Karolinska Institutet 200 Years - 1810-2010

1810 2010

Two centuries with Karolinska Institutet

The year is 1810, and the average length of life in Sweden is 36 years. Life is filled with illness for many people, and the child mortality rate is sky-high.

In the army, an ill or injured soldier is soon a dead soldier. It is the latter situation that primarily concerns King Karl XIII, who is in charge of a country that is generally involved in at least one war. On 13 December the same year and on his directive, four of the country’s foremost physicians initiate an “academy for the training of skilled army surgeons”, which is today’s Karolinska Institutet. The men were named Anders Johan Hagströmer, Carl Trafvenfelt, Jöns Jakob Berzelius and David von Schulzenheim. Activities soon developed to include broader medical training and research – which subsequently formed the basis of our modern medical care.

Today in 2010, the average length of life in Sweden is 80 years, and Karolinska Institutet is considered to be one of the foremost medical universities in the world. Karolinska Institutet accounts for over 40 per cent of the medical academic research conducted in Sweden and offers the country’s broadest range of education in medicine and health sciences. Since 1901 the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has selected the Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine.

Over the course of its 200-year history, Karolinska Institutet has not only played an important role in society, it has also played a crucial role for many patients. There is every bit as much to do today as there was in 1810, so we are determined to continue along the same path.

Oil painting by Magnus Löfdahl.

View from Kungsholmen – where Karolinska Institutet was first located – depicts the City of Stockholm in the 1840s.

1810

1811

1813

1816

Karolinska Institutet founded.

Karolinska Institutet is given the opportunity not only to train surgeons, but physicians in general.

Berzelius presents his reform of the chemical notation system and, as one of KI’s first professors, he lays the foundation for KI’s focus on natural science.

Anders Johan Hagströmer becomes the institute’s first inspector, which corresponds to the modern title of president.

The same year, the institute

moves to Glasbrukstomten on Norr Mälarstrand, next to the current town hall.

13 December 1810 Karolinska Institutet was founded by King Karl XIII as an “academy for the training of skilled army surgeons”.

The reason he founded Karolinska Institutet was that a third of the soldiers wounded during Sweden’s war against Russia died in field hospitals. Field surgeons obviously lacked the requisite medical skills. Sweden needed to train surgeons and better equip the country in the event of subsequent wars.

The newly established academy was named “Carolinska Institutet”, but the name never really caught on. However, the name “Carolinska Medico Chirurgiska institutet”, which was introduced in 1822, was more

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successful, and sometimes “Kongliga” (“Royal”) was added to the beginning of the name. The name was shortened to Karolinska Institutet, colloquially KI, during the student revolt in 1968.

The original institute was located in what was the royal bakery on Riddarholmen at that time. Four professors within anatomy, natural history and pharmacy, theoretical medicine and practical medicine (internal medicine and surgery) were associated with the institute within two years.

1861

1874

1875

1884

1895

KI is given the right to award degrees and is compared to other universities.

KI is given the right to certify physicians. The actual examination had primarily been given in Uppsala until that time.

The first doctoral thesis is defended by Alfred Levertin.

The thesis is entitled “Om Torpa Källa”.

In May 1884, Karolina Widerström is the first women to receive a bachelor’s degree in medicine from Karolinska Institutet.

In his will, Alfred Nobel tasks Karolinska Institutet with choosing recipients for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Jöns Jacob Berzelius Jacob Berzelius, as he was known in his day, is considered to be the father of Swedish chemistry.

Berzelius had a difficult childhood. He was orphaned at an early age, and his upper secondary school leaving certificate from Linköping shows that he was considered to be a young man of ambiguous hope. However, he cannot have been completely hopeless since he began medical school in 1796 at Uppsala University.

He was working as a physician by 1799 in Medivi where he studied the health effects of water. He had embarked upon his scientific path. Berzelius’ most well

known contribution to science involved giving the elements their letter designations. He also discovered the elements silicon, selenium, cerium and thorium.

Anna Sundström, who was Berzelius’ housekeeper, served as his assistant for several of his experiments. She obtained a significant amount of knowledge in chemistry over the course of her 16 years of service. She has been called Sweden’s first female chemist.

Berzelius’ name is displayed in several locations today, perhaps most prominently at Berzelii Park in Stockholm where there is also a statue of him.

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1897

1906

1937

1940

1945

Tandläkarinstitutet is incorporated with Karolinska Institutet (becomes independent again in 1947). Becomes the Faculty of Odontology at KI in 1964.

First conferment at KI.

Nanna Svartz becomes a professor at Karolinska Institutet as well as the first woman professor in Sweden in government service.

