Kerstin Brismar Award 2025

Despite the extensive power outage that affected Solna on November 6, the Kerstin Brismar Award ceremony and mini-symposium, “Prevention and cure of type 1 diabetes”, could be held at the Nobel Forum. The ceremony had the participation of renowned diabetes researchers.

In a crowded and dark Nobel Forum at Karolinska Institutet, lit only by candles, Professor Johnny Ludvigsson, Linköping University and founder of the Childhood Diabetes Foundation (Barndiabetesfonden), received the Kerstin Brismar Award consisting of a diploma and a grant of SEK 500,000. Ludvigsson, who is the first to receive the award, receives it for his translational research (i.e. research where results from basic research are transferred to patient-oriented research). Ludvigsson receives the award for his research on diabetes, with a especial focus on saving pancreatic beta-cell function before the diagnosis of diabetes and to be able to delay or prevent the onset of the disease, as well as to be able to intervene after diagnosis to improve the efficacy of treatment reduce diabetic complications. “I feel very honored to receive this first award in Kerstin Brismar’s name and hope that it will contribute to our defeat of Type 1 diabetes,” says Professor Ludvigsson.

In connection with the award ceremony, there were two lectures summarizing world-leading research in the field of diabetes. Ludvigsson delivered the lecture “Can we preserve the insulin-producing cells?”. At the same mini-symposium, Professor Per-Ola Carlsson, from Uppsala University, Academic University Hospital, also spoke about his groundbreaking stem cell research with the lecture “Transplantation of insulin-producing cells without immunosuppressive drugs”. 

The Kerstin Brismar Award was established this year and is named after Senior Professor Kerstin Brismar at Karolinska Institutet and one of the founders of the Rolf Lufts Foundation for Diabetes Research. The initiators of the award are Marika Treschow and Eva Josephson.