Institute for Cancer Research

Kjetil Taskén
Institute head

Institute for Cancer Research has since its foundation in 1954 played a central role within the field of cancer research both in Norway and internationally. The Institute has seven research departments and more than 380 employees. About 70% of the employees and projects are externally funded. Read more

See introductory video with welcome to the ICR 

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Publication overview

Annual reports

Current news and events

Nobel prize in chemistry to PRIMA collaborator

Earlier this year, Precision Immunotherapy Alliance (PRIMA) PI and co-director professor Johanna Olweus received a large Cancer Grand Challenges grant funded by Cancer Research UK and NIH together with a global team “MATCHMAKERS”. Within this team is the Nobel prize winner in chemistry 2024 David Baker who got the prize for his work on computational protein design. Professor Jan Terje Andersen is another PI within PRIMA that has followed Baker’s work closely over the years and he is currently collaborating with one of Baker’s many spin-out companies.

Infrastructure grant from the Research Council of Norway:“ATMP Norway – A National Multimodal Infrastructure for ATMP” awarded 74 MNOK

Anna PasettoDirector of ACT
Anna Pasetto
Director of ACT

28 major projects now receive money for new and updated laboratories, equipment, databases and other research infrastructure. In total, the Norwegian Research Council will distribute NOK 1.3 billion. 

"We are excited to announce that the project “ATMP Norway – A National Multimodal Infrastructure for ATMP” has been awarded an infrastructure grant from the Research Council (74 MNOK)", says Anna Pasetto, Director of the Center for Advanced Cell Therapy (ACT) at the Section for Cell Therapy, Division for Cancer Treatment, Oslo University Hospital.

Ragnhild A. Lothe honoured by the Porto City Council

With the nominators: Professors Manuel Sobrinho-Simoes, Manuel R. Teixeira, and Leonor David after the ceremony
With the nominators: Professors Manuel Sobrinho-Simoes, Manuel R. Teixeira, and Leonor David after the ceremony

The Porto Municipal Medals ceremony for 2024 was held on July 9th, recognising several individuals and institutions for their distinguished merits and civic achievements. Among the recipients of the Medal of Merit - Gold grade, was Professor Ragnhild A. Lothe from the Norwegian Radiumhospital - Institute for Cancer Research. Professor Lothe has played pivotal role in over 30 years of collaboration with scientists and clinicians at medical institutions in Porto, including IPATIMUP, the Portuguese Oncology Institute, and the University of Porto. This collaboration has resulted in numerous joint scientific papers, PhD degrees, innovation projects, and exchanges of scientific and technological expertise.

The Mayor, Rui Moreira, and the President of the Minicipal Assembly, Sebestião de Azevedo, presented the medal in the presence of the municipal executive council.

Publication in Nature Immunology from Malmberg group

First author Herman Netskar and senior author Karl Johan Malmberg
First author Herman Netskar and senior author Karl Johan Malmberg

A paper entitled "Pan-cancer profiling of tumor-infiltrating natural killer cells through transcriptional reference mapping" was published in the highly ranked journal Nature Immunology on July 2. This work will be an important resource when designing new NK cell therapies.
The authors have been analyzing transcriptional data from 427 patients and 39 datasets, including 7 solid tumor types (lung, brain, skin, pancreas, prostate, breast, sarcoma). They could identify 6 different functional states of tumor-infiltrating NK cells, and the state of the NK cells correlate with survival for cancer patients. 

Skotland and Sandvig with comment on lipidomics in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology

Tore Skotland and Kristen Sandvig
Tore Skotland and Kristen Sandvig

Tore Skotland and Kirsten Sandvig, Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute for Cancer Research, have together with four international experts on mass spectroscopy (MS) analyses of lipids, published a short comment (2 pages with a supplementary of 2 pages) in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology.

The article is entitled “Pitfalls in lipid mass spectroscopy of mammalian samples – a brief guide for biologists”.