral activity of the innate immune system’s primary weapon against viruses – the interferons. They have also developed new model systems that can be used to investigate interactions between viruses and host cells. The primary aim is to find a vaccine against CCHF and novel antivirals against CCHF and Ebola. Ali Mirazami is also actively involved in the development of new diagnostics. Since the targeted viruses are most prevalent in poor countries with limited infrastructure, it is important that the diagnostic tests can be used in the field or in a small clinic.

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ADJUNCT PROFESSOR S

Magnus Nord Adjunct Professor of Experimental Pulmonary Medicine at the Department of Medicine, Solna. The position is at 0.2 FTE and funded by AstraZeneca R&D. The appointment is for four years, starting 1 January 2015. Magnus Nord’s long term goal is to find new treatments for severe diseases that have limited treatment options. His main research area is respiratory medicine, focusing on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD). COPD is characterised by breathing difficulties and is often caused by smoking. It is a leading cause of death worldwide and current treatments can at best slow disease progression. ILD is a rarer lung disease that can be caused by the use of certain cancer therapeutics, thus limiting their use in cancer patients. ILD has a high mortality rate and few treatment options. Magnus Nord is studying signalling mechanisms in inflammatory lung diseases. He is also researching new biomarkers with the aim to establish better ways to diagnose ILD. The association with Karolinska Institutet allows him to conduct academic research that provides the basis for new therapies. This complements his principal work at AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company with the resources and scientific competence to bring new medicines to patients in need.

Ann Nordgren Adjunct Professor of Clinical Genetics at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery. The position is at 0.5 FTE and funded by Karolinska University Hospital. The appointment is for four years starting on 1 July 2015. Ann Nordgren uses her expertise in clinical genetics and experience as a consultant to help people with rare diseases and children with cancer. In her role as project manager at the Centre for Rare Diseases at Karolinska University Hospital, Ann Nordgren established a clinical expert team for syndrome diagnostics in 2012. As a result, more than 50 % of patients receive a diagnosis, and affected families are offered genetic counselling and proper medical care. Ann Nordgren’s second speciality is childhood cancers. The two areas combine perfectly since genes found in rare syndromes are often also involved in cancer. She is particularly interested in factors that predispose children to getting leukaemia. By utilising the increasingly powerful DNA-sequencing technologies, Ann Nordgren’s research group has identified a number of new syndromes and mutations in previously known disorders, including autism, intellectual disability and rare cancer susceptibility syndromes.

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ADJUNCT PROFESSOR S

Lennart Nordström

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Adjunct Professor of Obstetrics at the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health. The position is at 0.2 FTE and funded by Karolinska University Hospital. The appointment is for four years, starting on 1 January 2015. Lennart Nordström’s main research area is intrapartum foetal monitoring. His research group develops diagnostic tools that determine the condition of the foetus in the womb. They have developed a safe and simplified method of detecting a lack of oxygen at the bedside. During labour, foetal heart rate abnormalities are quite common, with only a subset due to a severe lack of oxygen (one to two per cent of deliveries). Oxygen loss leads to an increase in lactate, which can be detected in foetal scalp blood. The methodology was tested in a large randomised multicentre trial and implemented in all Swedish labour wards and in many wards outside Sweden. The diagnostic tools developed by Dr Nordström’s group are vital for selecting the right type of intervention – usually delivery by caesarean section or vacuum extraction. Currently, computer analyses of foetal heart rate traces are being performed in collaboration with KTH Royal Institute of Technology. They are also continuing the development of lactate analysis devices to improve testing for both the obstetrician and the labouring woman. Dr Nordström was crown princess Victoria’s obstetrician during her pregnancy and delivery in 2011/2012.

Claes Norring Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience. The position is at 0.2 FTE and funded by the Stockholm Centre for Eating Disorders. The appointment is for four years starting on 1 March 2015. Eating disorders affect five to ten per cent of young females and up to one per cent of young males and entail great suffering, risk for chronic development, increased mortality, and a substantial cost to society. Claes Norring is a clinical psychologist who has dedicated his career to improving the lives of this group of patients. Dr Norring is registry manager for Riksät, Sweden’s first psychiatric quality register. Today, Riksät comprises data on more than 23,000 eating disorder treatments. He is also developing a national portal (www.psykiatrikompassen.se) that will provide online access to results from all psychiatric quality registers in Sweden. The overall aim of quality registers is to make indicators of health processes and outcomes accessible, comparable, and transparent as a means to improve the quality of clinical care. A central question for Dr Norring has always been how to conceptualise and describe eating disorders in a clinically meaningful and useful way. The aim is to give clinicians the tools they need to best help people with eating disorders. With a clinically meaningful conceptualisation, they can make optimal treatment plans and useful prognostic formulations.

