Martin Schalling

I am a Professor of Medical Genetics at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery and the Center for Molecular Medicine at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital. Main interests include understanding mechanisms behind psychiatric and metabolic disorders thus enabling better diagnosis, prevention and more individualized treatment. A particular interest is the the mechanisms and use of lithium as therapy in psychiatry. I also aim to develop tools to increase patient compliance among other things via point of care measures of lithium. A device for this purpose was patented recently. Many studies are translational going all the way from the patient to stem cell and organoid studies.

I have supervised 35 PhD students and has authored over 400 papers/manuscript and  over 200 abstracts to meetings and conferences. Several former students have reached the professor level. My team has about 20 members including affiliated clinical scientists. I currently supervise 7 PhD students and 3 postdoctoral scientists. My papers have been cited over 50 000 times with a H index over 100 according to GoogleScholar. The KI External Research Evaluation (ERA) evaluated my research as Outstanding. In 2024 I recieved the Ingvar price from the Swedish Society of Medicine for outstanding contributions in clinical neuroscience, in particular my work on lithium. 

International collaborations include University of Sao Paulo and UCSD and a number of other institutions. I am the Point of Contact for Health with Brazil and work within the Sweden Brazil Innovation Initiative. For the past 10-15 years I have been the KI academic coordinator for strategic collaborations with Mayo clinic as well as with Brazil. I am a member of the editorial board of Open Psychiatry Journal, Current Psychiatry Reviews and previously Molecular Psychiatry. I have been involved in organizing a number of international and world congresses.

Interactions with society include activites at several levels. I am a board member of the Swedish Mental Health Fund and have been chair of Suicide Zero. I am a Board member of SLSO, one of the largest care care givers in Sweden. I frequently lecture publicly and have written an number of debate articles on medical topics. I work actively with innovation processes with the aim of bringing scientific discoveries to the market and is in this context member of the board in several small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs). I was one of the founders of Care to Translate AB that has grown to a company with wide international reach. In 2024 I was awarded the Athena price for  the best medical innovation in Sweden from Vinnova, VR and Dagrens Medicin. It was awarded to me and the other co-founders for the development of  the Care to Translate tool for medical translations.

The aim of my research is to identify genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors that predispose to the development of neuropsychiatric and metabolic disorders in particular bipolar disorder but also involving anorexia, schizophrenia and renal disorder. In this context we also study mechanisms of ageing. I focus on genetic/epigenetic studies and functional studies in tissues and cell culture.

A particular interest of my research is the role of lithium both in the clinic and the mechanisms of action as studied with stem cell and organoids together with associate professor Carl Sellgren at FyFa. Mych of the experimental studies are located there. There is a strong collaboration since over 15 years with SLSO and in particular psychiatry South West in Huddinge where many clinical studies are performed. 

I am the scientific director for KIgene, a core fascility for Spatial Biology, genetic and genomic analysis housed within the group. KIgene supports research both within KI and outside and specialize in rapid and accurate turnaround, normally delivering genetic data the day after recieving samples for analysis.

Supervision to doctoral degree

• Martin Lundberg, 2021-
• Fredrik Wikström, 2020-
• Liu Yang, Exploring the gut-brain axis in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, 2020
• Vincent Millischer, Translational studies in bipolar disorder and anorexia nervosa, 2020
• Katja Ponzer, 2018-
• Parvin Kumar, Novel biomarkers for psychosis, 2018
• Evelyn Andersson, From DNA to CBT: an investigation psychological therapy response and genetics, 2018
• Lina Martinsson, Biology of lithium response in bipolar disorder: genetic mechanisms and telomeres, 2016
• Yabin Wei, Novel mechanisms in depression: Focus on telomere biology and epigenetic regulation, 2015
• Philippe Melas, Depression: Genetic, epigenetic and DNA biobank studies, 2012
• Santiago Sole Domenech, Combining mass spectrometric tissue imaging with conventional histology: Focus on Alzheimer’s disease, 2012
• Malin Almgren, Neural growth-with special emphasis on adult neurogenesis and the effect of antiepileptic drugs, 2008
• Ann-Sophie Persson, The megencephaly mouse – from gene to neuronal proliferation, 2006
• Fabio Sanchez, Genetic factors influencing susceptibility to intracellular infections, 2002
• Susanna Petersson, Megencephaly: significance, biology and identification of a genetic cause, 2002