Researchers on the topic of COVID-19

Jan Albert, professor of infectious diseases

Jan Albert is a professor of infectious diseases who has mainly focused on clinical virology since the early 1990s. He is the head of Karolinska Institutet’s COVID-19 group which brings together eight experts in fields such as virology, immunology, infectious diseases and infection control.

Soo Aleman, associate professor and senior physician

Soo Aleman’s research focuses on hepatitis B, C and D infections, and risks of complications in antiviral treatment. She is medically responsible for the care of COVID-19 patients in the outpatient setting for infectious diseases at Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge. In her research, she focuses on conducting a clinical study with COVID-19 patients in Region Stockholm, with follow-up regarding disease outcomes.

Anders Björkman, professor of infection medicine

Anders Björkman, professor of infection medicine, has worked as an infectious disease doctor in Stockholm and taken part as an epidemiologist in international efforts to fight infectious diseases such as smallpox, HIV/AIDS, malaria and Ebola. His main field of research has been the parasitic disease malaria, and he has been particularly noted for a project on malaria eradication on Zanzibar in Tanzania.
 

Petter Brodin, paediatrician and senior researcher

Petter Brodin’s research focuses on immune system variation in health and disease, and the factors that shape human immune systems. He has been appointed Swedish coordinator for the international consortium The COVID Human Genetic Effort. Their goal is to identify and study patients <50years of age who have developed severe COVID-19 despite no underlying conditions, in order to search for possible inborn errors of immunity.

Kristina Broliden, professor of infectious diseases, senior consultant in clinical virology

Kristina Broliden is Head of the Department of Medicine, Solna at Karolinska Institutet. She studies virology with a particular focus on HIV and infections in immunosuppressed patients. The research is done in close collaboration with Karolinska University Hospital.

Anna Mia Ekström, professor of infectious disease epidemiology

Anna Mia Ekström is a senior physician in infectious disease medicine at the Karolinska University Hospital, which is responsible for the care of COVID-19 patients in Stockholm. At KI she studies infectious diseases, especially HIV, Ebola and Zika viruses, and have experience in assessing epidemics. She also leads the Global and Sexual Health (GloSH) research group since 2008 when she took over from Hans Rosling.

Lars Engstrand, Professor of of Infectious Disease Control

Lars Engstrand is a Professor of Infectious Disease Control, especially Clinical Bacteriology, and the Director of Centre of Translational Microbiome Research (CTMR) at Karolinska Institutet and SciLifeLab. His research is focused on the role of the microbiome in health and disease. During the pandemic he has received funding from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation to increase testing of covid-19, in collaboration with the public healthcare.

Lennart Hammarström, senior professor of clinical immunology

Lennart Hammarström has researched clinical immunology since the 1970s and is an expert on immunogenetics and immunotherapy. He is part of a research team that seeks to develop so-called passive immunotherapy against SARS-CoV-2 with the help of donated blood samples from recovered COVID-19 patients.

Qiang Pan Hammarström, professor of clinical immunology

Qiang Pan Hammarström is a researcher and professor with substantial international experience, including from China. She is part of the same research team as Lennart Hammarström and believes that passive immunization with antibodies represent a weapon of choice to treat COVID-19 and prevent continued spread of the virus globally.

Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam, professor of vaccine immunology

Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam’s research focuses on the adaptive immune system, in particular the function of B cells and their capacity to produce antibodies, which are important for the protection against infections. She is part of an EU-funded project that aims to produce antibodies that block the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to infect cells, so-called neutralizing antibodies.

Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren, professor of infection medicine

Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren works at the Centre for Infection Medicine, KI (Huddinge) and has a long background in the study of the immune system, especially in response to viral infections. He is now leading a major project designed to construct a biobank of clinical material from patients diagnosed with COVID-19.

Gerald McInerney, professor of virology

Gerald McInerney runs a lab that studies the interactions between viruses and their host cells in the early stages of infection. He is part of the same project as Hedestam Karlsson and aim to identify antibody candidates that could be used for treatment and prevention in humans before the world has access to a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.

Ali Mirazimi, adjunct professor of clinical virology

Ali Mirazimi has long studied highly pathogenic viruses, such as Ebola and SARS, and is part of a project to increase global preparedness to deal with coming epidemics and pandemics. Today he is trying to develop a vaccine and antiviral drugs against SARS-CoV-2.