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ADJUNCT PROFESSOR S

Håkan Wallén

Photo: Johan Adelgren.

Adjunct Professor of Cardiology at the Department of Clinical Sciences, Danderyd Hospital. The position is at 0.3 FTE and funded by Danderyd Hospital. The appointment is for four years, starting 1 October 2014.

Håkan Wallén is a senior physician in cardiology. He is passionate about helping people and therefore combines time in the clinic with research into diseases such as heart attack and stroke. Håkan Wallén’s main research area is thrombosis. Thrombosis is when blood clots form in blood vessels, obstructing the blood flow. This can lead to organ damage and cause complications such as heart attacks, stroke, chronic heart failure and chronic foot sores in diabetics. His research group is trying to understand what causes thrombosis and then use this knowledge to develop tests to study disease mechanisms. Some of these tests are simple “blood tests” that can be used to monitor the condition of patients and to guide the physician in determining when the treatment needs to be modified. One of the long term aims for the research group is to develop tools for “personalised medicine”. The ultimate goal would be for each patient to have an individualised treatment plan according to their specific needs. In the clinic, Håkan Wallén identifies clinical problems and knowledge gaps. He then addresses these deficiencies in his research to improve health care and the lives of patients.

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VISITING PROFESSOR S

Lauri Aaltonen

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Visiting Professor of Cancer Genetics at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition. The position is at 0.2 FTE for five years starting on 1 June 2015. Lauri Aaltonen’s principal position is Professor at the University of Helsinki. Lauri Aaltonen is a cancer geneticist who has dedicated his career to unravelling the molecular basis of hereditary and sporadic tumours. Dr Aaltonen’s team has identified a number of colon cancer susceptibility genes. These discoveries have enabled the design and implementation of screening programs for colorectal cancer, significantly reducing cancer related morbidity and mortality in individuals at risk. Uterine myoma is a noncancerous tumour that affects one in four women. It is the most common cause for hysterectomy. Dr Aaltonen was the first to characterize the complete genome of this tumour type and he discovered that not all myomas are identical. The aim is to characterize the different subclasses, since only then can drugs be designed to specifically target and cure the myomas as noninvasively as possible. Dr Aaltonen also investigates unexplained hereditary cancers. When the team has identified the genetic cause for a particular cancer, new screening programs can be designed and implemented to identify individuals at risk. The findings also increase the understanding of the molecular mechanisms that cause cancer in general.

Patrick Cramer

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Visiting Professor of Structure Biology and Systems Biology at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition. The position is at 0.2 FTE for three years starting on 1 January 2015. Patrick Cramer’s principal position is Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen.

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Patrick Cramer’s research focus is gene transcription, one of the fundamental processes in all living cells. During transcription DNA is copied into RNA, which is then used as a template to make proteins. Gene transcription is carried out by nanomachines (RNA polymerases) that move along DNA. Together with a large number of molecules, these machines form the dynamic transcription machinery. Dr Cramer’s research group has mapped the three-dimensional molecular structure of RNA polymerase complexes and established principles of gene regulation in cells. Among other things, the team recently made a movie to visualise transcription. At Karolinska Institutet, Dr Cramer will establish a laboratory that aims to decipher the mechanisms and principles of gene regulation in human cells. The team will use sequencing and computational methods to study how transcription is regulated in cells, and how it is regulated differently in states such as cancer. Patrick Cramer recently became director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, and will strengthen research at Karolinska Institutet with his skills and experience in molecular biology.

VISITING PROFESSOR S

Ann-Charlotte Granholm

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Visiting Professor of Neurosciences at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society. The position is at 0.2 FTE for three years starting on 1 January 2015. Ann-Charlotte Granholm’s principal position is Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina. Ann-Charlotte Granholm is collaborating with scientists all over the world to find solutions to ageing-related medical problems. Her major research interest is ageing disorders of the brain, focusing on Down syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Dr Granholm is currently conducting a multinational exercise study in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet and several other universities. The aim is to determine if mental abilities in older people improve with exercise, mindfulness or cognitive training. The effectiveness of the training is evaluated by cognitive tests for memory, attention and reasoning, and by measuring blood levels of BDNF, a biomarker for brain health. People affected by Down syndrome have a high probability of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Dr Granholm and colleagues are planning a multi-site study, where subjects with variable degrees of Alzheimer type dementia will be compared to subjects without mental impairment. Biomarkers in blood and cerebrospinal fluid will be used to follow the progression of the disease. The long-term goal is to develop diagnostic tests, novel preventive treatments and interventions to help people with Down syndrome.

