Karolina Spustova, researcher in the Cancer molecular medicine group headed by Prof Jorrit Enserink, has been awarded 6.6 million NOK from the Research Council of Norway. The project, TiGeR, will investigate how cells regulate selective autophagy. 

Cells continuously remove damaged or excess components through a process called selective autophagy. This quality control is essential for keeping cells healthy, and when it fails it has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases, metabolic disorders and ageing. Researchers have learned a lot about how selective autophagy works, but little is known about its regulators.  

A commission report on precision medicine in cancer was published in "Lancet Oncology" on September 25. Kjetil Taskén is the only Norwegian author involved in this work, and OUS is listed as a contributing institution. In conjunction with this project, Taskén was invited to write a review article on the status of cancer genomics and precision oncology in Europe. He led this work, together with Live Fagereng from OUS (first author), alongside 25 other principal authors from various European countries and 159 consortium authors - a broad collaboration designed to capture the full scope of the initiative across Europe. The resulting article was published in "The Lancet Regional Health – Europe" simultaneously with the "Lancet Oncology" report.  This European status overview is one of several papers being released alongside the commision report; the aim is to provide a comprehensive worldwide picture of the situation. The publication is scheduled to coincide with the UICC World Cancer Congress in Hong Kong on September 25, aligning with the release of the Lancet Oncology report and other Lancet journal publications.

A large Scandinavian phase 3 clinical trial shows that initiating aspirin after curative-intent treatment of colorectal cancer liver metastases does not reduce the risk of recurrence. The findings are published in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, with Sheraz Yaqub as first author and Kjetil Taskén as last author.
“Aspirin is a well-established, inexpensive, and widely available drug, and there is considerable interest in whether it can also reduce the risk of cancer recurrence. Our findings demonstrate why such treatments must be tested in rigorous randomised trials before being adopted for new patient populations,” said Professor Sheraz Yaqub of Oslo University Hospital and the University of Oslo, who led the ASAC trial, a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial conducted at 14 hospitals in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

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Recommended sites for current OUS research news:

From Oslo University Hospital, in Norwegian:
OUS Innsikt – ny forskning, innovasjon og behandling - channel for science communication
More news from OUS (oslo-universitetssykehus.no)

From UiO and centres of excellence (UiO/OUS):
News from the Inst. of Clinical Medicine, UiO
Research news - UiO
CanCell - Centre for Cancer Cell Reprogramming 
Cresco - Centre for Embryology and Healthy Development 
PRIMA - Precision Immunotherapy Alliance - Norwegian version
Hybrid Technology Hub - Centre for Organ on a Chip-Technology

Oslo University Hospital coordinates PREDI-LYNCH, a European project developing less invasive ways to detect cancer early in people living with Lynch syndrome. On 8–9 September the consortium met at the Comenius University Science Park in Bratislava for its General Assembly and annual meeting, hosted by Geneton and Comenius University.
"Our ambition is to generate evidence that can guide clinical practice and make earlier detection more accessible across Europe," says PREDI-LYNCH Coordinator Mev Dominguez-Valentin of the Department of Tumour Biology, Institute for Cancer Research. "This meeting helps us agree the next steps towards that goal."

Cancer cells are highly dependent on their lysosomes, and damage of lysosome membranes has emerged as a novel strategy for cancer therapy. Maja Radulovic, project leader in Harald Stenmark´s group at Institute for Cancer Research, has previously identified mechanisms that mediate repair of damaged lysosome membranes, including a mechanism involving transfer of lipids from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to the damaged lysosome. However, it has remained unclear how efficient lipid transfer is orchestrated. In a recent paper in Nature Cell Biology, Radulovic and her co-workers have identified a new regulator of lysosome repair, the ER protein DFCP1. DFCP1 serves to concentrate lipid channels in ER microdomains that contact the damaged parts of the lysosome, thereby ensuring efficient membrane repair. Because DFCP1 microdomains are regulated by two druggable enzymes, this opens new possibilities for targeting lysosome integrity in cancer therapy.

In a paper published as open access in NPJ Vaccines, Pål Kristian Selbo and coworkers demonstrate how a light-controlled vaccine technology based on photochemical internalization (PCI) can significantly enhance immune responses to both peptide- and protein-based vaccines when combined with synthetic dsRNA adjuvants. The findings support further exploration of PCI as an approach to improve therapeutic cancer vaccines and other immunotherapies.
The work has also been highlighted in a popular science article at forskning.no.
Selbo is head of the Photochemical internalisation (PCI) research group at the Department of Radiation Biology at the Institute for Cancer Research.