Marie Evans studies how the risk of kidney disease can be detected earlier and how well different treatments work. Meet one of the new professors of Karolinska Institutet who will participate in this year's installation ceremony at Aula Medica on 8 October.
Text: Karin Tideström, for KI's installation ceremony booklet 2026
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is more common than widely believed, and can leave patients vulnerable to serious complications like cardiovascular disease, and early death. Marie Evans is interested in how CKD can be detected earlier and treated better.
Through a combination of clinical studies and national register data, she investigates how the disease develops, the factors affecting the risk of deterioration, and how different treatments work.
"One of the main focuses of our research is evaluating how effective established cardio-renal protective drugs, such as blood thinners, are in patients with advanced kidney disease," she says.
Amongst other results, the research group has shown that simple tests of albumin in the urine can help to identify high-risk patients in need of early intervention, and that cardio-renal protective drugs are important for groups such as the elderly and people who already have reduced kidney function.
Professor Evans also studies how the treatments affect the patients' quality of life and how diet and the gut microbiome can impact CKD.
About Marie Evans
Professor of Renal Medicine at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology as of 1 May 2026
Marie Evans was born in Stockholm in 1972. She studied medicine at Karolinska Institutet, earning her PhD with a thesis on prognosis and progression in kidney disease. She combines the post of professor with that of senior physician in internal medicine at Karolinska University Hospital.