Anu Kantele

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Visiting Professor of Infectious Medicine specialising in Travel Medicine, at the Department of Medicine, Solna. The position is at 0.2 FTE for three years starting on 1 May 2015. Anu Kantele’s principal position is Adjunct Professor at Helsinki University and Helsinki University Hospital.

Anu Kantele is passionate about research in infectious diseases. She is the only clinical lecturer in adult infectious medicine at Helsinki University, head of the Aava travel clinic in Helsinki, and she has chaired several medical associations in the field. Her studies focus on traveller’s health and tropical diseases, and she has collaborated with Karolinska Institutet for several years, seeking the best vaccination strategies to protect travellers from diseases such as Japanese encephalitis and hepatitis A. Currently, Anu Kantele’s most active research interest is travellers’ diarrhoea and resistant bacteria. She is dedicated to restricting the use of antibiotics and educating travellers on their use, since both overuse and misuse can cause the spread of antibiotic resistance. Recently, her research team found that antibiotic use predisposes travellers to resistant bacteria: up to 80 per cent of those treating diarrhoea with antibiotics returned with resistant strains in their guts. Most of these would not have needed antibiotics since the disease normally remains mild. Over 300 million people travel to high risk areas every year, so the research is addressing a serious problem.

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VISITING PROFESSOR S

Terumi Kohwi-Shigematsu

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Visiting Professor of Cancer Epigenetics at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology. The appointment is at 0.2 FTE for three years starting on 1 March 2015. Terumi Kohwi-Shigematsu’s principal position is Senior Scientist (Professor) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. Terumi Kohwi-Shigematsu has spent over 30 years unravelling the secrets of DNA. For the entire genome to fit into a single cell, the long strings of DNA must be tightly folded and packed into the nucleus. To make specific proteins, the cells must then unfold the genome in a specific way at a subset of genes, and this is the focus of Dr Kohwi-Shigematsu’s research group. Dr Kohwi-Shigematsu is particularly interested in the epigenetics of cancer and is studying a protein called SATB1 that can trigger aggressive breast cancer. SATB1 plays a role in the regulation of certain genes during normal development. However in tumours, once SATB1 becomes expressed, it can cause hundreds of genes to change their expression, promoting tumour growth and metastasis. At Karolinska Institutet, Dr Kohwi-Shigematsu plans to continue her research into SATB1, especially to identify any co-factors that help SATB1 cause havoc, and also to find ways of silencing SATB1 in tumours. The results could potentially lead to novel therapies for the prevention of metastasis and the reversal of tumour growth.

Ilona Koupil Visiting Professor of Social Epidemiology, especially Children and Adolescents, at the Department of Public Health Sciences. The appointment is at 0.5 FTE for three years starting on 1 January 2015. Ilona Koupil’s principal position is Professor at Stockholm University. Ilona Koupil is a paediatrician and epidemiologist, specialising in health equity studies and public health medicine. She is interested in how a person’s health and life path are affected by their social conditions, health and development during early life and she participates in a number of research networks that explore these issues. Ilona Koupil is principal investigator of the Uppsala Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study where over 14,000 people and their descendants have been followed for up to 100 years. This rich material has been used to investigate how health inequalities arise and are perpetuated across generations. The research has the potential to guide future policy interventions and thereby contribute to both improved health and health equity. Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology is another of Ilona Koupil’s research interests and she has been a consultant to many collaborative projects on child health coordinated by WHO and UNICEF. These worldwide initiatives investigate how the physical, social and cognitive development at a young age influences the future well-being of children.

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VISITING PROFESSOR S

Matti Lehtinen

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Visiting Professor of Epidemiology at the Department of Laboratory Medicine. The appointment is at 0.25 FTE for three years, starting on 1 September 2014. Matti Lehtinen’s principal position is Professor at the University of Tampere. Matti Lehtinen’s research focus is on HPV and associated cancers. He was the first to show that HPV type 16 infection increases the risk of developing cervical cancer twelvefold. He has been principal investigator of population-based HPV vaccine trials since the start, and introduced HPV vaccination into Finland’s National Immunization Program. The University of Tampere and Karolinska Institutet have worked together on HPV and cancer research for 25 years, and the collaboration is highly synergistic. The University of Tampere has access to samples and results from vaccination studies, while Karolinska Institutet has facilities for HPV DNA and antibody analyses and expertise in bioinformatics. Matti Lehtinen is currently investigating different vaccination strategies. Today, young girls are vaccinated, but if boys were vaccinated too, there might be a greater herd effect and improved overall protection, approaching eradication. He is also investigating the optimal screening frequency of those vaccinated against HPV. A reduction in testing could potentially save Finland up to 25 million euros annually. The results could have an impact on worldwide vaccination and screening strategies.

