Ola Hermanson

Ola Hermanson

Professor
Telephone: +46852487791
Visiting address: Solnavägen 9 - kvarter D7, 17165 Solna
Postal address: C4 Neurovetenskap, C4 Forskning Hermanson, 171 77 Stockholm

About me

  • I am professor of neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience at KI. My research focusses on elucidating transcriptional and "epigenetic" mechanisms governing the development, function, and evolution of the human cortex in health and disease. We use human iPS-derived neural progenitors as well as patient-derived cells, and apply cutting edge technologies in molecular biology as well as biomedical engineering. For more information, please see my group page.

    I grew up in Norrköping, Sweden, attended School of Medicine at Lund University 1987-90, and pursued PhD studies in system neurobiology and neuroanatomy at Linköping University 1991-97 under the supervision of Professor Anders Blomqvist. I pursued my postdoctoral training at University of California, San Diego 1997- 2002 with Professor Michael G. Rosenfeld before I was recruited to Karolinska Institutet (KI) 2002/3. I have been a lead or co-author on more than 70 original articles, including publications in Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Molecular Psychiatry, Cell, Cell Reports, PNAS, Biomaterials etc. I have supervised 12 students as main supervisor to PhD, 15 as co-supervisor, and around 10 postdocs to senior careers since 2005. I was a founding member of the Linnaeus Center of Developmental Biology in Regenerative Medicine (DBRM), co-founder of the imaging core facility CLICK (currently BIC), and co-founder of Celluminova, an SME focusing on synthetic stem cell markers. I was further the scientific director of the Ming Wai Lau Centre for Reparative Medicine, KI, Hong Kong and Stockholm during its establishment 2015-2017, and the academic coordinator for interactions between KI and Canada 2008-15, including scientific advisor for a postdoctoral fellowship for exchange between KI and University of Toronto funded by the ice hockey legend Mats Sundin. I have organized, co-organized, and lectured at, many dozen international symposia, conferences, and courses.

    I have also a long-standing career in music and still actively playing with Sonic Surf City. I also founded and developed my "own" record label Ceilidh Productions (arguably the first genuine Swedish indie pop label) and in parallel worked with the Trampolene/ Stockholm/ Polygram/ Universal music group 1991-1997. This has resulted in the production of around 50 volumes, I have written some 200 registered songs, and “discovered”/signed numerous artists, including the successful Swedish group The Cardigans.

    Education:
    Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2021-
    Senior scientist, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2009-2021
    Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2006-2009
    Assistant Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB), Karolinska Institutet, 2003-2005
    Postdoctoral training, University of San Diego (UCSD), 1997-2002
    PhD/Dr Med Sci studies, Linköping University, 1991-1997
    School of Medicine, Lund, 1987-1990

    Academic honours, awards and prizes:
    1995 FEBS/SFBM award and lecture.
    1998-99 Swedish Brain Foundation award.
    2001 Erik K. Fernström’s award for young investigators, Linköping.
    2005 Appointed ENI Young Investigator.
    2014 Program committee member, ISSCR 12th annual meeting.
    2015-16 Proceeded to last round of evaluation of ERC advanced senior grants.
    2017 Honor from the Government of Canada, “to very select individuals who have been important to building a stronger Canada-Sweden relationship”.
    2021 Strategic Professorship of Neuroscience, KI.

Research

  • My research is focused on the development of the brain and maturation of neural stem and progenitor cells, with implications for psychiatric and neurological disease as well as tumors in the nervous system. More specifically, the main focus of my lab is to understand transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of differentiation of neural progenitors, especially of the cortex and in CNS tumors such as glioblastoma, paediatric high-grade glioma, and medulloblastoma. My lab has developed and is continuously developing numerous technologies as well as biomedical engineering approaches, including 2D/3D bioprinting, bioelectronics, and biomaterials, for improved studies of epigenetics and stem cell biology, and applications in precision medicine. For more information, please see my group page.

Teaching

  • My major areas of competence are within at a) undergraduate level – anatomy, histology, embryonic and nervous system development, functional neuroanatomy
  • b) graduate level – molecular biology, stem cells, tumor biology, neuroscience, biomedical engineering
  • c) postgraduate level – molecular mechanisms in neural development and neuro-oncology, biomedical engineering.

    FOLÄK: I am the course coordinator for research introductory courses FoLäk1 and FoLäk2. These courses introduce the students to current cutting edge research and research departments at KI, scientific theory, scientific history, basic molecular biology techniques, popular and scientific communication, manuscript writing, as well as pursuing two summer projects at KI labs.

    ANATOMY: I am the course coordinator for the anatomy course at the physiotherapist program at KI. As such I am responsible for the course plan, syllabus, constructive alignment, Canvas pages, education materials and literature, teacher recruitment and training, materials for TBL-based learning, examination, certification, and course analysis.

    ANATOMY/NEUROANATOMY: I am the coordinator for the anatomy/neuroanatomy section of the course Anatomy and Physiology for logopedics program at KI. As such I am responsible for course plan, syllabus, constructive alignment, Canvas pages, education materials and literature, teacher recruitment and training, materials for TBL-based learning, and the examination (summative assessment).

    NEURODEVELOPMENT: I am the main lecturer in the subject of the Development of the Nervous system at the School of Medicine, KI.

    I am actively involved in the development of various tools and approaches for improved pedagogics in anatomy, neuroanatomy, and neuroscience education, and I am a member of the KI branch of the NeurotechEU project (local lead of WP4).

    Recent formal studies in university-level teaching education in pedagogics:

    Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Distance (GHPD), KI, 2019. 7.5 hp.

    Pedagogy for Doctoral Supervisors (PDS), KI, 2019-20. 3 hp.

    Formative assessment 2020. 3 hp.

    In addition, I have attended numerous courses and workshops in pedagogics and related subjects between 1996-2020.

Articles

All other publications

Employments

  • Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2021-
  • Researcher, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2011-2021
  • Principal Researcher, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2007-2010
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2006-2006
  • Researcher, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2006-2006
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Karolinska Institutet, 2002-2005

News from KI

Events from KI