Göran Gustafsson foundation's grand price for Research at Uppsala University and KTH. Mats Persson is awarded for developing his research in the field of engineering physics at KTH as a young promising researcher. The 3-years grant amounts to SEK 2 750 000.

About the Göran Gustafsson Foundation for Research at Uppsala University and KTH foundation:

Göran Gustafsson (1919 – 2003) was born in the far north of Sweden, in a small village 50 kilometers outside of Gällivare. He became a successful businessman, notably in real estate. The sale of buildings created an economic basis for Göran Gustafsson’s donations to two foundations that promote basic scientific research in the fields of biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics and medicine. Through these donations, Göran’s vision was to provide Swedish researchers with the prerequisite conditions for competing with the best researchers in the world. The two foundations support active researchers.

In 1986 Göran Gustafsson created a foundation to support basic research in the field of medicine at Uppsala University and in the field of engineering physics at both the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and Uppsala University. The Göran Gustafsson Foundation for Research at Uppsala University and KTH started with a donation of 136 million Swedish SEK and currently Awards 14 million crowns in grants annually.

Recently the GE Healthcare acquisition of Swedish Prismatic Sensors, a spinoff from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, was disclosed. The technique is presumed to revolutionize the CT-area and also shows the potential that collaboration between academia, healthcare and industry has for Swedish medical technology.

The founder of Prismatic Sensors, professor in physics Mats Danielsson, is also one of the initiators of and research leader at MedTechLabs, an interdisciplinary centre for medical technology, run by KTH Royal Institute of technology, Karolinska Institute, KI and Region Stockholm.

– The acquisition is a recognition not only of the research from KTH but also of that the region holds world class in the area of medical technology. This is probably the biggest event within computer tomography since the technology came into use in the 70ies, says Mats Danielsson.

Together with the KI-researcher and physician Staffan Holmin, Mats Danielsson also leads the area “medical imaging and minimal invasive methods” at MedTechLabs, where some of the clinical tests of the new technology has been conducted.

– This technology brings many advantages to the healthcare. It will be easier to distinguish between different tissues and materials. Tumors in early progress and inflammatory conditions will be easier to detect. Larger richness of details could make some invasive interventions possible to avoid and we hope to be able to diagnose stroke in the cerebellum and the brain stem more effectively, Staffan Holmin explains.

He adds that lower doses of radiation are of importance for all patients, not least when examining children. Staffan Holmin also means that the result is a school example of how Swedish basic research and collaboration between medical and universities of technology could drive innovations to great benefit for both patients as well as the healthcare and the industry.

– This is also the underlying strategy for MedTechLabs, where researchers from KTH and KI are able to examine patients in a hospital environment with capabilities for advanced care at close hands. Researchers, industry companies and hospitals from other countries are very curious on our setup, since most places in the world lacks similar infrastructure to study medical technology in collaboration with tehnical and medical universities, industry and healthcare, says Staffan Holmin.

In the 1970-ies, GE Healthcare was first in the world to introduce a commercial CT-scanner and since then it has continued to develop the technique. In 1979, Allan M. Cormack and Godfrey N. Hounsfield was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine for the research leading to computer tomography.

Through the acquisition of Prismatic Sensors, the company has increased its presence in the medical technology cluster of Stockholm-Uppsala, where it is a large employer with approximately 250 people employed across research, manufacturing, sales and administration. With the acquisition of Prismatic Sensors, GE Healthcare welcomes the company’s highly skilled researchers and strengthens its’ position within imaging.

– Our Molecular Imaging team in Uppsala is a strategic part of GE Healthcare with both technical development and manufacturing playing a central role in our portfolio. Now, with the acquisition of Prismatic Sensors and the further development of next generation photon counting CT technology, our Swedish-based GE Healthcare teams will continue to contribute to the health of millions of people worldwide, says Wei Shen, global general manager for Premium CT at GE Healthcare.

