Ola Hermanson

I am professor of neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience at KI. My research focusses on elucidating transcriptional and "epigenetic" mechanisms governing the development, function, and evolution of the human cortex in health and disease. We use human iPS-derived neural progenitors as well as patient-derived cells, and apply cutting edge technologies in molecular biology as well as biomedical engineering. For more information, please see my group page.

I grew up in Norrköping, Sweden, attended School of Medicine at Lund University 1987-90, and pursued PhD studies in system neurobiology and neuroanatomy at Linköping University 1991-97 under the supervision of Professor Anders Blomqvist. I pursued my postdoctoral training at University of California, San Diego 1997- 2002 with Professor Michael G. Rosenfeld before I was recruited to Karolinska Institutet (KI) 2002/3. I have been a lead or co-author on more than 70 original articles, including publications in Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Molecular Psychiatry, Cell, Cell Reports, PNAS, Biomaterials etc. I have supervised 12 students as main supervisor to PhD, 15 as co-supervisor, and around 10 postdocs to senior careers since 2005. I was a founding member of the Linnaeus Center of Developmental Biology in Regenerative Medicine (DBRM), co-founder of the imaging core facility CLICK (currently BIC), and co-founder of Celluminova, an SME focusing on synthetic stem cell markers. I was further the scientific director of the Ming Wai Lau Centre for Reparative Medicine, KI, Hong Kong and Stockholm during its establishment 2015-2017, and the academic coordinator for interactions between KI and Canada 2008-15, including scientific advisor for a postdoctoral fellowship for exchange between KI and University of Toronto funded by the ice hockey legend Mats Sundin. I have organized, co-organized, and lectured at, many dozen international symposia, conferences, and courses.

I have also a long-standing career in music and am still actively playing with Sonic Surf City. As a member of the band Sister James, I also founded and developed my "own" record label Ceilidh Productions in 1986 (arguably the first genuine Swedish indie pop label) and in parallel worked with the Trampolene/ Stockholm/ Polygram/ Universal music group 1991-1997. This work has resulted in the production of around 50 volumes, I have written some 200 registered songs, and “discovered”/signed numerous artists, including the successful Swedish group The Cardigans.

Education and positions:
Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2021-
Senior scientist, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2009-2021
Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2006-2009
Assistant Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB), Karolinska Institutet, 2003-2005
Postdoctoral training, University of San Diego (UCSD), 1997-2002
PhD/Dr Med Sci studies, Linköping University, 1991-1997
School of Medicine, Lund, 1987-1990

Academic honours, awards and prizes:
1995 FEBS/SFBM award and lecture.1998-99 Swedish Brain Foundation award.
2001 Erik K. Fernström’s award for young investigators, Linköping.
2017 Honor from the Government of Canada, “to very select individuals who have been important to building a stronger Canada-Sweden relationship”.
2021 Strategic Professorship of Neuroscience, KI.

My major areas of competence are within at a) undergraduate level – anatomy, histology, embryonic and nervous system development, functional neuroanatomy