Current news and events

Johanna Olweus interviewed for The Scientist on next-generation cancer therapies

Johanna Olweus
Johanna Olweus

Professor Johanna Olweus, Head of the Experimental Immunotherapy Group at the Institute for Cancer Research, has been extensively interviewed for a feature article in "The Scientist" magazine, entitled "Next-generation CAR and TCR Cancer Therapies". In this piece of excellent scientific journalism, she goes through findings and mechanisms that she and group have exploited to develop innovative new concepts for T-cell based immunotherapies, and why she is optimistic that TCR T cell therapies will be effective also in solid cancer.

Mona Guterud honored with Newcomer Award for advancing prehospital stroke treatment

Mona Guterud
Mona Guterud

Prehospital treatment is of great importance for the outcome of patients and is receiving increasing research attention. This year's Newcomer Award winner, Mona Guterud, was honored at the research seminar for Division of Emergencies and Critical Care and the Divison of Prehospital Services at Oslo University Hospital, February 14th.

Mona Guterud, along with her team, has been recognized for their contribution in addressing the need for clinical decision tools to assess acute prehospital strokes. Their research project titled "Prehospital screening of acute stroke with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (ParaNASPP)" conducted a stepped-wedge, cluster-randomized controlled trial. The results of their study were published in Lancet Neurology, showcasing the effectiveness of their approach.

Discoveries from NoPSC researchers:New insight into severe liver disease

Xiaojun Jiang and Espen Melum
Xiaojun Jiang and Espen Melum

Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC) is a severe and chronic liver disease, characterized by inflammation in the bile ducts. There is no effective treatment, and the disease is the leading indication for liver transplantation in Norway. Scientists at the Norwegian PSC Research Center (NoPSC) have now provideded another piece in the scientific puzzle. The new discovery, published in Gastroenterology, provides an important new research direction. Xiaojun Jiang is first author and Espen Melum is senior author.
The findings are presented in a comprehensive popular science news article published on the UiO home page.

Collaboration on artificial intelligence:Improving lung and breast cancer care through AI-driven precision diagnostics

Åslaug Helland, OUH participant
Åslaug Helland, OUH participant

Oslo University Hospital  and Karolinska Institutet (KI) have entered a postdoctoral partnership with AstraZeneca. The aim is to improve lung and breast cancer care through AI-driven precision diagnostics.

In Oslo, we are welcoming Anna Christina Garvert as a postdoc in lung cancer, and Francisco Peña has been selected and started at KI working on breast cancer. They will be developing AI-based tools for precision medicine in cancer, utilizing existing diagnostic and clinical data to enhance patient outcomes.

 

 

Call: UiO Growth House seed funding for innovative researchers 2024

Do you have an innovative idea based on your research for a new product or service, but need funding to develop your early-stage technology or service further? Apply for seed funding from the UiO Growth House! Application deadline: 4 April 2024.

This call is aimed at applicants (faculty/staff, clinicians, postdocs, and PhD candidates) who (i) are employed at the University of Oslo (UiO) and (ii) have an innovative idea or are working on an early-stage technology or service.

Research awards to the Department of Gastroenterology 

During the annual meeting of the Norwegian Gastroenterology Association held in Lillehammer from February 8th to 11th, the Department of Gastroenterology received four research awards. Senior consultant and researcher Håvard Midgard, and physician and PhD fellow Charlotte Bache-Wiig Mathisen, received best abstract rewards for their works "Sustained virologic response and reinfection following HCV treatment among hospitalized people who inject drugs: Follow-up data from the OPPORTUNI-C trial" and "A novel diagnostic serum protein signature for pediatric inflammatory bowel disease." 

Announcement: nominate a scientist for the 2024 OUH research awardsExcellent Researcher Award and Early Career Award

2023 award winners. From left: Kushtrim Kryeziu, Bente Halvorsen and Håvard Ole Skjerven
2023 award winners. From left: Kushtrim Kryeziu, Bente Halvorsen and Håvard Ole Skjerven

Oslo University Hospital hereby announce research awards in the following two catagories for 2024:

  • Excellent Researcher Award (one prize, 400.000 NOK)
  • Early Career Award (two prizes of 200.000 NOK each)

Closing date for nominations: March 6th 2024.

 

Nature Communications article from Raiborg project group:Cancer cells transfer their invasive properties to non-invasive cells

Eva WenzelFirst author
Eva Wenzel
First author

Cancer cells degrade and invade their surrounding tissue by use of the enzyme MT1-MMP, which is expressed on their cell surface. In a new article published in Nature Communications on February 10, 2024, Eva Wenzel and her co-workers in Camilla Raiborg’s project group identify a new mechanism for cancer cell invasion, namely that cancer cells can transfer their invasive properties to non-invasive cells. They show how invasive cancer cells secrete catalytically active soluble forms of MT1-MMP, which dock on the surface of other cells. This enables non-invasive recipient cells to degrade and invade into the extracellular matrix, by use of the newly acquired MT1-MMP enzyme. 

Publication in Science:Treatment-induced resistance mutations in BTK can be overcome by a clinical-stage BTK degrader

Sigrid S. Skånland
Sigrid S. Skånland

Sigrid S. Skånland, project group leader at Department of Cancer Immunology, did a research stay at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York in 2022. The work she did while she was in the group of Dr. Omar Abdel-Wahab has now been published in Science.

Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors are used to treat the B-cell malignancy chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Resistance mutations to the first generation of inhibitors are well characterized and have formed the rationale for a new generation of inhibitors. However, also these lead to alterations in BTK over time.


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