معرفی
Professor Ulf Hedin is a distinguished vascular surgery researcher and clinician at Karolinska Institutet, where he serves as Professor and Chief Physician in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery. He leads the Vascular Surgery research group at Karolinska University Hospital's Department of Vascular Surgery and maintains extensive collaborations with cardiovascular research groups at CMM, clinical physiology, cardiology, neurology, nuclear medicine, clinical chemistry, and clinical pharmacology departments.
His research spans vascular biology, atherosclerosis, carotid stenosis, stroke prevention, and peripheral vascular disease. The research group has built a comprehensive platform integrating advanced cell and molecular biology, animal models, and patient-centered studies to investigate central processes in vascular disease including thromboembolism in carotid stenosis and stroke, aortic aneurysm development, and vascular wall repair processes following surgical interventions. The group also includes translational research in traumatology with multiple specialized teams focusing on specific aspects of vascular disease.
Professor Hedin's publication record demonstrates consistent contributions to understanding atherosclerotic plaque instability, vascular wall biology, and innovative approaches to vascular disease diagnosis and treatment. His work combines molecular approaches with clinical applications, particularly in developing biomarkers for unstable atherosclerosis and targeted therapies to prevent stroke and other vascular complications.
- Alexander W. Clowes Distinguished Lecturer 2025
Professor Hedin actively supervises doctoral students including Marko Bogdanovic, Antti Siika, Maria Talvitie, and Ulrika Hahn-Lundström. His research is supported by significant funding including a 22.5 million SEK grant from MedTechLabs for research on peripheral vascular disease, which he leads jointly with Christian Gasser from KTH. His research group consists of specialized teams including the Carotid Stenosis and Stroke team and the Translational Vascular Medicine team, which apply integrative analyses combining bioinformatic and clinical data studies with murine models of vascular injury.
The research group maintains a world-unique Biobank of Karolinska Endarterectomies (BiKE) containing over 1,400 tissue and blood samples from patients who have undergone carotid artery surgery, which serves as a foundation for many of their molecular investigations. They also develop innovative imaging diagnostics using software like vascuCAP to visualize plaque components associated with unstable atherosclerosis.
