Research at Oslo University Hospital

In order to stimulate excellent research and draw attention to the hospital's extensive research activity, Oslo University Hospital reward outstanding publications regularly. 

Six research groups were awarded for their excellent papers published during the first half-year of 2018 on December 7th in the large auditorium at Ullevål sykehus. Each group received NOK 50.000 for use in further research. The prize winners gave short presentations of the main findings in their respective articles.

Harald Stenmark, head of the Cellular Membrane Dynamics group at the Department of Molecular Biology and the Center for Cancer Cell Reprogramming is the leader of one of 25 research projects receiving in total 100 million NOK from the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (Diku), who together run the program INTPART. The aim is to strengthen collaborations with Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Africa and USA.
The project led by Stenmark now receiving support is the Chinese-Norwegian Partnership for Education and Research in Cancer Cell Biology (ChiNoCell). 

Kristin Bjordal, head of "Research Support Services" unit at Oslo University Hospital and professor II the Institute of Clinical Medicine at the University of Oslo was appointed "Researcher of the Month" for November 2018 by the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority (Helse Sør-Øst RHF).

Her research is presented in a feature article entitled "Cancer patients' quality of life should mean more for the choice of treatment".  "If a treatment allows the patient to live a little longer but the patient suffers a lot during the treatment period, this may not be the treatment we recommend", says Bjordal.

The 2018 "Dr. Ragnar Mørk's legacy prize" went to Kaisa Haglund, head of the "Cytokinesis in development and carcinogenesis project group" at the Department of Molecular Cell Biology, for her outstanding research on cell division and cancer..
This award of NOK 200.000 is annually given to scientists affiliated to the Norwegian Radium Hospital who have obtained important results within the field of cancer research.
The ceremony took place on Friday November 23rd in the Research building at Montebello, where Kaisa Haglund gave a lecture about the research activities that has earned her the award.

Scientitsts from the Epilepsy Research Group at the Nevrological Department, ERGO (Epilepsy Research Group of Oslo) have recently, in collaboration with the Letten Center at the University of Oslo, studied how the glia cells contribute actively and are crucial in epilepsy. They have demonstrate that the glial cells are activated prior to the neurons by seizures, which is completely new knowledge. The findings have been achieved through the combination of several completely new techniques that include high-resolution microscopy, the use of biosensors and advanced neurophysiology, and have recently been published in the journal "Cerebral Cortex".

The groundbreaking research on the role of glial cells in epilepsy has been thorougly presented in a popular science form in a feature article (in Norwegian) entitled "The forgotten cells of the brain - a new path into treatment of epilepsy" on the OUS blog "Ekspertsykehuset". 

The prestigious journal Nature Methods recently published an article by proteomics researchers at the Department of Immunology. "We describe a simple and affordable method for large-scale protein analysis and test the specificity of 6000 commercially available antibodies to human proteins" says Fridtjof Lund-Johansen, who led the study.
The findings are drawing attention, and the major national news outlet for health and medicine "Dagens Medisin" has covered the story.

Proteins are the building blocks of cells and tissues, and they operate in complex clockworks to exert a host of biological functions. The purpose of large-scale protein analysis, or proteomics, is to dissect these clockworks and understand how they operate. Most drugs act by modifying the function of one or more proteins, so there is good reason to believe that insight from proteomics research will open new avenues for therapy.

The latest issue of Molecular Oncology features an ImmunoFISH image from the article “Intratumor heterogeneity defines treatment resistant HER2+ breast tumors”, as their cover image.

In the article published in the same issue Inga H. Rye, post doc in the Russnes group, combined immunofluorescence and in situ hybridization (ImmunoFISH) on tissue sections and analyzed more than 13 000 single tumor cells from 37 HER2+ breast tumors. By a validated computational approach previously developed by the group (GoIFISH, Trinh et al. Genome Biology 2016), they found a subset of HER2+ breast carcinomas to exhibit substantial heterogeneity with regard to HER2 protein expression, HER2 gene copy number alteration, and estrogen receptor protein expression. 

The vast majority of primary prostate cancers are multifocal. The individual tumors within the prostate gland are known to have different aggressiveness and develop independently of one another, but little has been known about their genetic relationship.

Marthe Løvf and colleagues have performed the first large in-depth genomic heterogeneity study of primary prostate cancer and the results were published in the recognized journal European Urology earlier this month. The researchers performed exome sequencing of 89 tumor foci from 41 patients and demonstrated convincingly that the different foci within the same patient only exceptionally have any somatic gene mutations in common.

On 25 October, the Academy for Young Scientists will include 8 new members for the period 2018-2022. Among the carefully selected members is Helene Knævelsrud from Jorrit Enserink's group at the Department of Molecular Cell Biology. 

The Young Academy of Norway is open for talented, young researchers from all disciplines interested in working interdisciplinary and dedicating time to work with broader issues such as policy development and innovative research dissemination. Relevant candidates will have conducted independent research, gained a position within their discipline and be no older than 38 years old in the year of application. Equally importantly, the candidates must be interested in and have the possibility to invest time and energy into building the academy.

Members are chosen after an application process involving a scientific review process followed by interviews.