Hans Morten Lossius

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Visiting Professor of Prehospital Emergency Care at the Department of Clinical Research and Education, Södersjukhuset. The appointment is at 0.2 FTE for three years, starting on 1 January 2015. Hans Morten Lossius’ principal position is Professor at the University of Stavanger.

Hans Morten Lossius is doing everything in his power to improve the lives of patients from the very moment that they fall ill or have an accident. His research area is prehospital critical care and the focus is on how to best staff, train and equip emergency medical teams. Dr Lossius has extensive experience in the area of emergency and critical care. He is a board certified specialist in anaesthesiology and intensive care, has worked as a physician on air ambulances throughout Norway and is a professor of pre-hospital critical care at the University of Stavanger. When he started his career as a medical director on air ambulances, he realised that there was a severe lack of medical skills and resources in the pre-hospital setting, and that the patients too often had to wait until they got to hospital before receiving proper treatment. Dr Lossius has worked relentlessly to get the right competence, training and equipment onto air ambulances, and to optimize the utilization of this resource. He has been head of research and development of the Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation, while it developed into Europe’s largest research organisation of pre-hospital emergency and critical care. He is now Secretary-General of the Foundation.

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VISITING PROFESSOR S

Karl-Johan Malmberg Visiting Professor of Cellular Imumune Therapy at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge. The appointment is at 0.25 FTE for three years starting on 1 June 2015. Karl-Johan Malmberg’s principal position is Professor at the University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital. Karl-Johan Malmberg’s research focus is on the development of new cell therapies against cancer. The cancer therapies are based on insights into the function and regulation of natural killer (NK) cells. These cells are part of the nonspecific immune system and mount a rapid, destructive response against viruses and tumours. NK cells are controlled by a number of receptors that can either activate or inhibit their actions. Dr Malmberg’s research group has established new principles for the expression of these receptors and their impact on NK cell function. At Karolinska Institutet, Dr Malmberg´s group aims to design the next generation NK cell therapy against cancer. Immune cells will be taken from healthy donors and specific subsets of NK cells will be selected and modified in order to cure cancer in patients who do not respond to currently available therapies. Cancer immunotherapy is a rapidly developing field with remarkable clinical success in recent years. Karl-Johan Malmberg is the co-director of the Department of Cancer Immunology and his affiliation to KI will foster a new Nordic initiative in the area of cell-based cancer immunotherapy.

Anders Persson Visiting Professor of Medical Radiology at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology. The appointment is at 0.2 FTE for three years starting on 1 September 2014. Anders Persson’s principal position is Professor at Linköping University. Anders Persson specialises in medical radiology, a discipline that uses a variety of imaging techniques to diagnose and treat disease. He is one of the founders of the Centre for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV) at Linköping University, where he is actively working towards having academic institutions, industry and the health sector collaborate in the areas of health and technology. Anders Persson uses a combination of imaging techniques such as MRI and CT scan to produce detailed, data-rich 3D images of bodily structures and functions. This is useful in a number of medical applications, but also in forensic investigations, since the method allows for non-destructive “virtual autopsies”. For this work, Anders Persson was awarded the prestigious Lennart Nilsson Award for scientific photography in 2008. The current focus of Ander Persson’s research is to improve the lives of patients. The aim of one of his projects is to improve the diagnostics of coronary heart disease by using CT scan instead of more invasive methods. He is also working to reduce the amount of radiation patients get exposed to from various medical imaging technologies.

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VISITING PROFESSOR S

Thomas Sakmar Visiting Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society. The position is at 0.2 FTE for three years, starting on 1 July 2014. Thomas Sakmar’s principal position is Professor at the Rockefeller University. Thomas Sakmar‘s main research area is signal transduction. He studies receptors on the cell surface in order to understand how cells communicate, how organisms sense their environment and because cell receptors are important targets of therapeutic drugs. For example, by investigating rhodopsin, a receptor in the eye, Thomas Sakmar and his team at the Rockefeller University contributed to the understanding of how colour vision works. Furthermore, the team’s innovative approaches are being used in drug discovery. Their research on how HIV gains entry into cells has led to a novel class of pharmaceuticals called HIV-entry blockers. In the Center for Alzheimer Research at Karolinska Institutet, Thomas Sakmar is turning his research focus to misfolded proteins called amyloid. When amyloid accumulates, it can cause a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Thomas Sakmar will apply a new technology to engineer biological agents to detect the forms of amyloid that are most toxic to cells and tissues. The aim is to create new biological tools to allow early detection of disease biomarkers and to treat human diseases related to ageing.

Timo Sorsa

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Visiting Professor of Periodontics at the Department of Dental Medicine. The appointment is at 0.2 FTE for three years starting on 1 October 2014. Timo Sorsa’s principal position is Professor at Helsinki University.

