This is the meaning behind the Greek philosopher Socrates' last words after he drank the poisoned cup: "Crito, we owe a cockerel to Asclepius.

Approximately 6,000 full-time students are taking educational and single subject courses at Bachelor and Master levels at the Karolinska Institute.

In February 2015, the KI announced it had received a record $50 million donation from Lau Ming-wai, who chairs Hong Kong property developer Chinese Estates Holdings, and would establish a research centre in the city.

Within a few days, Next Magazine revealed that Chuen-yan – son of Hong Kong Chief Executive CY Leung – had recently been awarded a fellowship to research heart disease therapeutics at the institute in Stockholm beginning that year, and raised questions about the "intricate relationship between the chief executive and powerful individuals".

[26][27] The Democratic Party urged the ICAC to investigate the donation, suggesting that Leung may have abused his public position to further his son's career.

He [the son] plays no role and does not hold any position at the [proposed] Ming Wai Lau Center for Regenerative Medicine.

"[26] This accusation has also been questioned by the South China Morning Post's Canadian-based pro-Beijing and pro-government opinion columnist, Alex Lo: "The insinuation is that Leung Chuen-yan with a doctorate from Cambridge doesn't deserve his job at the Karolinska Institute... Leung the son probably could get similar junior posts in many other prestigious-sounding – at least to brand-obsessed Hongkongers – research institutes; it's not that big a deal.

"[28] The institute received unfavorable attention in the 2010s for its failure to prevent the deaths of seven patients at the hands of one of their star surgeons, Paolo Macchiarini, who was ultimately found to have repeatedly falsified medical data in order to perform experimental surgeries that were unsuccessful and led to the deaths of the patients, where diseased tracheas were replaced with prosthetic implants.

[30] The Karolinska Institute later appointed an external expert, Bengt Gerdin, to review the charges, comparing the results reported by Macchiarini and his collaborators to the medical record of the hospital.

While Macchiarini admitted that the synthetic trachea did not work in the current state, he did not agree that trying it on several additional patients without further testing had been inappropriate.

[42] In October 2016, the BBC broadcast a three-part Storyville documentary, Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon, directed by Bosse Lindquist and based on the earlier Swedish programmes about Macchiarini.

The board published its findings in October 2017, and concluded that all six demonstrated scientific misconduct, in particular by failing to report the surgical complications and deaths that occurred after the interventions; and that one of the articles falsely claimed that the procedure had been approved by an ethics committee, when this had not happened.

The main work involved in collecting nominations and screening nominees is performed by the Nobel Committee at the Karolinska Institute, which has five members.

In the early history of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was first awarded in 1901, the laureates were decided upon by the entire faculty of the Karolinska Institute.

The reason for creating a special body for the decisions concerning the Nobel Prize was the fact that the Karolinska Institute is a state-run university, which in turn means that it is subject to various laws that apply to government agencies in Sweden and similar Swedish public sector organisations, such as freedom of information legislation.