Anna Smed-Sörensen, associate professor of immunology, research group leader

Anna Smed-Sörensen's research group studies the immune response during infection and inflammation of the respiratory system. The group conducts immunological studies on patients with respiratory infections, mainly on those with influenza but also on patients with flu-like sympthoms caused by other viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.

Matti Sällberg, professor of biomedical analysis

Matti Sällberg is head of the Department of Laboratory Medicine at KI and runs a research group that studies how hepatitis viruses cause disease. Together with Ali Mirazimi, he is now trying to develop a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. He is also coordinator of the EU-financed project “OpenCorona” and a member of KI’s COVID-19 group.

Anders Sönnerborg, professor of clinical virology and infectious diseases

Anders Sönnerborg is head of the infectious diseases and clinical microbiology units at KI as well as a senior physician at the Karolinska University Hospital where he is part of the COVID-19 team. His research group is working on developing antiviral substances against SARS-CoV-1 and MERS coronaviruses, and plans to soon test them against SARS-CoV-2 in a laboratory setting. He is also chairman of the Swedish Reference Group for Antiviral Therapy (RAV), which has produced an overview of the treatment of COVID-19.

Charlotte Thålin, researcher and specialist physician

Charlotte Thålin is a specialist physician at Danderyds Hospital and researcher at Karolinska Institutet. She is lead researcher of the so-called COMMUNITY study, which examines the impact of COVID-19 infection and/or vaccination on our immune system. The study includes a total of 2,149 employees at Danderyd Hospital whose blood samples and experiences of symptoms are used to increase knowledge about COVID-19 disease, antibody levels and T cell response.

Lars I. Eriksson, professor of anesthesiology and intensive care

Lars I Eriksson is professor at KI, consultant and director of Research and Education at Function Perioperative Medicine and Intensive Care at Karolinska University Hospital. During the pandemic, he has developed the guidelines for intensive care to suite the most critical COVID-19 patients. He is also Chair of KI’s interdisciplinary group for post covid-19.

Anneli Eriksson, project manager

Anneli Eriksson is an experienced nurse who has worked for Doctors Without Borders for many years, where she has had several positions in field-missions in various countries, most recently in Liberia in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak. She runs KI's emergency medicine training courses and her research focuses on ways to predict and measure severity and needs in different disasters.

Martina Gustavsson, research officer

Martina Gustavsson develops e-training courses for healthcare professionals on handling personal protective equipment for COVID-19. She is involved in the project “Ethical challenges in disasters”, a collaboration between KI and Uppsala University to better understand determinants for moral stress/distress and how that affects wellbeing among healthcare professionals in disasters. She is a reg. nurse and has worked for Doctors Without Borders, including recently in the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo.

Johan von Schreeb, professor of global disaster medicine

Johan von Schreeb is a surgeon and head of KI’s Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters, which has been tasked by the National Board of Health and Welfare to arrange education and training for medical personnel in connection with the COVID-19 outbreak. He has worked with disaster medicine for 25 years and is co-founder of the Swedish section of Doctors Without Borders.

Kristian Borg specialises in rehabilitation medicine and neurology with a focus on the rehabilitation of intensive care patients. Amongst other achievements, he has developed treatment methods for polio patients who develop new symptoms decades after the acute phase of infection, a condition known as postpolio syndrome. Professor Borg is a consultant at Danderyd Hospital.

Judith Bruchfeld, senior physician, docent

Judith Bruchfeld is a senior physician, infectious disease specialist, tuberculosis expert and group leader for clinical TB research. Together with senior physician Michael Runold, she is responsible for a follow-up clinic for discharged COVID-19 patients at Karolinska University Hospital and non-hospitalised patients who are referred from primary care. The follow-up takes place in collaboration with the health professions and intensive care and specialists in, among other things, cardiology, neurology and renal medicine. Linked to this, she is leading a research project on the cause of long-term effects of COVID-19 aiming to offer adequate treatment and rehabilitation.

Indre Bileviciute Ljungar, docent

Indre Bileviciute-Ljungar is an associate professor in rehabilitation medicine at the Department of Clinical Sciences, Danderyd Hospital (KI DS) and chief physician at the pain clinic at Capio St. Göran's Hospital. She is researching on internet-based rehabilitation in the home with post-covid syndrome, ie persistent or late symptoms after covid-19. As a researcher, she has also been interested in chronic fatigue, which is similar to postcovid, stress-related diagnoses and long-term pain.