Timo Sorsa is a clinical specialist in periodontics and dental medicine. His research interests extend beyond dentistry since there is a strong link between oral inflammation (periodontitis) and systemic inflammatory diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. In collaboration with Karolinska Institutet, Timo Sorsa will continue with his main research interest – to understand the mechanisms underlying oral diseases and related inflammatory diseases. He is particularly interested in a group of enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and their regulation. They play an essential role in normal development but can be destructive during inflammation since they break down tissue. The research has resulted in many patented diagnostic tests. One of these, PerioSafe, detects the presence of MMP-8 in oral fluids. Patients can quickly use this point-of-care test to determine if they have periodontitis. Timo Sorsa has received a number of prizes for his work in periodontology, including the Jens Waerhaug prize in 2010 and the Bensow prize in 2012. He has supervised 35 PhD students, published over 470 peer-reviewed papers and is listed inventor on 12 patents.

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VISITING PROFESSOR S

Peter Svensson

Photo: Jesper Rais.

Visiting Professor of Clinical Oral Physiology at the Department of Dental Medicine. The position is at 0.25 FTE for three years starting on 1 September 2014. Peter Svensson’s principal position is Professor at Aarhus University.

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Peter Svensson’s main research interests are orofacial pain and jaw function. Even though up to 10% of the population suffers from facial pain and malfunction of the jaw, there is poor understanding of the mechanisms underlying these problems. Peter Svensson’s research group has studied jaw pain using experimental models to determine, for example, how pain spreads over large areas of the face, and how sensory function and the chewing action changes when you are in pain. Recently, the group also observed that the brain controls the jaw muscles differently when the muscles are in pain. An important aspect of Peter Svensson’s research has been the development and standardization of methods to examine facial sensory function and how these methods can be used as a tool to better classify and understand pain. At Karolinska Institutet, Peter Svensson will study how different types of sensory stimuli shape and influence the expression of pain in humans. He will also do further studies on brain regulation of jaw function and examine how food is processed from intake to swallowing. The ultimate goal of the research is to improve efficiency in the treatment and management of facial pain.

VISITING PROFESSOR S

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VISITING PROFESSOR S

FOREIGN ADJUNCT PROFESSORS

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VISITING PROFESSOR FOREIGN ADJUNCT PROFESSOR S S

In order to strengthen its international network of contacts, Karolinska Institutet is appointing well-reputed colleagues from abroad as foreign adjunct professors. Their association with Karolinska Institutet must be one of long-standing international collaboration or scientific exchange. A foreign adjunct professor must hold a position or an appointment corresponding to “full professor” at their home university or elsewhere, and be an internationally leading researcher in his or her field. The term of office normally lasts six years and can be extended upon review. The appointment does not entail any financial undertakings.

Pak Chung Ho

Foreign Adjunct Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology Home University University of Hong Kong, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hong Kong Department at KI Department of Women’s and Children’s Health

Guido Kroemer

Soumaya Raychadhuri

Foreign Adjunct Professor of Molecular Medicine Home University Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA Department at KI Department of Medicine, Solna

Steven Rosenberg

Foreign Adjunct Professor of Cell Therapy

Foreign Adjunct Professor of Paediatric Oncology

Home University NIH, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA

Home University Université Paris Descartes, Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, Paris, France

Department at KI Department of Laboratory Medicine

Department at KI Department of Women’s and Children’s Health

Ulf Skoglund

Foreign Adjunct Professor of Structural Cell Biology

Christoph Lange

Foreign Adjunct Professor of Infectious Diseases Home University Research Center Borstel – Leibniz Center for Medicine and Biosciences, Borstel, Germany

Home University Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Structural Cellular Biology Unit, Okinawa, Japan Department at KI Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology

Department at KI Department of Medicine, Solna

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VISITING PROFESSOR S

PRIZES AND AWARDS

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PRIZES AND AWARDS

The Grand Silver Medal The Grand Silver Medal 2015 from Karolinska Institutet is awarded to Gunnel Biberfeld, Britta Wahren and SGO Johansson in special recognition of the outstanding contributions they have made to medical research and Karolinska Institutet.

Photo: John Sennett.

Gunnel Biberfeld, professor emerita of infectious disease

control, especially clinical immunology, is awarded the Grand Silver Medal for her outstanding contribution to research and doctoral education in the area of HIV at Karolinska Institutet. She is one of the pioneers in HIV research, at KI and globally. At a very early stage, she realised the urgent need for research on HIV, and since the beginning of the HIV pandemic she has remained active in this area of research. She has fostered a generation of young HIV researchers at Karolinska Institutet, of which many are now leaders in the field. Gunnel Biberfeld’s research into HIV focuses on a global perspective, especially considering her clinical vaccine studies in Tanzania. The research collaboration with Tanzania also includes a comprehensive doctoral program. In addition, Gunnel Biberfeld’s studies on the prevention of HIV transmission from mother to child in Dar es Salaam, shows the importance of using antiretroviral therapy during both pregnancy and the postnatal period. The results of these studies have formed the basis for Tanzania’s national guidelines for the prevention of HIV transmission from mother to child, and they have also contributed to WHO’s recommendations in the area.

