Congratulations to Karl-Johan Malmberg, who has been awarded King Olav V's Cancer Research Prize for 2025. The prize is awarded annually to a researcher who has significantly improved the quality of Norwegian cancer research.
Karl-Johan Malmberg leads a research group that is active both at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Medicine, Huddinge and at Oslo University Hospital.
The group's research aims to map how NK cells are functionally regulated during development and by calibration via a large number of activating and inhibiting receptors. The aim is to understand the mechanisms by which some NK cells are more potent than others and to selectively expand these for cell therapy.
The research also aims to develop new cell therapies based on genetic modification of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and differentiate these into NK cells that are tailored to their purpose and can be administered as a living biological drug.
Karl-Johan Malmberg is also co-director of the NextGenNK competence centre at KI.
The Norwegian Cancer Society has published a longer piece about Karl-Johan Malmberg .