Karolinska University Hospital in Solna is officially inaugurated.

The Swedish National Institute of Public Health is KI’s first own building in the hospital area.

KI as a whole moves from Kungsholmen to the Norrbacka area in Solna, which is currently KI Solna Campus.

The Hagströmer Collection

Alfred Nobel

Anders Johan Hagströmer served as physician, professor and then, from 1816, inspector at Karolinska Institutet; the role of inspector corresponds to the modern day role of president. In addition to his work as physician and professor, Hagströmer is known for the treasure of books he left behind that is part of the of 35,000 books and prints from as early as the 15th century that are found in the Hagströmer Library at Karolinska Institutet. The collections are considered to be some of the world’s finest among medical history book collections.

The collections include first editions of most of the pioneering works within medical history. One of the most important is the original edition of Vesalius De humani corporis fabrica from 1543, which is considered to mark the birth of modern anatomy. There is also a Swedish national treasure: Linné’s personal copy of the very rare first edition of his Systema Naturae from 1735. It is the most internationally recognized work published by a Swede.

In his will dated 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel stipulated that a foundation should be founded with his estate, and that the interest from the estate should be distributed to individuals who had done the most for mankind over the previous year. His relatives received about one-half per cent of the inheritance since Nobel believed that great inherited riches feed laziness and contribute to human apathy.

The prize was to be divided into five equal parts for literature, physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine and working for peace. Karolinska Institutet was tasked with deciding who should receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This was a bold decision at the time since Karolinska Institutet had not yet achieved the same level of status as the university in Uppsala, for example.

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize is awarded on Nobel’s date of death – 10 December. It is now an official flag-flying day in Sweden.

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1955

1965

1972

1976

1977

Hugo Theorell is the first KI researcher to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Astrid Fagréus becomes the second female professor at Karolinska Institutet.

Huddinge University Hospital is inaugurated as a new university hospital; it also marks the start of KI Huddinge Campus.

Sweden’s first toxicologist programme is initiated at KI.

“Sjukgymnastinstitutet” in Stockholm ceases to exist and the physiotherapist programme is transferred to a new physiotherapy department at KI.

Nanna Svartz Nanna Charlotta Svartz was born on 25 July 1890 in Västerås. She became Sweden’s first female professor at a Swedish state university - Karolinska Institutet.

Nanna had four siblings, all of whom died at a very early age. Thus, she learned about the sorrows and hardships of life very early, which may have contributed to her great independence.

Since girls were not allowed to graduate with an upper secondary certificate in Västerås, her parents moved to Stockholm where she graduated from a school called Åhlinska skolan. It was 1910. In his memoirs, the headmaster wrote that Nanna was one of only two students whom the Latin teacher at the school ever awarded the highest marks.

Nanna’s parents were not well off, so her choice of profession may very well have influenced the fact that her future husband was a student at Karolinska Institutet.

She could inherent his books by choosing the same career path.

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Nanna specialized in internal medicine. She had published 62 articles by 1936. They primarily concerned gastrointestinal diseases and joint diseases.

In 1937, the 22 professors on Karolinska Institutet’s staff dared vote to give a woman the position of professor – the first ever in government service. The fact that her predecessor Israel Holmgren and the institute’s president at the time Gunnar Holmgren were the sons of a pioneer feminist may have contributed to the general insight that a woman professor would “work out”. Nanna assumed the professorship in 1938.

Since she had good linguistic skills and a broad network of colleagues all over the world, she served as chairman of the International Society for Internal Medicine for a period. While visiting Moscow in 1961, she received information from a Soviet colleague about Raoul Wallenberg’s disappearance that appeared would lead to the mystery being solved, but nothing has yet to come of the information.

1993

1995

1998

2004

2009

The 1993 reorganization of KI entails 150 departments being reduced to just over 30.

Karolinska Institutet Holding is formed and collaboration with the business world intensifies.

“Hälsohögskolan” in Stockholm is merged with KI, with the result that KI receives seven new programmes.

Karolinska Institutet receives its first female president, Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson, professor of integrative physiology.

Karolinska Institutet ranks as one of the world’s leading medical universities.

Eight Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have been awarded to Swedish researchers thus far. Five of them come from Karolinska Institutet.

1955 As the first recipient from KI, researcher Hugo Theorell receives the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries related to the nature of oxidation enzymes and their behaviour. He produced myoglobin in pure form, which is an albuminoidal substance for oxygenating muscles.

1967 Ragnar Granit is the second researcher from KI to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He receives the award for mapping the retina’s function and nerve cell response to light stimulus, colour and frequency.

