Sandra Eloranta

I work as a Senior Lecturer in Biostatistics at the Division of Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Medicine Solna. My formal training is in mathematics but I hold a PhD in medical science and became Docent in Clinical Epidemiology in 2020. In 2026 I celebrate 20 years of doing epidemiological and applied statistics research at Karolinska institutet (KI).

My position involves duties that can be classified into 

Research

In my role as prinicpal investigator I am team leader for a group of Phd students and biostatisticians. My research interests is in the intersection of clinical epidemiology and applied statistics with particular focus on lymphoma and colorectal cancer. At present, I am supervising 5 PhD students with very different backgrounds (mathematics, health informatics, data science and clinical medicine) and collaborate with clinical reearchers both nationally and internationally. 

Leadership and development roles

Since 2021 I have been heavily involved in the development and implementation of Clinicum, an organisation for which I am now the Director. Clinicum is a joint endeavor between KI and Region Stockholm that was initiated to provide broad access to methodological support for all researchers that use health and medical data in their research. Since 2025 Clinicum is operated via the Department of Medicine Solna, on behalf of central KI. I am leading the operational team, responsible for the day-to-day activities of Clinicum, as well as the network of more than 75 senior methods experts who provide support and scientific advice on biostatistics, bioinformatics, epidemiology and data science.

Teaching

In terms of teaching, my main responsibilities are within the recently established master program in biostatistics and data science (where I act as course director) as well as in the clinical research school in treatment research (for which I am part of the steering group).

My main research interests during the past 15 years has been in clinical cancer epidemiology with specific focus on observational population-based studies in lymphoma patient survival and survivorship. In this field I have several long standing local, national and international collaborations as principal investigator. ISince some years back my research to also includes colorectal cancer clinical epidemiology through a multidisciplinary collaboration focussing on pharmacoepidemiological risk factors associated with incidence and prognosis of colorectal cancer.  

I have a specific interest in statistical methodology used in register-based research, as well as the theoretical aspects of study design and analysis and often participate in collaborations also outside my key focus area in lymphoma. For example, methodological challenges in precision medicine research has led to new collaborations with strong machine learning, artificial intelligence and health informatics components. This has sparked collaborations with researchers at the University College London (UCL) in the UK, Aalborg University in Denmark, as well as locally at Karolinska Institutet.  

My research is supported by the:

• Swedish Cancer Society 2026-2028 (Advancing research on cardiotoxicity after aggressive lymphoma and clinical colorectal cancer epidemiology using recent developments in applied biostatistics),
• Swedish Cancer Society 2023-2025 - to be completed in 2026 - (Survivorship after aggressive lymphoma in the era of intensive immunochemotherapy)
• Radiumhemmets forskningsfonder 2025-2026 (Survival and survivorship after lymphoma and colorectal cancer to aid clinical decision making and precision medicine

I am also a partner and co-applicant on: Horizon Europe, Prediction and prevention of late effects in AYA cancer survivors – An effort to understand, predict and prevent late effects in AYAs 15-39 years of age, with a focus on fertility and gonadal toxicity, 2025-2030 (PI: Prof Kenny Rodriguez-Wallberg, OnkPat, KI)

My research team includes:

• Ida Hed Myrberg, PhD-student, Biostatistician
• Stefanie Antonilli, Biostatistician
• Enoch Yi-Tung Chen, Biostatistician

I supervise the following PhD students:

• Ida Hed Myrberg (principal supervisor)
• Kári Kristjánsson (co-supervisor)
• Joel Joelsson (co-supervisor)
• Orlinda Brahimllare (co-supervisor)
• Kristina Noring (co-supervisor)

During my 20 years at Karolinska Institutet I have been involved in both undergraduate and graduate level. I am a keen teacher and my current teaching activity can be broadly categorized into three distinct elements (in addition to supervision of PhD candidates).

1) Statistics and research methodology for non-statisticians (primarily via the clinical research schools and the doctoral program in epidemiology). 

 Here I regularly teach introductory statistics/survival analysis and best statistical practises in a broad range of topics.

2) Specialist courses/lectures in statistics. I am currently devoting 20% of my time to the master program in Biostatistics and Data Science that is given within Stockholm Trio. In this program I act as course director for one of the program's mandatory courses in Biostatistics.

I am also a specialist in statistical methods for competing risks in survival data and regularly accept invitations to teach this topic in various contexts. These courses and seminars are typically not part of Karolinska Institutet’s course catalogue but instead given as commercial courses or as invited talks at other universities (in Sweden and internationally)  Relevant here is also my activity as one of the main teachers in the Summer School on Modern Methods in Biostatistics and Epidemiology (Italy) organized jointly by Harvard School of Public Health, University of Milano-Bicocca and Karolinska Institutet (http://www.biostatepi.org/). 

3) Sound research practice. I have a long history of teaching the fundamental principles of reproducible research and good project management principles. These lectures typically cover a wide range of topics related to correct data handling in research; from practical issues related to data collection, reproducible research processes, archiving, to theoretical lectures on ethical considerations and Swedish laws that are of importance for clinical and epidemiological research. I have also published a book chapter on this topic via Läkartidningen in 2014 (Verktyg för klinisk forskning) and given a large number of workshops and seminars at e.g., Region Stockholm, Stockholm University, several departments at Karolinska Institutet and clinics at Karolinska University Hospital and Södersjukhuset.

I have also supervised 8 PhD student to completion. These are:

• Joshua Entrop (epidemiologist), Karolinska Institutet (Development and application of modern statisticl methods for studies of childbearing among lymphoma survivors) 2024 - main supervisor
• Rasmus Rask Kragh Jørgensen (mathematician), Aalborg University Hospital, Denmark (Advanced statistical methods for studies of lymphoma prognosis and treatment outcome in a real-world setting) 2024 -co-supervisor
• Sara Harrysson (clinical specialist), Karolinska institutet (Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma : population-based studies of relapse and cardiac complications) 2023 -co-supervisor
• Henrik Benoni (clinical specialist), Karolinska Institutet (Cancer after solid organ transplantation – incidence, risk factors, and survival) 2022 - co-supervisor
• Sara Ekberg (mathematical statistician), Karolinska Institutet (Long-term survival and survivorship in non-Hodgkin Lymphoma patients in Sweden) 2021 - main supervisor
• Elsa Brånvall (clinical specialist), Karolinska Institutet (Common medications in the risk and prognosis of lymphoid neoplasms and epidemiology of primary CNS lymphoma) 2020 - co-supervisor
• Caroline Dietrich (mathematical statistician), Karolinska institutet (Survivorship in Hodgkin Lymphoma: childbearing and treatment-related disease) 2018. - co-supervisor
• Lingjing Chen (epidemiologist) Karolinska Institutet (Rectal cancer surviorship: work loss and long-term morbidity) 2017 - co-supervisor.