Knut Lönnroth, professor and senior physician

Knut Lönnroth is a professor of social medicine and studies socio-economic risk factors and consequences of infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis. He also examines how health care systems can be designed and how health care can best interact with other sectors of society to prevent and fight infectious diseases and reduce social and economic consequences.

Göran Tomson, professor of international health systems research

Göran Tomson is a professor of international health systems research, counselor UN Agenda 2030 with the 17 sustainable development goals at the President’s office at KI and visiting professor at Shandong University in China. He is a co-founder of the Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation (SIGHT). His research contributes to universal health coverage with accessibility to a good quality of care, especially to vulnerable groups in resource-poor settings. Göran Tomson is engaged in health policy formulation and implementation both globally and nationally and is a member of several of WHO’s committees.

John Øvretveit, professor of improvement implementation and evaluation

John Øvretveit has 40 years of expertise in organisation, management and implementation science, and on rapid impact research. He can answer questions about organising an emergency response to pandemics in general, and COVID-19 especially.John Øvretveit is a professor and research director at Karolinska Institutet’s Medical Management Centre and works part-time as research and development officer for Region Stockholm primary and community healthcare services. From early March 2020 he has carried out an action research project on organizing and implementing emergency response to COVID-19 in the primary and community healthcare service. John Øvretveit prefers speaking English.

Emma Frans, postdoctoral researcher in medical epidemiology

Emma Frans is a researcher at Karolinska Institutet and one of Sweden’s leading science communicators. She has written several books about scientific thinking and how to separate facts from fiction. Her specialty is explaining the latest research in an educational way.

Helena Nordenstedt, researcher in global health

Helena Nordenstedt worked with the ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2015, and has since been involved in several research projects about ebola. She studies, among other things, how misconceptions and rumors during infectious outbreaks impact efforts to contain epidemics. She is currently involved in a study on how misconceptions associated with the covid-19-outbreak may influence people’s propensity to take preventative measures such as washing their hands.

Joakim Dillner, professor of infectious disease epidemiology

Joakim Dillner has researched viruses for almost 30 years and is a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet. He also works as research director at the Karolinska University Laboratory at the Karolinska University Hospital, where he coordinates research and development activities against COVID-19 to make sure they are as effective as possible.

Karin Modig, Docent in epidemiology

Karin Modig researches about the aging population and various public health aspects of our aging. During the ongoing pandemic, she has taken an interest in excess mortality.

Bo Burström, professor of social medicine

Bo Burström is a professor of social medicine at Karolinska Institutet. His research interests are equality in health, health care on equal terms, health and living conditions among vulnerable groups as well as social consequences of illness. In this context, he assists with coordination of public health research at KI related to COVID-19.

Lena Dahlberg, docent of social work

Lena Dahlberg’s research concerns different aspects of senior living conditions, such as loneliness and social exclusion, as well as geriatric care, not least of the informal kind. Issues of loneliness and social isolation have been brought to a head by COVID-19 and elderly care is severely impacted – as is the ability of families to help their more senior members.

Mai-Lis Hellenius, professor in cardiovascular prevention with a focus on lifestyle medicine

Mai-Lis Hellenius is a pioneer within lifestyle medicine who has made it her calling to get people to move more. In addition to her research on how diet, lifestyle and physical exercise impact our health, she also holds lectures on the importance of lifestyle medicine in both Sweden and abroad. With regards to COVID-19, she can talk about how to incorporate daily exercise and strenuous physical activity during quarantine or isolation.

Carin Lennartsson, senior lecturer in social gerontology, docent of sociology

Carin Lennartsson is as senior lecturer in social gerontology and a docent of sociology. Her research is about the living conditions of elderly people, such as  informal family-based care, social interaction and loneliness in the elderly population, public health and its development, as well as health differences among the oldest. When it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic she can answer questions about social isolation and loneliness among the elderly, which are risk factors for ill-health and mortality. 

Cecilia Magnusson, adjunct professor

Cecilia Magnusson is an adjunct professor at the Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, and head of the Centre for Epidemiology and Community Health (Region Stockholm). Her research concerns prevention, intervention and mechanisms in public health. She can answer questions about the socioeconomic links to many of the risk factors for becoming seriously ill or even dying from COVID-19, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, smoking and diabetes.

Malin Nygren-Bonnier, physiotherapist, docent of physiotherapy

Malin Nygren-Bonnier is a docent of physiotherapy and heads the physiotherapy unit at KI’s Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society. She also has a position as a lecturer and physiotherapist at the Karolinska University Hospital, which she combines with the role as R&D director for the hospital’s Function Health Professionals. In her research, Malin Nygren-Bonnier focuses on physiotherapeutic interventions in impaired lung function and how to improve respiratory function as well as physical function, which can be important factors in patients with COVID-19.

