Center for Cervical Cancer Elimination

Our division focuses on increasing the knowledge base for the design and evaluation of the most effective cervical cancer elimination strategies possible.

Our division focuses on increasing the knowledge base for the design and evaluation of the most effective cervical cancer elimination strategies possible.

We conduct both basic and translational studies of the tumor virus Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and HPV-based prevention (screening and vaccination), including an international reference laboratory function where we sequence, document, and store all new Papillomaviruses as well as design and evaluate prevention in Sweden with a national quality register for cervical cancer prevention.

Larger EU projects at the division

  • Examination of risk-stratified (personal) cancer screening (RISCC).
  • HEAP (Human Exposome Assessment Platform) where we are developing an AI-driven data platform to evaluate the impact of the internal and external exposome on health.

During the Corona pandemic, we mapped the spread of SARS-CoV-2 among healthcare workers and how vaccination against the virus protects against infection and the spread of infection.

Organisation

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Joakim Dillner

Professor/R&D Manager
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Helena Andersson

Research Administrator

Calendar and news

Selected news

Staff and contact

Head of Division

All members of the group

Phd Students

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Ainhoa Garcia Serrano

Studies of the microbiome in cancer

Sadaf Sakina Hassan

Biomarkers for early diagnosis of oropharyngeal cancer

Dhananjay Mukhedkar

Distributed computation and machine learning applied to high-throughput data for cancer research

Franziska Thimm

Human Papillomavirus testing as diagnostic support in cervical and anal cancer

Qingyun Yao

Effectiveness of cervical screening among post-menopausal women based on HPV testing, self-sampling

Emel Yilmaz

Studies on possible improvements of the performance of cervical screening

IHRC

IHRC - International Human Papillomavirus Reference Center 

The Center was originally established at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg in 1985 and was run under the leadership of Dr. Ethel-Michele deVilliers until 2012. In 2012, the International HPV Reference Center was transferred to the Karolinska Institutet, under the leadership of Dr. Joakim Dillner.

In 2020, the IHRC actively started coordinating a network of national HPV reference laboratories from 13 different countries in order to promote faster progress towards laboratory standardization and quality assurance by collaborative efforts. Examples of joint work include: an HPV laboratory e-manual, e-learning resources, a joint standard operating procedure for promoting quality in HPV testing services by re-analysis of seemingly HPV negative HSIL and cervical cancers and development of validated bioinformatic pipelines for analysis of HPV sequences.

One of the most popular services provided by the IHRC is the proficiency panels, where the Center distributes blinded panels to laboratories worldwide to ensure accurate and internationally comparable human papillomavirus DNA typing and screening.

IHRC members

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Carina Eklund

Laboratory Coordinator
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Camilla Lagheden

Senior Biomedical Scientist

Emel Yilmaz

PhD Student

Where to find us

Karolinska University Hospital
Unit of Cervical Cancer Elimination
F56 Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge
SE-141 86  Huddinge
Sweden

Email address: hpvcenter@ki.se

Keywords:
Cancer and Oncology Epidemiology Microbiology in the Medical Area Preventive Medicine Public Health, Global Health and Social Medicine Uterine Cervical Neoplasms Show all
Content reviewer:
30-06-2025