Karolinska Institutet found itself well-represented when the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) recently released this year’s Research Impact list, which spotlights 30 research projects with a real potential to be translated into innovations of significant societal benefit. Three of these projects are run by researchers at KI.
Being included on the IVA list is a hallmark of quality and can help to propel research more quickly towards clinical application. The selection of 30 innovations was made by a committee of experts from academia, industry and the public sector.
The three selected KI projects show how medical research can be converted into practical solutions. Be it the improved diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases or more targeted drug development, they all illustrate the strong link between research, technology and the healthcare of tomorrow.
KI projects on this year’s IVA list
Emergency fracture care in crisis and disaster
The early stabilisation of severe fractures is crucial to reduce pain, blood loss and healthcare burden. This technology minimises clinical demands in emergency care, conflict and disaster. It also enables robot-assisted surgery and telemedicine.
This interdisciplinary project combines orthopaedic and technical expertise from KI and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). The technology has been verified in prototype testing and a patent is pending. It has potential for international use both in advanced and resource-limited care.
Researchers: Professor Hans Berg and Dr Mathias Mosfeldt , researchers at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery , respectively. The project group also includes Professor Andreas Archenti from KTH.
New imaging technique for measuring blood pressure throughout the body
Cardiovascular diseases remain a leading cause of death worldwide, and while many are preceded by local blood pressure changes, assessing these is hard.
The project is developing a method that combines MRI with AI-analysis to measure pressure variations across the whole body without invasive intervention, constituting a radical shift in cardiovascular care that will hopefully enable doctors to detect and treat such cardiovascular diseases at an earlier stage.
Researchers: Dr David Marlevi , Oliver Welin Odeback , Pia Callmer , Vincent Lechner and Dr Pau Romero , all at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, KI.
Human tissues on a chip – smarter drug development
Nine out of ten new drugs fail in clinical trials because animal tests cannot predict human responses. This project is growing human tissues such as the liver, pancreas, and intestines on a chip, creating AI-operated miniature human systems to test new medicines.
Developing a new drug costs billions and takes over a decade, with most candidates failing in late-stage trials because animal models cannot replicate human metabolism. The research group cultivates models of human tissues, such as the liver and intestines, on single chips, which are used to test drugs under more real-life conditions than animal testing. The aim is to produce safer and more effective drugs more quickly and cheaply.
Researchers: Jibbe Keulen , Volker M. Lauschke , Sonia Youhanna , Reza Zandi Shafagh , all researchers at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology. The project group also includes Professor Wouter Metsola van der Wijngaart from KTH.
