Prize to Yvonne Andersson for best presentation at GNBIO conference
The GNBIO program conference 2006:
More than 50 participants from both research and business community, as well as the ministry and civil service appeared at program conference, which was arranged at Soria Moria Hotel & Conference Center on November 22nd
Each of the GNBIO projects presented their work, and many interesting research results were shown, including patents and commercialisable products. Here, Yvonne Andersson won the prize for giving the best lecture.
Yvonne Anderssonss GNBIO project:
Andersson is working on isolating human antibodies that binds to specific antigens that are located on the surface of cancer cells. Such antibodies may be injected into the patient, and will then bind cancer cells in the body. In this way they may be utilized for targeting therapy and diagnostics.
The antibodies in use today are produced in another organism, for instance mice. Therefore the patients immune defence system will react. Andresson isolates and characterises human antibodies, which are more effective and less toxic.
So far she has isolated new human antibodies that detect cancer cells in breast cancer and prostate cancer. These have shown a large potential for diagnostics. Simultaneously the possibility of utilizing the same antibodies as targeting therapeutical molecules is elucidated. The research is conducted in close collaboration with the Norwegian company Affitech AS.
Links:
Information about biotechnology and GNBIO from the home pages of the Norwegian Research Council
News article on the GNBIO prize (in Norwegian)
The GNBIO home page (in Norwegian)
About the GNBIO conference November 22nd (in Norwegian)
The home page of Øystein Fodstad's group - radium.no/fodstad
Yvonne Andersson
The Department of Tumor Biology
The Institute for Cancer Research