Research at Oslo University Hospital

Dr. Mev Dominguez-Valentin from the Department of Tumor Biology is this year's winner of the prestigious Dr. Ragnar Mørk's Prize for Cancer Research.

She has won the award of NOK 200.000 for her for her ground-breaking studies of heritable cancers, especially the Lynch syndrome.

The prize ceremony will be on Friday 8th December in the 4th floor seminar room of Institute for Cancer Research.

The Eric K. Fernström's Nordic prize for 2023 goes to Harald Stenmark, leader of the Cellular membrane dynamics research group at the Department of Molecular Cell Biology at the Institute for Cancer Research.

For Harald Stenmark, the awarding of Eric K. Fernström's Nordic prize was as unexpected as it was gratifying.

"It is a very pleasant surprise! I hope that this leads to the importance of basic research being noticed. Basic research is an important part of research, even if it sometimes takes time", says a proud award winner.

Harald Stenmark is recognized for his pioneering research in cell biology, where he has clarified in detail the functions of proteins essential for the regulation of endosomes and cell division with significance for cancer.

Welcome to the 59^th  Contact Meeting of the Norwegian Bioscience Society (formerly known as the Norwegian Biochemistry Society)! The organizing committee in Oslo, of which many are OUS employees, is delighted to host the 2024 meeting. The event will take place January 18-21, 2024, at Storefjell Resort Hotel in Gol.

Deadlines: December 1, 2023, to submit an early bird and abstract; December 15, 2023, for late registration.

New research from NORMENT finds that people with schizophrenia have a genetic propensity to smoking and a reduced genetic risk of obesity. The study highlight the importance of including lifestyle interventions in treatment for schizophrenia.

"The genetic overlap between schizophrenia and smoking may indicate that people with schizophrenia are more affected by the addictive properties of nicotine than others", first author Linn Rødevand says. She is a postdoctoral fellow at NORMENT - the Norwegian Center for Research on Mental Disorders.

The study is published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

A research group at the Department of Paediatric Medicine at OUH and the UiO  has demonstrated that they are able to reduce some of the loss of insulin production in the body, by administering antivirus medication to children and adolescents with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes.
The study is published in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine. First authors are Lars Krogvold and PhD student Ida Mynarek.
"The finding largely shows that a virus trigger type 1 diabetes in children," says Knut Dahl-Jørgensen, consultant at OUH and Senior Professor at UiO, who led the study.

Johanna Olweus and colleagues have now found that certain mutations in cancer cells can be attractive targets in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The study is published in the prestigious journal Nature Cancer.

"This provides hope that we can develop a new and effective treatment for acute myeloid leukemia. The results are likely of relevance also for other types of cancer," says Olweus.

Olweus is PI of the work carried out by her research group at UiO and OUS, in collaboration with the groups of researcher Petter Woll and Professor Sten Eirik Jacobsen at Karolinska Institutet. Postdoctoral fellow Eirini Giannakopoulou in Olweus’ group is first author on the article describing the results.

On Friday 22 September, a common research meeting was organized at Institute for Cancer Research by Section for oncological pelvic surgery and the Translational Cancer Therapy research group. A number of collaborative partners and our user panel were present.

Clinical and translational research projects were presented to give the participants an overview of ongoing research activities and insight into why these projects are important.  An important purpose of the meeting was to strengthen the close collaboration between the clinical and translational teams.

PRIME-ROSE builds on a bottom-up, investigator-initiated family of clinical trials in precision cancer medicine, which have successfully brought up inclusion rates to offer additional lines of treatment and provide patient benefit. At the kick-off in Oslo September 18-20, PRIME-ROSE partners and key stakeholders met to go through the work plan and accelerate the start-up of the project tasks.

PRIME-ROSE Coordinator Kjetil Taskén says: “Most importantly, PRIME-ROSE will allow us to search around Europe to find patients with rare combinations of cancer disease, biomarker, and treatment in parallel ongoing trials to build the evidence of what treatments are working for patients. This is a “triple-win” – for patients, investigators and industry partners – as we will build the knowledge base faster and more effectively”.

This summer, the U.S.-based biotechnology company Mage Biologics Inc was formed. Up to USD 28 million will be jointly invested in the new company, in which an antibody technology has been in-licensed from Inven2, based on research carried out in Professor Jan Terje Andersen’s lab.
“Mage Bio is developing a tailored monoclonal antibody that will be administered non-invasively. This is a completely new and innovative approach to the treatment of a serious chronic disease that causes inflammation and ulcers on the inner lining of the large intestine. There is clearly a need for a new treatment option for this patient group, and it will mean a lot for the patients if Mage Bio succeeds,” says Jan Terje Andersen, head of "The Laboratory of Adaptive Immunity and Homeostasis", which is part of both the University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital.