Department of Cell and Molecular Biology
The Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Karolinska Institutet is a nationally leading academic research center of high international standard where science comes first and foremost. CMB researchers publish regularly in the best international science journals, a result of a long-term in-house culture that promotes real impact and key breakthroughs.
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CMB News
Harnessing the power of healthy cells to suppress skin cancer formation
A team of researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Yale School of Medicine wanted to know what happens to mosaic skin upon injury. Do simple wounds or surgery enhance the skin cancer risk by expanding mutated cells even more as generally believed? The surprising answer is no, according to newly published study in Nature.
Rickard Sandberg is a molecular codebreaker
Which genes are expressed in a particular cell at a given time affects which proteins are present in it. This in turn influences the character of the cell. Understanding more about what controls gene expression in a cell has been the focus of Professor Rickard Sandberg's research.
Progenitor cells offer great hope for heart failure patients.
The 5D Heart Patch Project, led by Prof Kenneth Chien, has identified human ventricular progenitor (HVP) cells that can create self-assembling heart grafts in vivo. The research has the potential to offer hope to millions of people suffering from heart failure.
An ERC Advanced Grant supported the 5D-Heart Patch program with the ambitious goal of unlocking the therapeutic potential of generating billions of human heart precursors or “progenitors” from human embryonic stem cells by forming muscle graft patches in the intact heart. The program has reached its initial goals and is now completed.
Nature-study reveals new mechanism for DNA folding
A hitherto unknown mechanism for DNA folding is described in a study in Nature published by researchers from Karolinska Institutet and the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics. Their findings provide new insights into chromosomal processes that are vital to both normal development and to prevent disease.
Latest publications
Can mRNA technology disrupt conventional approaches for discovering and validating in vivo new therapeutic targets?
Cardiogenic growth factors play important roles in heart development and in a new study published in the scientific paper Nature Communications from researchers in Kenneth R. Chiens lab shows how stem cell therapeutics and mRNA technology are beginning to converge offering major improvements in vascularization, survival, expansion, differentiation, and ultimately the function of human stem cell grafts.
Modification of mRNA controls cellular protein synthesis
RNA has a central role in the cell's protein production. New research shows that RNA can be changed through various chemical modifications, the function of which is unknown to most. The study was carried out by researchers within Marianne Farnebo's lab and published in the scientific journal Science Advances.
"Our findings show that already from the production of an mRNA (during transcription), the cell can put on chemical modifications that can control how that mRNA is translated into protein" says Chiara Pederiva, postdoc at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Karolinska Institutet and the study's first author.
Identification of a direct progenitor population for differentiation to insulin-producing cells
The deficiency of functional insulin-producing cells is a common feature of type 1 and late-stage type 2 diabetes. Previous studies have suggested that mammals have very limited capacity for regeneration of insulin-producing cells, but researchers from Olov Andersson's lab at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology have found how zebrafish can form new cells and thereby provide clues to possible future possibilities in diabetes. The study is published in the scientific journal Science Advances.
New mechanism by which cancer cells survive replication stress
Olle Sangfelt's lab have discovered a new molecular mechanism by which cancer cells safeguard themselves from oncogene-induced replication stress and propose a strategy to deactivate this protective mechanism. The study is published in the scientific journal Molecular Cell.
The study have revealed an unanticipated mechanism responsible for the removal of a pivotal DNA repair protein, FANCD2, at stopped replication forks. This enables the uninterrupted progression of DNA synthesis even in the presence of elevated oncogene-triggered replication stress, a characteristic inherent to cancer cells.
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