Does dirt not protect against allergies after all?

New study raises doubts about hygiene hypothesis

12-Oct-2023 - Does playing in dirt really make children healthier and protect against allergies? The new study conducted by a team of researchers at FAU and the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm has now raised doubts about this assumption. The researchers have published their findings in the research magazine ...

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman receive Nobel Prize for discoveries in the fight against corona

04-Oct-2023 - The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has decided to award the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. The ...

Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators 2023 goes to Maurice Michel, Sweden

„These ground-breaking discoveries may have far-reaching applications in the treatment of cancer or age-related degeneration“

27-Jun-2023 - This year, the Hamburg based life sciences company Eppendorf SE is awarding its research prize for the 28th time. The independent jury chaired by Prof. Reinhard Jahn selected Dr. Maurice Michel, Science for Life Laboratory, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden as the winner of the Eppendorf ...

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2022 goes to Svante Pääbo: What makes us uniquely human?

Nobel Prize for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution

03-Oct-2022 - Humanity has always been intrigued by its origins. Where do we come from, and how are we related to those who came before us? What makes us,Homo sapiens, different from other hominins? Through his pioneering research, SvantePääboaccomplished something seemingly impossible: sequencing the ...

Diabetes and cardiovascular disease increase dementia risk

More than one cardiometabolic disease doubles the risk

21-Jun-2022 - People with at least two of the diseases type 2 diabetes, heart disease or stroke have double the risk of developing dementia. Prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular disease could therefore be a strategy for reducing dementia risk, a study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the ...

Air pollution linked to higher risk of COVID-19 in young adults

22-Apr-2022 - Residential exposure to ambient air pollutants is linked to an elevated risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, an observational study of young adults in Stockholm, Sweden shows. The study was conducted by researchers from Karolinska Institutet and is published in JAMA Network Open. Since pollutants in ...

Alpaca nanobodies potently neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants

“These nanobodies represent promising therapeutic candidates against several SARS-CoV-2 variants”

30-Mar-2022 - Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have developed a novel strategy for identifying potent miniature antibodies, so-called nanobodies, against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. The approach led to the discovery of multiple nanobodies that in cell cultures and mice effectively blocked ...

New tool reveals function of enigmatic gene sequences

Study may eventually contribute to the development of new, targeted drugs

09-Mar-2022 - While the large proportion of our genome that does not instruct our cells to form proteins has been harder to study than protein-coding genes, it has been shown to have vital physiological functions. Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now developed new high-precision tools able to ...

COVID-19 genetic risk variant protects against HIV

A COVID-19 risk variant inherited from Neandertals reduces a person’s risk of contracting HIV by 27 percent

22-Feb-2022 - The genetic variants we are born with can increase or decrease our risk of falling seriously ill with COVID-19. The major genetic risk variant for severe COVID-19, one we inherited from Neandertals, is surprisingly common. This raises the question whether it may actually be of advantage to carry ...

Scientists dive deep into the different effects of morning and evening exercise

Using exercise to fix a faulty body clock

18-Jan-2022 - Exercise causes the body to release hundreds of different signals that improve our health in many different ways. Now scientists have mapped these intrinsic signals and how they are released by different organs in mice following exercise at different times of the day. Their ‘Atlas of Exercise ...