S Gunnar O Johansson, professor emeritus of clinical

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immunology, especially allergology, is awarded the Grand Silver Medal for his outstanding contribution to the area of allergy research. He identified, in 1967, together with Hans Bennich, a new class of immunoglobulins, IgE, and showed that these are associated with allergic responses. He has established and grown the research area of allergy at Karolinska Institutet, and his successful research has contributed to making Karolinska Institutet into a world leader in the area. SGO Johansson’s groundbreaking discovery of IgE and the development of allergy tests have improved the health and quality of life for a large proportion of the worldwide population.

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PRIZES AND AWARDS

control, especially clinical virology, is awarded the Grand Silver Medal for her outstanding contribution to research and doctoral education in the area of HIV and cancer research at Karolinska Institutet. Britta Wahren is one of the pioneers in HIV research and particularly in designing HIV vaccines, at KI and globally. At a very early stage, she realised the urgent need for research on immune responses and protection against HIV. She has fostered a generation of young researchers at Karolinska Institutet, of which many are now leaders in the field. Britta Wahren was the first person in the world to show that a genetic vaccine that expresses early genes/antigens of HIV could induce new cell mediated responses to HIV in already infected individuals. These finding were taken forward to perform experimental and clinical HIV vaccine studies against the many types of HIV that prevail in the world. She designed novel genetic HIV vaccines that induce cell-mediated and humoral immunity of prolonged nature in healthy individuals. Together with the National Institutes of Health and the US Army, a new prime-boost vaccine schedule has been proposed for prophylactic vaccination against HIV. Britta WahrenÂ´s focus has been on translational research, from molecular studies of HIV, tumour viral immunogens and immune responses to the development of novel vaccine prototypes to HIV.

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Photo: Fredrik Persson.

Britta Wahren, professor emerita of infectious disease

PRIZES AND AWARDS

Photo: Gunilla Sonnebring.

The Dimitris N. Chorafas Prize is awarded to Miriam Elfström

ABOUT THE PRIZE The Dimitris N. Chorafas Foundation was founded in 1992 and since 1996 the Foundation has a collaboration with 23 partner universities, including Karolinska Institutet. The subject area ‘medical science’ focuses on new PhD holders or doctoral students who are in the final phase of their doctoral work. The candidates should not be above 30 years of age during their public defence.

Miriam Elfström, previously a doctoral student at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, has received the Dimitris N. Chorafas Prize for 2015 for her dissertation Optimizing cervical cancer prevention through screening and HPV vaccination. In her thesis she describes, among other things, the long term efficacy of different screening strategies and the long term risks associated with HPV infection, the quality of different screening programmes and their organization, as well as the efficacy of different vaccination strategies. The aim of the research is to maximize the benefit of prevention initiatives in Sweden and Europe. As a doctoral student Miriam Elfström was the first author of an article in the British Medical Journal and co-author of an article in the Lancet. After her doctoral studies, Miriam Elfström is working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Karolinska Institutet and process leader for cancer prevention at the Regional Cancer Centre Stockholm-Gotland region.

The Eric K Fernström Prize is awarded to Sten Linnarsson Sten Linnarsson, professor at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics has been awarded the Eric K Fernström Prize for 2015. He is receiving the prize for establishing himself as an internationally leading researcher within the area single cell analysis, where he contributed with both publicized work focusing on methods and with studies where this technology has been used for investigations which have resulted in breakthrough biological findings. ABOUT THE PRIZE The Eric K. Fernström Foundation was established in 1978 and annually awards a Nordic prize and six prizes to young and particularly promising researchers who have made outstanding contributions to medical science. Each medical faculty of the country elects its prize-winner.

Sten Linnarsson was the first to sequence RNA from individual somatic cells and he also introduced so-called ‘molecular barcodes’ which allow observation of each RNA molecule in individual cells. Work within neurobiology and cancer research is particularly highlighted among Linnarsson’s biological studies. Sten Linnarsson and his group recently published an article in the scientific journal Science, where they used single cell analysis to make a detailed map of cell types in the cerebral cortex and which genes are active in the different cells. It is the first time the analysis method was used on a large scale in such a complex tissue. Researchers investigated approximately three thousand cells – one at a time – and could, among other things, identify a number of completely unknown types of cells.

