Department of Cell and Molecular Biology

In a pilot project within the course Biomedical Communication, students have tackled the complex issue of antibiotic resistance (AMR) through gamification. When the AMR Knowledge Space Game was integrated into the curriculum, the response from both teachers and students was overwhelmingly positive. With the success of the pilot, the interactive game may become part of future courses and educational research at Karolinska Institutet (KI).

Spring 2025, Karolinska Institutet began a collaboration with Captrs to test games as educational tools within the biomedical communication course on the Master's Programme in Biomedicine, taught by Matthew Kirkham, researcher at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology.

There was considerable interest among the participating students. 

The pilot was supported by a departmental grant and brought together experts from biomedicine, global health, education and serious game design. 

Leo Westerberg, a doctoral student in the Spalding lab at Karolinska Institutet, shares insights from his visit to the Mori lab in Campinas, supported by the Collaborative Grant for Collaboration with Brazil.

Leo Westerstberg's research focuses on understanding the role of lysosomes in adipocyte senescence and how this may differ between fat depots and metabolic states. 

His team applied for the Collaborative Grant for collaboration with Brazil to visit the Mori lab at Unicamp in Campinas, Brazil, where Leo had the opportunity to give a talk and teach a reflected-light-based method for detecting cellular senescence that was developed in the Spalding lab. 

The Swedish Brain Foundation (Hjärnfonden) is making its largest donation to date to Swedish brain research. This year, SEK 152.8 million will be awarded to research projects in neuroscience. A total of 112 research projects in Sweden receive funding, and 39 of these are run at KI.

Swedish brain research has taken important steps forward, but many questions remain unanswered, writes the Swedish Brain Foundation (Hjärnfonden) in a press release. 

With this year's award, the Swedish Brain Foundation is giving researchers across the country improved conditions to move their knowledge towards new solutions for brain diagnoses. 

Nico Dantuma, professor at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology will receive funding for his project: Stimulating protein quality control in neurodegenerative disorders  

The prestigious Nordic Anders Jahre Award for 2025 goes this year to two researchers at Karolinska Institutet. Professor Sten Eirik Wælgaard Jacobsen is to receive the Anders Jahre Award for Medical Research for his work on normal and leukemic blood stem cells.

“I am grateful and humbled having been selected as this year’s recipient of Anders Jahre Award,” says Sten Eirik Wælgaard Jacobsen, professor at the Department of Medicine in Huddinge and the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at KI, and at the Center of Haematology, Karolinska University Hospital. “I feel a high level of gratitude towards the essential contributions from all outstanding mentors, lab members, and collaborators who I have had the privilege of working closely with. Honoring the pursuit of fundamental research, this award also reminds me about the critical moment of history we are living in, when not only academic freedom but also other fundamental pillars of our democracy are under massive attack.”