Tumor Biology scientists celebrating

The Programme for Publicly-initiated Clinical Cancer Studies provides support to research projects that will increase understanding and thereby enhance the basis for effective decision-making within cancer treatment and care. The Research Council collaborates with the Norwegian Council for Quality Improvement and Priority Setting in Health Care on the selection of proposed topics for calls for proposals.

The program has recently decided to distribute a sum amounting to about 65 mill NOK among three projects, all of which are led by scientists from the Norwegian Radium Hospital, OUS: Gunhild Mælandsmo, Jon Håvard Loge and Ola Myklebost. This was celebrated on Friday April 13th (photo from the celebration under "More").

Siv. ing. Stine Henrichson Kresse defended her PhD thesis, entitled "Chromosomal aberrations in human sarcomas identified using genomic microarrays" on Tuesday May 20th. Her trial lecture - on the topic “Microarrays: identification of gene signatures and their application in clinical practice. An update" was held the day before.
In connection with the disputation, the opponents give guest lectures. On Monday May 19th professor Matt van de Rijn talked about "Using sarcomas as discovery tools for tumor stroma". On Wednesday May 21st professor Irene Andrulis gave a lecture entitled "Identification and clinical importance of molecular alterations in axillary node-negative breast cancer".

Tale Barøy

Veileder Ola Myklebost, Leonardo Meza-Zepeda, Stine H. Kresse

Sensor: Heidi Rudi, UMB, Uwe Klein, IMBV

Evaluation: A

Eivind Valen Egeland

Veileder Ola Myklebost, Leonardo Meza-Zapeda, Anne Mari Håkelien

Sensorer: Heidi Rudi, UMB, Paul E. Grini, IMBV

Evaluation: A

As part of the EuroBoNet Network of Excellence on Bone Tumours, Leonardo and colleagues within the NoE have carefully evaluated the available technologies for copy number profiling on this type of tumours, a work which was recently published in BMC Research Notes. This acught the interest of the Genomeweb online publication, and led to an interview about the work.

A news article is about the following paper: Extensive adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation of patterned human mesenchymal stem cells in a microfluidic device, Ellen Tenstad, Anna Tourovskaia, Albert Folch, Ola Myklebost and Edith Rian, Lab Chip, 2010

More on Stem Cell Centre News

The Microarray Core Facility celebrates its 10 year anniversary this year. On this occasion, a special research seminar was held on Thursday February 26th, entitled "10 Years Anniversary of the Rikshospitalet/University of Oslo - Microarray Core Facility". The seminar took place in the Auditorium at The Norwegian Radium Hospital. Lectures were held by Ola Myklebost, Leonardo Meza-Zepeda, Joakim Lundeberg and Michael R. Stratton.

The lectures are now available on Web TV.

The BIOTEK2021 programme is the Research Council of Norway’s most comprehensive research initiative in the field of biotechnology and will run from 2012 through 2021. The programme board has now granted support to five large projects, covering all relevant thematic fields, and are expected to boost the development of commercial biotechnology in Norway.
One of the carefully selected projects is entitled "A national research and innovation platform for personalized cancer medicine", and is led by Ola Myklebost (photo) from the Department of Tumor Biology at OUS.

O. Myklebost

The February 2nd edition of Nature brings a feature article in their news section about Norway's current plans to use "next-generation" DNA sequencers to trawl for mutations in tumours that might reveal which cancer treatments would be most effective.
Ola Myklebost (photo), senior researcher at the Department of Tumor Biology and leader of The Norwegian Cancer Genomics Consortium, who is spearheading the effort, is interviewed for the article, which is entitled "Norway to bring cancer-gene tests to the clinic".

Supported by the Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative, we have established an international liposarcoma research consortium, consisting of two American (Maki, Barretina), one Australian (Thomas), and one Norwegian group (Myklebost/Meza-Zepeda). This web site is set up to further this collaboration and invite other groups to provide their links, as well as to advertise what we are doing in the hope to extend our collaborations further.

The ILPC is having its inaugural workshop in Oslo Feb 3-6 2011, which opens up with an open symposium at the Norwegian Radium Hospital.

A figure from the article entitled "Extensive adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation of patterned human mesenchymal stem cells in a microfluidic device" was chosen as the cover illustration for a recent issue of the prestigious journal "Lab on a chip" (impact factor 6.5). The paper has been highly accessed, and is currently among the ten most accessed "Lab on a Chip" articles on the web.
As part of the effort to characterise candidate oncogenes and the involvement of stem cell functions in mesenchymal tumours (sarcomas), the Myklebost group has established an immortalised human mesenchymal stem cell model. The model is based on normal mesenchymal "stem" cells from bone marrow, provided by the Stem Cell Laboratory of Gunnar Kvalheim and colleagues at Montebello, and the work was supported by a grant to Paul Noordhuis from the NFR Stem Cell Program, who did the retroviral transductions together with Guttorm Haraldsen and colleagues at Gaustad.

The official opening of the Norwegian Center for Stem Cell Research took place on Friday, November 27, 2009 at 1300. The opening started with a short ceremony near the Center's facilities at Domus Medica. Statements were made by the following officials and representatives: Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen, Annetine Staff, Ole Petter Ottersen, Hilde Jerkø, Steinar Funderud, Erlend Smeland and Joel Glover.
A tour of the newly renovated laboratories and core facilities at the Center took place following the ceremony.