FROM CELL TO SOCIETY 2015

PRIZES AND AWARDS

The Håkan Mogren Prize is awarded to Elisabet Lidbrink Elisabet Lidbrink, oncology consultant at Karolinska University Hospital, is awarded the prize for her strong commitment to women with breast cancer, and for her support of younger colleagues. She sets an example with her humane patient approach. Elisabet Lidbrink has 30 years’ experience as an oncologist. During this time, she has been relentless in her efforts to ensure that women with breast cancer receive the best care and treatment possible, and that they are treated with dignity and empathy. The doctor-patient relationship is an important part of the caring process. Elisabet Lidbrink often receives the most difficult cases, those whose treatments have failed and whose cancer has spread to other organs. In the midst of sadness and despair, Elisabet Lidbrink manages to find hope and to share it with her patients. Her commitment is that every patient will receive the best care and treatment available and that when all options are exhausted, the patient’s remaining days will be as healthy as possible.

ABOUT THE PRIZE The Håkan Mogren Foundation was established in 2012. Its dual purpose is to promote education and research within the medical field and to promote the education and training of classical musicians, particularly singers. Within the medical field, the purpose of the prize is as follows: to provide the opportunity for well-qualified, scientifically competent and clinically active physicians to improve themselves professionally, or to carry out research in a particular field of interest to them.

The Karolinska Institutet Ethics Prize is awarded to Lena Marions

Photo: Private.

Lena Marions, lecturer and associate professor at the Department of Clinical Research and Education, Södersjukhuset, and course director for medical students in semester 10 on the course in reproduction and development.

ABOUT THE PRIZE The Ethics Prize is awarded annually to a person or group active at Karolinska Institutet that has made a special effort to promote medical ethics at the university. The purpose of the prize is to enhance ethical awareness and draw attention to praiseworthy examples of ethics amongst staff and researchers at KI.

FROM CELL TO SOCIETY 2015

Lena Marions is awarded the prize because she integrates the subject of medical ethics in teaching in a clinical setting in an exemplary manner. This applies particularly to the integration of the subject of medical ethics in subjects such as prenatal diagnosis and clinical genetics, but also in gynaecology as such. The integrated education functions as a model for how education in medical ethics can be carried out. Lena Marions has also demonstrated moral courage in connection with the prescription of contraception and has defended young women’s rights in this context without the involvement of other actors.

PRIZES AND AWARDS

Karolinska Institutet’s Pedagogical Prize is awarded to Rune Brautaset

Photo: Private.

Rune Brautaset is docent, programme director for the study programme in optometry and head of the optometry unit at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience.

ABOUT THE PRIZE The prize is awarded annually to individual teachers, teacher teams or administrative personnel who have conducted good pedagogical initiatives comprising of pedagogical development or renewal work within KI’s programmes at first cycle, second cycle as well as postgraduate studies. The prize-winners are chosen by the Board of Higher Education following suggestions from a special prize committee.

He has worked at KI since 2000 and during this period has developed optometry as a research subject. As programme director Rune Brautaset has managed the work on developing and implementing more clinically-oriented education which started in 2007. As a part of this work, a laboratory for clinical education was established. The laboratory has resulted in more efficient education and a greater number of clinical education components. As programme director he has also developed teaching materials, new online types of instruction, methods for integrating the gender and diversity perspective as well as sustainable development in the education. Furthermore, Rune Brautaset has also successfully worked with quality and research links of education by developing a Master programme in clinical optometry which was set up in 2008. He has also created a doctoral studies model which has resulted in that a large share of KI’s optometric teaching staff has been given the opportunity to pursue doctoral studies. This has led to research-linked optometric education at the highest European level.

Photo: Private.

The Malin and Lennart Philipson Prize is awarded to Erik Norberg

ABOUT THE PRIZE The Malin and Lennart Philipson Foundation awards a prize and grant for molecular biomedical research with the aim to help young, promising scientists to establish an independent research group after their postdoc training. Apart from the researcher’s scientific merits, the award also re-cognises the ability as a leader to establish a strong research group.

Erik Norberg, assistant professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine, is awarded the prize for his interesting and creative studies of alternations in the metabolism in cancer cells. The results may open new possibilities for cancer diagnostics as well as for future treatment of cancer. During his postdoctoral work, Erik Norberg’s research had a central focus on Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphomas (DLBCLs), which are aggressive tumours with both genetic and clinical variability. He could demonstrate that this tumour type, consist of multiple metabolic subgroups, that rely on distinct survival signaling. In particular, metabolic subsets where certain subtypes is dependent on fatty acid oxidation, a powerful antioxidant capacity and increased mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, other DLBCL subsets is more dependent on glucose catabolism for energy production and generate more lactate. These breakthrough findings indicate that unique metabolic programs are activated in specific subsets of DLBCLs that confers growth and survival signaling. The study highlights the metabolic heterogeneity that can exist even within a single tumour type that initially shares the same diagnosis.

