Environmental physiology at KI
Explore how the human body adapts to extreme environments through cutting-edge research in environmental physiology at KI, focusing on health, performance, and survival in challenging conditions.
The medical field of environmental physiology concerns how changes in the environment, such as gravitation, air pressure and temperature, affect the human body. For example, researchers might investigate better tank gases for diving, how fighter pilots react to the stresses of high G forces or how astronauts’ skeletomusculature is affected by prolonged weightlessness.
Researchers at KI
The research field, which was once part of to the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). The researchers active in the field are, established on KI Campus Solna. They work at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology (FyFa).
Amongst other things, the research group provides expert support for the Swedish Armed Forces on issues of physical load or the risk of injury. The research is therefore mainly financed through grants from them.
Extended partnership
Rather than conducting any research of its own, the Swedish Armed Forces gives grants to fields that can generate the kind of knowledge that cannot be expected from pre-existing civilian research. Due to the global state of affairs, it is more urgent to get answers to some defence-related questions, which increases the need for research.
According to Martin Bergö, the aim is to strengthen defence-related medical research at Karolinska Institutet by extending the university’s collaboration with the Swedish Armed Forces.
“Knowledge in areas such as traumatology and disaster medicine is needed in the event of both civilian and military crises, and this is where Karolinska Institutet has a vital role to play,” he says. “We hope that such a combined effort in defence-related medicine will galvanise interest in the research field, especially amongst KI’s students.”