Swedish Centre to focus on Immunotherapy Treatment

With funding from Swedish Innovation Agency Vinnova the Karolinska Institutet is opening a new centre of excellence that will focus on developing next-generation immunotherapy based on NK-cells for the treatment of cancer. The new centre, one of eight to receive grants from the agency this year, will conduct collaborative research projects with industry.

”To address today's global challenges, we need to develop completely new solutions, and research needs to be made useful in society. Research environments where universities and industry work closely together are therefore crucial and long-term investments in centres of excellence are an important part of this”, says Darja Isaksson, Director-General of Vinnova, in a press release.

Each centre of excellence receives funding from Vinnova of between four and eight million Swedish kronor per year for five years. In addition, the universities and companies involved contribute an equal amount of money.

”The activities within the centre of excellence are based on more than four decades of research into NK-cells at KI. With the current success, we are now ready to take the next step in the development of the next generation of NK-cell-based immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer diseases”, says Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren, Professor at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge and Project Manager for KI's new centre of excellence.

In addition to Karolinska Institutet, Uppsala University, Chalmers University of Technology and the Royal Institute of Technology are granted funding by Vinnova to establish new centres of excellence. They will work with, for example, research regarding batteries, edge computing and sustainable conversion.