FROM CELL TO SOCIETY 2015

PRIZES AND AWARDS

Photo: Waja Wegner.

Lennart Nilsson Award is awarded to Katrin Willig

ABOUT THE PRIZE The Lennart Nilsson Award is the world’s top accolade in scientific and medical photography. The award was inaugurated in 1998 in honour of Swedish medical photographer Lennart Nilsson, who achieved worldwide recognition for his images. The prize is awarded each year to individuals who make an outstanding contribution to scientific photography “in the spirit of Lennart Nilsson”.

Dr. Katrin Willig, junior research group leader at the Center for Nanoscale Microscopy and Molecular Physiology of the Brain (CNMPB) with affiliation at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen, Germany, is the recipient of the Lennart Nilsson Award for her groundbreaking contribution to the superresolution microscopy of living cells. In her research she uses technology for studying cell structures at nanoscale to understand how our brains work. Fluorescent light microscopy was long inhibited by the limited resolution caused by the light’s wavelength. The technology was revolutionised twenty years ago with the development of Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED), which enabled researchers to study living cells in tiniest molecular detail. The method involves using a laser beam to illuminate fluorescent molecules while a second customised laser beam deactivates parts of the fluorescence, leaving only a nano-sized area at the focal point that emits a signal. STED is one of the technologies collectively known as super-resolution microscopy. In 2014 Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. This year’s recipient of the Lennart Nilsson Award, Katrin Willig, pioneered the use of fluorescent proteins for the nanoscale imaging of living cells. She has developed STED microscopy for imaging tissue inside living organs, known as deep tissue imaging, and her special area of interest is the processes in the contact points between the nerve cells that are known as the synapses. She has demonstrated the strength of these technologies by in vivo-imaging inside a living mouse brain the tiny protrusions (dendritic spines) on the nerve cell dendrites found in the synapses, which are believed to be the basis of memory in the brain. Katrin Willig studied Physics at Würzburg University before joining Stefan W. Hell’s research team at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. She graduated with a PhD in 2006 with a thesis on STED microscopy. Since 2014 she has been leading her own research team at the Göttingen Cluster of Excellence and DFG Research Center for Nanoscale Microscopy and Molecular Physiology of the Brain (CNMPB) at the Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine in Göttingen. The actin cytoskeleton of a neuron is highlighted with a fluorescent protein and imaged with superresolution STED microscopy in the visual cortex of a living mouse.

FROM CELL TO SOCIETY 2015

PRIZES AND AWARDS

Photo: Private.

The Sven and Ebba-Christina Hagberg Prize is awarded to Robert M책nsson and Emma Andersson The Sven and Ebba-Christina Hagberg prize in medicine is awarded to Robert M책nsson, assistant professor at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, and Emma Andersson, senior researcher at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition. Robert M책nsson is awarded the prize for his work concerning early haematopoiesis and

three-dimensional genomic architecture, and the relationship between this higher order genomic organization of genes and transcriptional regulation. He is particularly interested in genes that are involved in the development of blood cells. The overall aim of his work is to gain a greater understanding of normal blood cell development why some genetic mutations cause blood cancers.

Photo: Linda Lindell.

Emma Andersson is awarded the prize for her work concerning how the Wnt and Notch

signalling pathways control differentiation and morphogenesis during embryonic development. It is important to gain an understanding of these signalling pathways, since a range of diseases can arise when they do not function properly during development. Dr Andersson is doing important research into Alagille syndrome, a genetic disorder that arises in early childhood and affects the liver, heart and kidney.

ABOUT THE PRIZE The purpose of the Sven and EbbaChristina Hagberg Foundation is to stimulate and foster scientific research within the medical and biochemical fields respectively. The Sven and Ebba-Christina Hagberg Prize awards a personal prize and research funding to especially outstanding junior researchers at Karolinska Institutet.

FROM CELL TO SOCIETY 2015

PRIZES AND AWARDS

From cell to society

2015

Text Professors: Anders Nilsson (Translations: Neil Betteridge) | Text Adjunct and Visiting Professors: Jenny Tollet Editor: Jenny Hermansson, Communications and Public Relations Office Portraits (unless otherwise stated): Bildmakarna | Cover photos: Erik Cronberg Design: Sofia Lindberg, Communications and Public Relations Office Print: E-print 2015 | ISBN: 978-91-85681-74-7

FROM CELL TO SOCIETY 2015

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