Already before the acquisition of Prismatic Sensors, GE Healthcare had collaborated several years with Mats Danielsson. It started with informal contact in 2015, after which goals were set for the development work. GE Healthcare also lent out the CT-scanner that Mats and his team later modified with their technology, which uses silicon-based detector materials instead of those based on cadmium. Unlike cadmium, silicon-based detectors have the potential to provide superior spectral resolution while maintaining a high spatial resolution.

– The Karolinska Institute is also already an important partner to GE Healthcare. There are several areas of collaboration on going not only in CT, but in MR, as well as Molecular Imaging.

Wei Shen says that it is with great interest that her company is following the build-up of the patient-oriented research infrastructure that MedTechLabs has started in connection to the new Karolinska University Hospital in Solna.

See also press release from GE Healthcare:
www.ge.com/news/press-releases/ge-healthcare-pioneers-photon-counting-ct-with-prismatic-sensors-acquisition

Johan Schuber, KTH, and Staffan Holmin, KI, has been appointed new Executive Director and Vice Director for MedTechLabs.

The former Director for the centre, Peta Sjölander, chose to leave her assignment this summer. MedTechLabs is very thankful for her efforts.

The mission for the new management is to foster collaboration for world class research and clinical environments with MedTechLabs as a whole. The Executive Director will be in charge of operations and administration including budget, annual activity plan and also to foster regional collaborations. Johan Schuber, MSc Physics, is Senior Research Advisor for the Strategic Research Areas (SRA) at KTH. Over the years Johan has worked successfully to establish a number of innovative collaborations at the IVA and at KTH, including MedTechLabs. Staffan Holmin is Professor in Clinical Neuroimaging and Scientific Director for the MedTechLabs Research area Imaging and minimal invasive methods. Staffan is also consultant at the department of Neuroradiology at Karolinska University Hospital.

With the help of image analysis and artificial intelligence researchers and personel from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Karolinska University Hospital at MedTechLabs will assess X-rays to improve the caregiving.

The lungs are severly affected by the new Corona virus. At the same time healthcare and researchers experience a difference between what the X-rays show and how the patient feels.

– Studies show that AI may separate between covid-19 from other types of pneumonia. Our goal is to enhance the diagnostic accuracy further, says Mats Danielsson, Professor in Medical Imagineg at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and researcher at MedTechLabs in an articel at the university newswebsite. 

Read the full news article (in Swedish). 

For several years, RIKEN – Center for Integrative Medical Science in Yokohama, KI and SciLifeLab have been organising a series of symposia, alternating between Yokohama, Japan and Stockholm. The 6th symposium was held in Yokohama, addressing biomedical data for artificial intelligence.

The purpose of the symposium was to produce a White Paper detailing the biomedical/life science areas for which RIKEN, Karolinska Institute and SciLifeLab see a large potential for AI contributions to life science, and also to generate biomedical/life science reference datasets to attract AI researchers and open these datasets at the RIKEN and SciLifeLab Data Centers.

– A huge and rather wonderful co-creation session produced some insights that probably could not have been arrived at in any other room in the world, the competence and engagement from the participants was amazing to witness, says Magnus Bohman.

MedTechLabs financed the participance of six researchers from Karolinska Institutet, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and SciLifeLab:

Erik Aurell (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, also speaker)
Magnus Boman (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, also speaker)
Andreas Lennartsson (Karolinska Institutet, also speaker)
Elisabet Einarsdottir (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SciLifeLab)
Alma Andersson (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SciLifeLab)
Ludvig Bergenstråhle (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SciLifeLab)

A core group of authors from the symposium has been continuing working on the White Paper with the goal to publish in an international peer-reviewed journal in 2020.

For more information, please contact: carsten.daub@ki.se

The award is given to Staffan Holmin for his groundbreaking research work with catheters that can be directed to specific parts of central organs via blood vessels, to remove blood clots, to take tissue samples or to place materials into the body.

From the foundation press release:

“Hans Wigzell’s Research Foundation today awards researcher Staffan Holmin. Holmin receives the award of SEK 600,000 for his groundbreaking technology with sophisticated catheters that can be directed to specific brain parts via the blood vessel system. These catheters can not only remove life-threatening blood clots but also be directed to leave the bloodstream and, for example, go into a local tumor, sample or submit material for further treatment. The clinical consequences of Holmin’s pioneering research are very positive, and Staffan Holmin is also a very good lecturer who makes the viewer fascinated by the glory of the human body.”