1970 As the third recipient from KI, researcher Ulf von Euler receives the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for identifying and mapping the sympathetic nervous system’s most important signal substance noradrenalin.

1982 Sune Bergström and Bengt Samuelsson are the fourth and fifth researchers from KI to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. They are awarded for discovering prostaglandins, which amongst other things, are very important in terms of controlling blood pressure and vascular activity.

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Thoughts about the future

Very few people are true visionaries, able to predict what is going to be important and successful in the future. JÜns Jacob Berzelius and Alfred Nobel are two such people from Karolinska Institutet’s history.

Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson President

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“

Making predictions about the future is as difficult as it is risky. One thing that is certain, however, is that medical research is at a break point – it is at the verge of resolving many of the medical problems that cause great suffering.

One stumbling block has been the need for a high-tech laboratory to analyze extensive patient studies, for example. As a result of the new Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab), we now have such a laboratory in Solna. It is immensely satisfying that work can be performed in direct conjunction with other research activities.

Karolinska Institutet’s 200-year anniversary also marks the end of the Breakthrough for Life campaign. With the assistance of private donors, we have collected funds over the course of the campaign for our research and education programmes. We now want to intensify the pace to achieve the decisive scientific breakthroughs that can save lives and improve human health all across the globe. We are certain of our success provided that financial conditions are favourable over the next few years.

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The medical breakthroughs we take for granted today were utopias just a few years ago.

Jan Andersson Vice President

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We are on the threshold of fantastic times, on the verge of a number of new breakthroughs that will radically impact health and medical care – and thus our lives. Targeted and individually tailored medicines that have greater impact and fewer side effects and regenerative medicine where damaged or unhealthy tissue is exchanged for new tissue are no longer science fiction. They are reality.

In all likelihood, the focus of medical research will shift from curing to completely preventing the outbreak of illness. Medical care’s function will increasingly shift from treatment to prevention, and education will be characterized by more technology and information literacy than is the case today. Thus, purposeful work within both education and research is required if Karolinska Institutet is to maintain its position among the world’s foremost universities and for it to meet the needs of the future in terms of knowledge, technology, medicine, researchers and medical care staff.

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The world of research and education is a fantastic global community that contributes to a better world.

Clara Hellner Gumpert Dean Board of Doctoral Education

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A university is a conversation, a meeting where young people’s dreams and ambitions meet older experience for mutual exchange. It is a fantastic world – part of a global community where we all speak the same language. It is also a world where renewal and tradition stand side by side.

Young people are moving around the world more than ever before, which naturally impacts the university’s prerequisites. We recognize tougher competition and new markets that entail both opportunities and challenges. In South-East Asia and many developing countries, great investments are being made in education, which naturally places new and even greater demands on us in terms of being able to attract as many young talented people in the future as we do today.

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Research is, in fact, tasked by society to discover new knowledge.

Martin Ingvar Dean Board of Research

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The research landscape is rapidly being remodelled. The traditional image of the lone researcher no longer exists. Research must be conducted in large networks in order to acquire, analyze and process the collected knowledge that is produced by research and the enormous amount of information included in modern clinical studies.

Transnational cooperation and new systems for exchanging knowledge are nothing less than requisite conditions for understanding life and breaking new ground.

Development also places demands on the university in terms of modernizing its qualification system to ensure that the right type of researchers are produced.

Mathematicians, technicians, biologists and behavioural scientists are just a few of the professional categories that will be in demand to a much greater extent within medical research. Karolinska Institutet can show the way, for example, via the new Science for Life Laboratory where KI, the Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University are working side by side.

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Since knowledge is perishable, obtaining a degree today is the point of departure rather than the final destination.

Sari Ponzer Dean Board of Higher Education

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“

Health care and medical care of the future need creative and competent employees, and taking part in training these individuals is both gratifying and richly rewarding. Our aim is to train students who are inquisitive and who critically review new information and new research results. Since knowledge is perishable, obtaining a degree today is the point of departure rather than the final destination.

In the future, our students will work within increasingly advanced health and medical care systems. This places high demands on awareness and competence. Some of them will also become researchers, and thus contribute to improved health for an increasing number of patients. This is the combination that the university wants to utilize.

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Design and production: Super Photo: Andreas Beronius, Elekta, Jesper Fermg책rd, Thobias F채ldt, Getty Images, Anders Kallersand, Karolinska Institutet, Lennart Nilsson/Scanpix, The Nobel Foundation, Ulf Sirborn, Lasse Skog, Camilla Svensk, Svenska Familjejournalen 1873, Erik G Svensson, Pierre Zoetterman

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Phone: +46-8-524 800 00

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