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Partner 1C Karolinska Institutet Department of Woman and Child Health

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University and research group information

Karolinska Institutet (KI), founded in 1810, is the only Swedish university to focus exclusively on the field of medicine. Situated in Stockholm, it is thelargest medical research centre in Sweden, and accounts for roughly 45% of the country’s university based medical research. It is also home to the country’s largest medical school. 2500 postgraduate students and 2800 research staff (57% women) work in over 600 research units of KI.

KI is responsible for awarding the annual Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. Research at KI has a strong European dimension, with around 400 contracts within EU Framework Programmes. Of these contracts, about 100 are or have been coordinated from KI.

The research group  of Partner 1C is part of the Pediatric Endocrinology Research Unit at the Department of Woman and Child Health, Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, Karolinska University Hospital. The laboratory has strong links with the paediatric endocrinology clinic which serves the research unit with clinically relevant questions to study. The group consists of three senior scientists including the PI, two postdocs, four PhD students and technical staff. The scientific focus is on translational basic research on gonadal and adrenal function and pathophysiology in experimental animal models. Topics of current interest are regulation of steroidogenesis and spermatogenesis and the impact of endocrine disrupting chemicals on these processes. Host-defence mechanisms in reproductive tissues are another major research area exploited by the group.

Contribution to CASCADE

For CASCADE the research group conducts experimental studies with testicular, ovarian and adrenal cells in vitro and ex vivo, in order to analyze effects of endocrine disrupting compounds and other substances. Signalling pathways and maturational events of these cell types are also studied.  Techniques are routinely operative to isolate and culture Leydig, Sertoli and germ cells and to micro dissect identified segments of seminiferous tubules from rodents. Further, the research group is a link to clinical medicine and particularly to paediatric endocrinology. 

Representative scientific articles as relevant to CASCADE