Gert Helgesson, professor of medical ethics

Gert Helgesson is a professor of medical ethics at Stockholm Centre for Healthcare Ethics at KI. His main research interests are research ethics, normative issues related to respect for autonomy and questions concerning how the research interest should be weighed against the patient's protective interest and interest in taking advantage of the research advancements. Gert Helgesson assists with advising KI's management in research ethics issues.

Niklas Juth, senior lecturer and associate professor in medical ethics

Niklas Juth's main research interests are medical ethics and the intersection of political philosophy and medical ethics, e.g. autonomy and justice in health care. He has been involved in research projects on health care priorities (“Prioritizing in Health Care”) but also in projects related to, for example, experimental ethics, screening, end-of-life care and patient-centered care.

Claes Frostell, professor and senior physician of anesthesiology, chairman of KI’s Ethics Council

Claes Frostell has worked with international research collaborations within and outside EU. Since Sept. 1, he is chairman of KI’s Ethics Council as well as KI’s scientific representative. His assignment includes fostering a proactive discussion about ethics within KI and offering advice and guidance concerning ethical issues to KI’s researchers.

Erik Andersson, psychologist and senior lecturer

Erik Andersson is a clinically active psychologist and researcher at KI. He is an expert on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and related conditions and their treatment. He also researches excessive worry, which often concerns future threats such as fatal illnesses.

Kerstin Blom, researcher and psychologist

Kerstin Blom researches on insomnia/sleeping disorders and their treatment with CBT (CBT-I), and on co-morbidity with depression. Sleeping difficulties can be aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially now that people are staying at home with new routines and feeling anxious.

Armita Golkar, researcher in psychology

Armita Golkar is a researcher in psychology at Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet. She studies our ability to learn by observing other people’s behavior and how such social learning may be used to better understand why we develop fears as well as how we can prevent and influence already learned fears.

Erik Hedman-Lagerlöf, professor in psychology

Erik Hedman-Lagerlöf’s research focuses on psychological treatment for severe health anxiety, which is characterized by an excessive and persistent fear or worry about serious illness. The research is especially relevant for people who run a high risk of chronic and debilitating health anxiety.

Susanna Jernelöv, researcher and psychologist

Susanna Jernelöv researches on insomnia/sleeping disorders and CBT for insomnia (CBT-I), and on the psychological treatment of sleeping disorders in the presence of other psychiatric diseases. Sleeping difficulties can be aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially now that people are staying at home with new routines and feeling anxious.

Andreas Olsson, professor of psychology

Andreas Olsson’s research focuses on how fear is acquired/regulated in social situations, e.g. how fear-relevant information is disseminated and affects the brain and our decision-making. He is an expert on group psychology and affective processes in social situations.

Danuta Wasserman, professor of psychiatry and prevention of mental ill-health and suicide

Danuta Wasserman, professor of psychiatry and prevention of mental ill-health and suicide. Danuta Wasserman bases her research on the individual and on demographic perspectives on the causes and prevention of mental ill-health, particularly stress, depressions and their ultimate consequence: suicidal acts. Danuta Wasserman is a member of KI’s Mental Health resource team during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maria Eriksdotter, MD, PhD; professor of geriatric medicine

Maria Eriksdotter is professor of geriatric medicine at the Department of Neurobiology, care sciences and society (NVS) and senior consultant in geriatric medicine at Theme Aging,  Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge. She is also director of the Swedish Dementia Registry (SveDem), the national quality register for dementia diseases in Sweden.

Her research has focus on dementia and multi-morbidity. At present her research group is also conducting studies on elderly people with Covid-19 receiving geriatric care.

Maria Eriksdotter is the chair of the KI Resource team for the health of the population of older people during Covid-19, which includes experts in many aspects of aging and health.

Dorota Religa, Professor in Geriatric Medicine

Dorota Religa is a Professor in Geriatric Medicine and chief physician in geriatrics at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society. Her research area is dementia and multimorbidity and more recently frailty. She leads research on frailty and covid-19. She is a member of Region Stockholm's Drug Therapeutic Committee , the expert group Older Adults Health, for many years (Wise List) and sits on the board of the professional organization Swedish Geriatric Association (SGF) and KI representative in the Regional Program Area (RPO) Older Adults Health.