About Hans Wigzell: Professor of Immunology, Karolinska Institutet. Former Principal of the Karolinska Institute, Head of the Infectious Disease Institute, the State Bacteriological Laboratory and chair of the Karolinska Institute Nobel Committee. Hans is also a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences IVA.

About the Hans Wigzell Research Foundation: The Foundation will promote it’s purpose of supporting scientific research and education in the medical field, especially by awarding scholarships and other grants. The foundation may also arrange and/or support seminars and conferences.

Two new research programmes focusing on AI and bioelectronic medicine, for application in the areas of breast cancer and inflammatory disease, respectively, have been adopted at MedTechLabs. The research is expected to start in January 2020.

In June 2019, MedTechLabs opened a call for a second research area within the centre. The newly appointed Centre Director Peta Sjölander says that both programmes live up to MedTechLab’s focus:

“Research at the centre should be able to achieve breakthroughs in the respective areas and provide results that can benefit healthcare already within five years. The programmes are therefore based on established research.”

The first new programme uses AI and machine learning to radically increase the accuracy of breast cancer imaging diagnostics. Associate Professor and clinician Johan Hartman, researcher at KI, and Associate Professor Kevin Smith, researcher at KTH and SciLifeLab, will lead this programme, which also involves other researchers from KI and KTH. The programme will use decoded data from all patients diagnosed with breast cancer through mammography in the Stockholm region during the period 2005 and 2019.

“This important research programme is possible only through Sweden’s unique access to comprehensive and quality-assured patient data”, says Peta Sjölander.

Every year, approximately 1 500 women die from breast cancer in Sweden, and more and more cases are being detected. At the same time, relative mortality from the disease has decreased. Peta Sjölander believes that the research programme will contribute to a faster and better diagnosis and thus the opportunity to cure more patients and detect cancer earlier throughout the course of the disease.

The second new programme aims for the monitoring and stimulation of the vagus nerve with short electrical pulses, known as bioelectronic medicine, in order to treat inflammatory conditions. The programme is run by Associate Professor Peder Olofsson, researcher at KI and Henrik Hult, Professor at KTH, together with additional researchers from their universities. The programme will also employ doctoral students and researchers at the beginning of their careers.

“To our knowledge, the programme is the first in Europe to implement bioelectronic medicine clinically for the treatment of inflammatory disease in a patient-friendly environment,” says Peta Sjölander.

All research programmes at MedTechLabs are jointly led by a researcher from KTH and one from KI. The operations are mainly conducted in the new research building at the Karolinska University Hospital, BioClinicum in Solna, which has access to advanced medical emergency care, a prerequisite when applying techniques and treatment to patients.

Both programmes are expected to start in January 2020.

MedTechLabs is an interdisciplinary centre for patient-centered research that will contribute to the development of medical technology that is important for the challenges of healthcare. The centre is run by KTH, Karolinska Institutet and the Stockholm Region.

For more information, please contact:

Peta Sjölander, peta.sjolander@medtechlabs.se, 070-771 48 80

Two new research programmes, one in bioelectronics and one in AI, have been granted funding from MedTechLabs. More information on the programmes is planned to be released on November 20th, the same date that the Stockholm Regional Assembly meets for the formal decision.

“These are two very good programmes with great potential”, states the evaluation committee chair Björn Eriksson, director of health and medical services in the Stockholm region.

The aim of the call is to link bioelectronic medicine, healthcare and technology, and strengthen the collaboration between KTH, KI and healthcare. MedTechLab’s announcement offered funding for interdisciplinary research with the potential to achieve breakthroughs in the development of how artificial intelligence and/or bioelectronic medicine is used in healthcare. The call was for programmes that are expected to reach clinically applicable results within the coming five years.

The MedTechLab research center is established in collaboration between the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Karolinska Institutet, KI and the Stockholm region.

For more information contact Peta Sjölander, director of MedTechLabs, peta.sjolander@medtechlabs.se